Built on the foundation of four years of research and implementation of mobile learning projects (m-learning), this paper provides an overview of the potential of the integration of mobile Web 2.0 tools (based around smartphones) to facilitate social constructivist pedagogies and engage students in tertiary education. Pedagogical affordances of mobile Web 2.0 tools are evaluated, and student usage and feedback is outlined via an interactive multimedia timeline (using YouTube videos) illustrating how these mobile Web 2.0 pedagogical affordances have transformed pedagogy and facilitated student engagement in a variety of course contexts. A rubric for evaluating appropriate smartphone choices is provided, and a model for implementing mobile Web 2.0 pedagogical integration is presented.
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Abstract:
Never before have Americans had greater access to information about school quality. Under the federal No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), all school districts are required to distribute annual report cards detailing student achievement levels at each of their schools. Local newspapers frequently cover the release of state test results, emphasizing the relative standing of their community’s schools. Meanwhile, new organizations like GreatSchools and SchoolMatters aggregate this information and make it readily available to parents online.
Source – read more: http://educationnext.org/grading-schools/
Source : http://dern.org.au/comment/trends-in-k-12-education/
There has been some research attention given recently to the differences between reading printed texts and reading online texts. This topic has come into focus even more so with the advent of netbooks, ereaders and portable devices on the market. However, there appears to be an implied assumption that transference of reading skill from the printed mode to the digital mode happens intuitively. Terje Hillesund, from the University of Stravanger in Norway, has reported on a really important research study about how readers handle books, the Web and electronic paper. The study, Digital reading spaces: How expert readers handle books, the Web and electronic paper concludes that sustainable reading of long-form text may require some adjustments to the way that text is made available and that different skills may be required. Hillesund (2010) reports that ‘multimodal reading is not primarily a continuous or discontinuous reading of verbal text, but rather composite reading in which attention jumps back and forth between illustrations and text’ and that multimodal reading texts do require a knowledge of visual grammar.
In Australia, the draft English K-10 national curriculum document includes the use of multimodal text. This research by Hillesund expands on the use of multimodal text in education and may provide some pointers for educators to consider when planning multimodal text for learners. The research report can be accessed in the peer reviewed online internet journal First Monday.
Until now the blogs and content management systems I maintain have always related to my interests outside of my work life. The reason for this is I’ve never seen much of a need for an extension of these activities into my life as a teacher. As someone who uses Web 2.o extensively in my teaching I’ve never considered the value of a personal blog related to my activities in education. I’ve maintained blogs for students to share ideas, work collaboratively and publish work, but haven’t seen the need to extend it beyond this.
This was until a presentation at the Illawarra and South East Region Principal’s Conference by Darcy Moore. Darcy demonstrated the extensive network of educational leaders that are networking and sharing ideas via their personal blogs and other mico-blogging technologies like twitter.
Needles to say this was enough motivation to register a new domain and set up this blog. I’m hoping something significant may come of it and people will find it useful.
Grant 
