From the category archives:

Making the case for Internet Tech in Education

Education Technology – Don’t Lean On It, Leverage It (Repost)

September 23, 2009

Forgive me for repeating myself, but I feel a certain passion for this recent post, and I don’t think it got a fair deal, being posted on a holiday (Labor Day), and at the beginning of a week where many of us were swamped with the start of a new school year. For this week’s “midweek update” I am promoting my post “Education Technology – Don’t Lean It, Leverage It!” from earlier this month. Please click through and give the first paragraph or two a quick read – I hope this will interest you enough to read further, and to also pass it on to a colleague if you think it can make an impact and encourage someone to give education technology a try in the classroom. Thanks!

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Education Technology – Don’t Lean On It, Leverage It!

September 7, 2009

Are you using Internet tools to engage students in the classroom and improve learning outcomes, or are you just using technology to decrease the time you need to spend lecturing and interacting with your students?

There are many great internet based tools available to bring new elements of collaboration, interaction, and even a little fun to the instructional process and thereby better engage and motivate your students and enhance learning outcomes. Of course, it is also entirely possible to use technology as a crutch or a “baby sitter”, but this is a rather unfortunate use of these tools and can give education technology a bad name.

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8 Engaging Videos Advocating Better Integration of Technology in Education

July 13, 2009

These inspiring, insightful videos make the case for stepping up the integration of technology in today’s classrooms

As an advocate of the use of Internet technologies in education, my fundamental goal is to inspire instructors and other members of the educational community to embrace the use of these technologies in today’s educational process. I’ve attempted to make the case myself in a couple previous blog posts, such as the popular “5 Reasons Why Educators Need To Embrace Internet Technologies” and “10 Internet technologies that educators should be informed about”. Of course, many others have made the case as well (and generally done so in a more captivating manner) as the videos below will attest.

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Article “Why Web 2.0 is important to Higher Ed” (Mid Week Update)

May 20, 2009

Read this article by Trent Batson recently on CampusTechnology.com, and thought it made for an interesting mid week follow up to this week’s “5 Reasons Why Educators Need To Embrace Internet Technologies” post. Here is a excerpt from this article:
“Culturally speaking, with the advent of Web 2.0, the “traditional classroom” with one speaker and many listeners is [...]

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5 Reasons Why Educators Need To Embrace Internet Technologies

May 17, 2009

In April I wrote a post about 10 internet technologies that educators should be informed about. This quickly became my most read posting. I included some references in this article to why educators should be aware of and informed about these tools, but most of those comments were really about why each specific technology was included in the list, as opposed to why, in a more general sense, it is important for educators to make an effort to embrace these technologies. So that is the topic for this week – why you should care, as an educator, about these tools. What’s in it for you as an instructor, and what’s in it for your students?

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Mid Week Update: Keeping pace and staying connected and relevant in today’s classrooms

May 6, 2009

This week I read a number of articles that reference a recently released paper from the Ontario Public School Boards’ Association that asks, “How can schools continue to be connected and relevant in the world of the 21st century?” This article from the London Free Press states, “one thing is for sure: today’s students are hungry to learn, enthusiastically embracing technology, and well aware of the potential of one to help further the other. “

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10 internet technologies that educators should be informed about

April 19, 2009

There are so many different tools and technologies available on the internet today, and so many associated terms and concepts. As I think about topics to focus on here in the coming months, I want to make sure we’re touching on the most important ones. What are the most important internet technologies for educators to be aware of, and informed about? I’m sure many people would come up a slightly different list, but based on my observations and experiences, and feedback from faculty at my institution, I have selected the following technologies.

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Article about effective uses of social media in education

February 2, 2009

Article about real world application of Web 2.0 tools in an educational setting.

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