Technology & Learning - January 2008 - (Page 5)

News & Trends » Teaching Tolerance Rejecting stereotypes and class-based prejudices is at the root of a new initiative spearheaded by the Southern Poverty Law Center, a nonprofit organization formed to combat hate, discrimination, and intolerance. The group has created a school curriculum, the ABCs of Domestic Poverty, that targets grades three and up with exercises that can be integrated into history, economics, math, language, and creative arts. The group’s Web site, www.tolerance.org, features a range of exercises, quizzes, expert tips, and more for students, parents, teachers, and communities. By David Jakes NEW! Blog, podcast, social network, wiki, social bookmark—these terms are suddenly commonplace in the global lexicon. They’re a result, of course, of the new read/write capabilities of the Web, which have transformed the Internet from a basic research and e-commerce tool to a forum inviting participation by all. The question is: What does it all mean for education? In the coming months, stay tuned to this column for the answer to that question. We will be examining a series of resources with an eye toward how they can enhance the teaching, training, and managing experience for schools and districts. The overarching themes will be 21st-century skills, integration, the new literacies, critical thinking, and corecurriculum enhancement. In the process of looking at the range of new applications and how they might fit into your professional toolbox, there are many critical questions to address, sites to explore, and learning networks to build. And we’d like you to be a part of it. Please submit questions, recommended tools, and your own best-practice classroom or administrative experiences with Web 2.0 to this column via the Letters to the Editor discussion forum at http://forums.techlearning.com/. We welcome your input and assistance in developing a practical compendium of resources for education professionals worldwide. A Whole New Education Interested in a sneak peek at the 2008 CoSN keynote speaker? In a fascinating talk available online at Discovery Education, New York Times best-selling author Daniel Pink says K–12 students need to develop their creative side to meet the challenges of an increasingly competitive world. Pink, who wrote A Whole Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future, argues that creative, rightbrain tasks are slowly overshadowing logical left-brain tasks, and becoming more important in today’s workforce and economy. Left-brain attributes include: math, logic, and linear reasoning, while the rightbrain processes art, creativity, and abstract reasoning. As machines have replaced our bodies, says Pink during the hourlong Webinar, so is software replacing our brains. A software program can carry out the routine operations of these left-brain tasks, and these tasks can also easily be outsourced to other countries—and at a fraction of the cost. It’s the right-brain tasks that can’t be duplicated and are now desired by employers. Ways to better educate students? Pink cites the Rainbow project, an alternative to the SAT in which students are tested on their ability to create storylines. Pink’s ultimate message for education is a quote from Assistant Superintendent Rich Menisco of Fairfax County Schools in Virginia: “We need to prepare kids for their future, not our past.” To access Pink’s talk go to http:// community.discoveryeducation .com/about/webinar_archives. For details on the March CoSN conference in Arlington, VA, visit www.k12schoolnetworking.org/2008/. Technology & Learning January 2008 | 5 http://www.tolerance.org http://forums.techlearning.com/ http://community.discoveryeducation.com/about/webinar_archives http://community.discoveryeducation.com/about/webinar_archives http://www.k12schoolnetworking.org/2008/

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Technology & Learning - January 2008

Technology & Learning - January 2008 Contents Editor's Desk News & Trends Product Guide Reviews Cover Story: Ten Top Tech Trends ERP Makes a Comeback Tossing Out Textbooks LOY Profile Series Higher Ed How To Bottom Line What's New Emerging Tech

Technology & Learning - January 2008

For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.