Edcerpts for January 9, 2023

Internet Travels

Edcerpts are my weekly round up of interesting links and ideas I discovered on the internet. It is published on Mondays for the previous week

Social Media Use Is Linked to Brain Changes in Teens, Research Finds – The New York Times – A team of researchers from the University of North Carolina conducted successive brain scans on middle schoolers between 12 and 15 to study the effect of social media use on children. The results showed that those who habitually checked their social media feeds at around age 12 had increased activation in reward-processing circuits, salience determination, and prefrontal cortex regions over time. This could potentially have long-term consequences well into adulthood but further research is needed to determine if these changes are beneficial or harmful.

What Can We Learn from Barnes & Noble’s Surprising Turnaround? – Barnes & Noble is now thriving, and the reason can boil down to one thing. The CEO “loves books”.
Launching Into the New Year – John Spencer – Each year, John Spencer chooses a single word to focus on as his “one word” and creates visual reminders for it. Last year’s one-word was “experiment” and he used the LAUNCH Cycle for his own creative work. This cycle includes looking, listening & learning; asking questions; navigating ideas; creating prototypes; highlighting what works & fixing what fails before launching their projects out into the world based on audience feedback. This year’s one-word is “launch,” with plans to share more of his journey including failed experiments.
AI and Education: Addressing cheating through Milestones – A pedagogical approach to dealing with students using artificial intelligence to complete their work.

New York City schools ban access to ChatGPT over fears of cheating and misinformation – The Verge – Has it been so long since schools were banning YouTube? And now with the amount of smartphone owning students, this really won’t stop anything.
AI-powered Tools in Instructional Design 2023 – Ted Curran.net – And if ChatGPT isn’t blocked, here are some examples on using it in your classroom.
Your Memories. Their Cloud. – The New York Times – Backup, backup, backup! I currently using iCloud on my phone to back up the pictures, but I also use Amazon Photos (free unlimited storage if you’re a Prime user!) and I copy the photos to another drive at home. This give me three copies of my photos, at three separate locations.
Catching Unicorns with GLTR – A technological attempt at catching AI created works.

Important Guidelines About Texting | Psychology Today – It was 2009 when I presented on using cellphones and texting in the classroom. In that time, I think we’ve lost some etiquette on texting and phone use in general. Here is a list of no-nonsense tips on texting usage.
Why Teachers Made More in 1989. Yet all other metrics of spending are… | by The Sharp Ninja | Ninja’s Take | Medium – A depressing look at inflation adjusted figures for teacher pay.