I’ve been hearing about the “paperless” office (and, by extension, paperless school) for nearly 40 years. Doug even talks about it in his recent The Next Big Thing(s) post.
To which I say, HA!
Here’s the reality: we’re using more paper. Vast quantities of more.
Students do react differently to paper assignments, at least in my district. There is a sense of responsibility that isn’t there when the assignment is purely digital. But, I believe the cause is more of a “this is how we’ve always done it”. For the most part, students are conditioned to receive assignments and supplemental materials as physical copies. It’s the only thing they’ve every known.
Cognitive biases are systematic ways in which people deviate from rationality in making judgements. Wikipedia maintains a list such biases and one example is survivorship bias, the tendency to focus on those things or people which succeed in an endeavor and discount the experiences of those which did not. Source: A cognitive bias cheat sheet It’s all too…
Recent technological advances have affected many areas of our lives: the way we communicate, collaborate, learn, and, of course, teach. Along with that, those advances necessitated an expansion of our vocabulary, producing definitions such as digital natives, digital immigrants, and, the topic of this post — “21st-century teacher.” Source: 15 Characteristics of a 21st-Century Teacher…
Over the years, there has been considerable discussion of Google’s “filter bubble” problem. Put simply, it’s the manipulation of your search results based on your personal data. In practice this means links are moved up or down or added to your Google search results, necessitating the filtering of other search results altogether. These editorialized results…
Although the article is pretty technical, Building Capacity at Reclaim spells out six things that Reclaim Hosting provides to get the most out of their employees. I found the article fascinating because of what it lays out could be used in our classrooms. Especially the fun!
“But that’s not what I meant” There’s no more urgent reason to write. Source: Seth’s Blog: “But that’s not what I meant” Seth Godin is the master at putting complex thoughts and idea in the minimum number of words.
Good games—as opposed to candy-coated, multiple-choice quiz games—provide immersive experiences for students. Like novels, films, plays, and other media, games can be high-quality materials a teacher uses to enable students to access the curriculum. In my research, classrooms with high-functioning game-based learning are not ones in which the teacher hands a game to students to…
