The Connected Educator


Book Description

Create a connected learning community through social media and rediscover the power of being a learner first. After uncovering the theories and research behind the significance of learning through collaboration with other educators, the authors show you how to take advantage of technology to improve your own learning and ultimately the learning of your students.




Affinity Online


Book Description

How online affinity networks expand learning and opportunity for young people Boyband One Direction fanfiction writers, gamers who solve math problems together, Harry Potter fans who knit for a cause. Across subcultures and geographies, young fans have found each other and formed community online, learning from one another along the way. From these and other in-depth case studies of online affinity networks, Affinity Online considers how young people have found new opportunities for expanded learning in the digital age. These cases reveal the shared characteristics and unique cultures and practices of different online affinity networks, and how they support “connected learning”—learning that brings together youth interests, social activity, and accomplishment in civic, academic, and career relevant arenas. Although involvement in online communities is an established fixture of growing up in the networked age, participation in these spaces show how young people are actively taking up new media for their own engaged learning and social development. While providing a wealth of positive examples for how the online world provides new opportunities for learning, the book also examines the ways in which these communities still reproduce inequalities based on gender, race, and socioeconomic status. The book concludes with a set of concrete suggestions for how the positive learning opportunities offered by online communities could be made available to more young people, at school and at home. Affinity Online explores how online practices and networks bridge the divide between in-school and out-of-school learning, finding that online affinity networks are creating new spaces of opportunity for realizing the ideals of connected learning.




When Kids Can't Read, what Teachers Can Do


Book Description

For Kylene Beers, the question of what to do when kids can't read surfaced in 1979 when she met and began teaching a boy named George. When George's parents asked her to explain why he couldn't read and how she could help, Beers, a secondary certified English teacher with no background in reading, realized she had little to offer. That moment sent her on a twenty-three-year search for answers to the question: How do we help middle and high schoolers who can't read? Now, she shares what she has learned and shows teachers how to help struggling readers with comprehension, vocabulary, fluency, word recognition, and motivation. Filled with student transcripts, detailed strategies, reproducible material, and extensive booklists, Beers' guide to teaching reading both instructs and inspires.




Transformative Teachers


Book Description

Transformative teachers offers a contemporary look at how highly networked activist teachers are engaged in creating and remaking curriculum and sharing their work to empower students and influence educational policy and practice --




Hanging Out, Messing Around, and Geeking Out


Book Description

An examination of young people's everyday new media practices—including video-game playing, text-messaging, digital media production, and social media use. Conventional wisdom about young people's use of digital technology often equates generational identity with technology identity: today's teens seem constantly plugged in to video games, social networking sites, and text messaging. Yet there is little actual research that investigates the intricate dynamics of youths' social and recreational use of digital media. Hanging Out, Messing Around, and Geeking Out fills this gap, reporting on an ambitious three-year ethnographic investigation into how young people are living and learning with new media in varied settings—at home, in after-school programs, and in online spaces. Integrating twenty-three case studies—which include Harry Potter podcasting, video-game playing, music sharing, and online romantic breakups—in a unique collaborative authorship style, Hanging Out, Messing Around, and Geeking Out is distinctive for its combination of in-depth description of specific group dynamics with conceptual analysis.




Culturally Responsive Teaching and The Brain


Book Description

A bold, brain-based teaching approach to culturally responsive instruction To close the achievement gap, diverse classrooms need a proven framework for optimizing student engagement. Culturally responsive instruction has shown promise, but many teachers have struggled with its implementation—until now. In this book, Zaretta Hammond draws on cutting-edge neuroscience research to offer an innovative approach for designing and implementing brain-compatible culturally responsive instruction. The book includes: Information on how one’s culture programs the brain to process data and affects learning relationships Ten “key moves” to build students’ learner operating systems and prepare them to become independent learners Prompts for action and valuable self-reflection




Connected Code


Book Description

Why every child needs to learn to code: the shift from “computational thinking” to computational participation. Coding, once considered an arcane craft practiced by solitary techies, is now recognized by educators and theorists as a crucial skill, even a new literacy, for all children. Programming is often promoted in K-12 schools as a way to encourage “computational thinking”—which has now become the umbrella term for understanding what computer science has to contribute to reasoning and communicating in an ever-increasingly digital world. In Connected Code, Yasmin Kafai and Quinn Burke argue that although computational thinking represents an excellent starting point, the broader conception of “computational participation” better captures the twenty-first-century reality. Computational participation moves beyond the individual to focus on wider social networks and a DIY culture of digital “making.” Kafai and Burke describe contemporary examples of computational participation: students who code not for the sake of coding but to create games, stories, and animations to share; the emergence of youth programming communities; the practices and ethical challenges of remixing (rather than starting from scratch); and the move beyond stationary screens to programmable toys, tools, and textiles.




Connected Learning: Origins, Opportunities, and Perspectives of Contemporary Educational Design


Book Description

This book offers a unique, machine-generated overview of the current state of research in Connected Learning, Networked Learning, Digital Badges, Micro-Credentials, and Lifelong Learning. The concept of Connected Learning picks up learners where they are, and that is no longer just the classroom or seminar room. Connected Learning seeks to understand the context of learning and the motivation of learners in order to design a more contemporary and effective learning experience. Central to this is the understanding that Connected Learning is collaborative and takes place in peer-to-peer networks, that it is based on participation, problem orientation and application, and that the more personalised the learning, the more interested learners are. This volume condenses and synthesizes research from a large variety of English-language articles into a concise yet comprehensive overview. Readers will benefit from the selection and synthesis of articles that allow them to get a quick understanding of the research area, while also being able to click through to the original sources to dive deeper into any particular topic. This volume is a key source of information and insight for those interested in the current research, as well as serving as an inspiring starting point for their own research.




Connected Teaching


Book Description

At a time when many aspects of the faculty role are in question, Harriet Schwartz, the author of Connected Teaching, argues that the role of teachers is as important as ever and is evolving profoundly. She believes the relationships faculty have with individual students and with classes and cohorts are the essential driver of teaching and learning.This book explores teaching as a relational practice – a practice wherein connection and disconnection with students, power, identity, and emotion shape the teaching and learning endeavor. The author describes moments of energetic deep learning and what makes these powerful moments happen. She calls on readers to be open to and seek relationship, understand their own socio-cultural identity (and how this shapes internal experience and the ways in which they are met in the world), and vigilantly explore and recognize emotion in the teaching endeavor. Connected Teaching is informed and inspired by Relational Cultural Theory (RCT). The premise of RCT is that the experience of engaging in growth-fostering interactions and relationships is essential to human development. RCT’s founding scholars believed the theory would be relevant in many different settings, but this is the first book to apply them to teaching and learning in higher education. In this book, the author shows that RCT has much to offer those devoted to student learning and development, providing a foundation from which to understand the transformative potential of teaching as a relational practice.




What Connected Educators Do Differently


Book Description

Todd Whitaker, Jeffrey Zoul, and Jimmy Casas are widely acclaimed experts on teaching and leading and are pioneers in the education twitterverse, and now they are sharing their best practices! In What Connected Educators Do Differently, they show how being a connected educator—by using social media to connect with peers across the country and even across the globe—will greatly enhance your own learning and your success in a school or classroom. You’ll find out how to create a personal and professional learning network to share resources and ideas, gain support, and make an impact on others. By customizing your professional development in this way, you’ll be able to learn what you want, how you want, when you want. Best of all, you’ll become energized and inspired by all the great ideas out there and how you can contribute, benefiting both you and your students. Whether you are a teacher or school leader, you will come away from this book with step-by-step advice and fresh ideas to try immediately. Being a connected educator has never been easier or more important than it is right now!