What I Pulled from Twitter Today 2/16

Just some of the stuff I pulled from Twitter today...Thanks for everything!

• Visual Storytelling Tool
• New York Times Article "Industry Pitch that Smartphones Belong in the Classroom"
• Podcast Creation for early elementary
• Articles "Teaching How to Learn" and "Living and Learning with New Media"
• From TED "100 Websites you Should Know About and Use"
• SnagFilms.com is a website where you can watch full-length documentary films for free, but we’re also a platform that lets you “snag” a film and put it anywhere on the web.
• Will Richardson's interview with Carol Dweck Author of Mindset: The New Psychology of Success .
• Thinking About Education Reform by Steve Hargadon
• From TED "Sir Ken Robinson: Do Schools Kill Creativity?" A must watch for every educator.
  
• Game Making in Education
  
• Blog about Educational Gaming
• Blog Schools Too Broken to Fix?
• The Lost Generation
• Computers in Math: "Computers make Maths more Fun, Study Says"
• Twitter Professors: 18 People to Follow for a Real Time Education
  

Facebook as an Educational Tool?

Today I read two articles about Facebook. The first was Lev Grossman's "Facebook is for Old People" in Time Magazine and then Will Richardson's blog post "Facebook as Tipping Point?". I started thinking about these articles and came to the realization that as the average age of a Facebook user increases, the main reason for blocking networking sites in schools will begin to diminish. The principal reason social networking sites like Facebook are blocked in schools are fear and misunderstanding. The apprehension felt by some parents, teachers and administrators is often misguided since most of the people who make decisions about which sites are accessible in schools are unfamiliar with the potential of these sites since they are not familiar with them. I believe this fear and misunderstanding will diminish as more of the gatekeepers become active on networking sites. The changing demographics of Facebook is causing social networking sites to become more mainstream, and more understood. The greater the understanding we have about networking sites the more opportunity we have for discussion, which in the end could lead to access to these sites in the schools.

(Photo "Facebook" by laikolosse)