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Social Media for Educators

Lesson Five: Professional Learning Networks for Educators
http://lone-eagles.com/social-lesson5.html

Return to Social Media Educators Home Page
http://lone-eagles.com/social.html

 

Required Submissions Checklist:

 ____Send your instructor a private email documenting your success and/or challenges
        joining Dropbox and contributing one file of value, in response to the email invitation.

        Email your instructor if you have not received an invitation to join our class dropbox folder.

 ____ Post to the class listserv your best professional personal learning network sites,
          feeds, and tips - to be archived for all future class participants.

 

   ____ Email your instructor all the details on your generosity gifting your classmates
           with three great new links.  Insert the links directly onto the Frontpage as others have
           done. 

           Note you can create your own pages within our class wiki as something to consider for your
           students in the future using your own wikis. 

           Please email your instructor a copy of your wiki posting.

 

A Prologue to Sophisticated Simple Organizing Strategies for Social Media and for Teaching Online Effectively.

Ongoing feeds using multiple tools to minimize the time required to stay current with peers in your topic areas can be as fun as it can be useful.

What if each of us Ð could be collaboratively sharing our wiki links, jings, and best professional development and topical curriculum content sites on an ongoing basis!  That is literally the goal of many K12 resource sites Ð many experimenting with different combinations of social media tools, incentives to share, and more.  I.E. Learn from the working strategies deployed by othersÉlike the Ning tutorials recently shared.

What if the organization of this course were different? How can we optimize both simplicity, as well as creating a lasting resource base allowing ongoing resource contributions after this class. ThatÕs basically what wikis ARE used for.

Each of us uses a different collection of info-gathering tools. Some of us use over a dozen, and use them in a sophisticated manner. Others of us have never even been on a listserv before.
 

LetÕs take a hard look at potential best practices for a moment:

Our class listserv has a searchable archive of all postings, so introductions, posted resource links, including jings, are available to newcomers to the class at any time. Posting Jings in google group messages still requires everyone to sort through those messages.  Perhaps creating a single wiki page for just the Jing assignment links is the way to go?   It is just this sort of decision making on best use of collaborative tools, optimal organization, etc., that teaching effectively online requires. In our case, leveraging social media toward optimal outcomes. 

Think about all the great resources we have all posted to the listserv, wiki, ning, and google group.  Think about what might be the best way to create a lasting collection of exceptional resources as an outcome of this class - and/or any future classes for that matter. How best to sort all these by topic, to chose the right tool for initial and sustained organization, and the most effective motivations and/or required submissions to achieve the best possible group outcome, are all on the table for your recommendations.  

And think about what model can be extended for students to conduct similar knowledge gathering with the community. 

An elegant combination of sequenced instructional Jings teaching the tools for ideal collaborative outcomes (wikis and Ning) might be considered. The confusion, as one example, resulting from threaded discussions being linked to each new topic, represents the level of detail necessary to address.

One potential problem is with everyone working at their own pace, literally getting everyone on the same page can be a challenge.  Keep it as simple as possible is likely what will be required.

 

Info-Diet Outputs Ð What value in what formats do you routinely contribute to the world? 

WeÕve covered everyone as both learner and teacher, consumer, and now letÕs look at  Òas  *producer?Ó

Our brief info-diet self-assessments focused on our choices for how we invest our limited time with incoming information feeds via various media. Think about your OUT-going information habits and activities. What useful volume of information do you produce, as your value proposition as educator, parent, and citizen? Do you produce text lesson plans, video captures, edited videos, text-to-movie animations?

In the broader sense, weÕre all participating in a global shared hologram of human imagination. While fun, social, learning has its place, the hard truth is there are dire immediate problems that we each CAN make a positive impact on, should we so choose to do so. No longer can we relish the social safety of being powerless to act, when the burgeoning examples of individuals generating viral global impacts increases. 

Think about yourself as role model, as perhaps master digital storyteller, and whether your level of self-directed Geekatude (positive attitudes toward teaching yourself new tech skills) can be improved. 

Rate yourself on five point scale on geekatude at http://lone-eagles.com/academy-info-diet.htm  Do not send it to your instructor.

 
Self actualization and rating our sociability, and generosity, impacts on others.

 Removing self-imposed barriers to becoming prolific, toward becoming self-actualized, now that you have powerful global expression tools literally at your fingertips.  Giving self-confidence and encouragement to others is perhaps the most important thing weÕll ever do. So why are we so stingy?  Knowledge is one of the few things that grows when we give it away.  Do we have to depend on others for kudos to build our self esteem? Are their tricks toward becoming inner-directed?

Social Media Misfits? Inner-Directed  VS Outer-directed Personalities

Reality check. Some of us are inner-directed, and as individualists we donÕt hang on the approval of others for validation as to who we are, what we believe in, how we choose to prioritize our actions. To those of us roguishly oriented as lone eagles the very idea of soliciting Facebook and Òlinked inÓ friends is counter intuitive. 

Some of us are outer-directed, our self-esteem comes from the approval of others, and we might get tattoos, piercings, and color our hair in order to fit in. Social media lends itself to outer-directed personalities. Even if we would not recognize most of our 1000 Facebook friends if we passed them on the street, there is still something oddly comforting knowing that in some limited way, weÕve created our own peer support group.  Eventually social media might serve as our Òpersonal learning networks.Ó

Social Media Self Assessment Survey  (do not send to your instructor)

I am most motivated by what others think and try hard to fit it.

        ______1. NOT!    2. Sorta     3. Average   4. Admittedly   5. Totally

 I donÕt give a ratÕs red rump what others think regarding what I should think, do, or be.

 ______1. NOT!    2. Sorta     3. Average   4. Admittedly   5. Totally

 Noting differences in our family situations and social predispendencies:

 IÕm naturally attracted to spending time on facebook with friends and family.

______1. NOT!    2. Sorta     3. Average   4. Admittedly   5. Totally

 IÕm naturally repulsed by everything I see on facebook

 ______1. NOT!    2. Sorta     3. Average   4. Admittedly   5. Totally

 IÕd love to have a thousand Facebook friends following my daily postings.

______1. NOT!    2. Sorta     3. Average   4. Admittedly   5. Totally 

I do not want anyone following me on Facebook for any reason.

 ______1. NOT!    2. Sorta     3. Average   4. Admittedly   5. Totally
 

Inner vs outer directedness is not a black and white polarity, but many of us are indeed distinctly different as the above survey is intended to illustrate.

Everything here is evolving, most particularly how we define our digital identity as compared to our real selves. Human communications behaviors generally evolve very slowly with older folks, and very quickly among the young. We see this with social media. FYI, IÕm advising a project ÒGetting Seniors Online.Ó www.getseniorsonline.org

As a Lone Eagle living on the frontiers of freedom, headquartered in a remote ranch house surrounded by wide open spaces, with no bosses, and no employees, the last thing I want is to feel required to beg the approval of others, or to create a mob following me around like the guy in Verizon commercials. My freedom is defined by my separation, independence, and western individualism! AT the same time, I depend on my networks with both information sources, and key people, to enable me to maintain my cherished rural lifestyle. No one is an island.   

Teaching Teachers online, and more recently skyping with educators in the remotest reaches of the Alaskan wilderness Ðis a genuine joy, and a key social outlet and source of personal satisfaction as I witness transformational learning in many I work with.

But at the same time, the goal of Lone Eagle Consulting is to scout out the BESTMOSTLEAST (best practices curriculums and tools) and disseminate them to as many people in need as possible, on an ongoing basis. So, in this specific context, the potentially viral social media outreach, tribe-building methods, are totally appropriate if exponential global impacts are to be realized. IÕm on a mission to change the world for the better, best I can.

There is no heavier burden than a great potential. Charlie Brown

Mutual Support Networks:

Are evolving to keep us all up to the same instant of progress.

In the Smithsonian Museum of American history is a display on the evolution of communications technology.  A kiosk has a sermon running continuously, from 1867 announcing the first transatlantic telegraph cable connecting America and Europe. The message is that now humankind can all keep to the same instant of progress. Dot-dash-dot-dot, in 1867! 

As we are half-way through through this class, some might fear being overwhelmed by too many information feeds. Even when relevant to use as educators, it is a fact that we can only handle so many E-newsletters, RSS blog feeds, listserv emails from our often prolific peers and *online instructors, and the growing number of other information flows and feeds. In particular our personal social networks which seem destined to make it easier than ever for our friends and family to overwhelm us with uninvited trivia.  Like my nieceÕs notice on a mattress for sale in Omaha Nebraska Ð really!?

Consider the following themes:

No one knows as much as all of us. 

If we all share what we know, weÕll all have access to all our knowledge.

The power of all of us. (EbayÕs trademark)

Less is MORE in our age of information overload:

Information condenses to knowledge which condenses
to wisdom and VALUE is created in our age of information overload.

With the global boom of bottom-up innovations, fueled by the new opportunities for anyone, anywhere to learn daily from the best innovations of others, the evolving dynamics for instant dissemination of the very best Òcrowd accelerated innovationsÓ holds great promise. We are modern hunter gatherers constantly seeking the best knowledge and innovations of others.

Be Aware Robust Topical Resources Already Exist and Are Easily Found: TRY THIS SHORT ACTIVITY

A Geography teacher was struggling to encourage resource contributions from peers on his new wiki.
I suggested he try the following search phrases. You can substitute your topic for the word geography.

I just googled   geography pbworks  and got 75,000 hits. The first page alone is an eye opener.

Examples of search phrases for lessons on (
Even just the first page has outstanding collections)

Google these search phrases:

K12 lessons google earth geography

K12 lessons twitter geography

K12 lessons facebook geography

And if you go to youtube and search using the same phrases, I think you'll find
videos showing just what you asked for.


 

Innovation Diffusion in K12 is an inverted pyramid.

You might have noticed your students know more about information retrieval technologies than most parents and teachers, who in turn often know more about technology than their principals and superintendents, who often know more than our legislators, governors and senators. Those who make the decisions are the least informed. True or False?

 

In review, formal K12 education is based on standards without ongoing assessments for use of rich media to create instructional content that is most motivating. Informal learning shared among students is likely to be video and/or app-based, noting social media and mobile devices are prohibited in many schools.

 

In an ideal world, we (teachers and students alike) would all be better informed via peer assessments revealing the most motivating curricular units, that in the least amount of time, offer the highest possible level of insight and/or utility.

 

The Khan academy videos showed measurable tracking for student progress, student mentoring, and frees the teachers to mentor individual students in the classroom. The Hole in the Wall video showed how students can teach themselves, as is necessary when teachers are not available.

 

New Standards for Community Engagement

The updated info-diet survey, including a new Geekatude Survey are at http://lone-eagles.com/academy-info-diet.htm and offer a second look at our information inputs, and we might rate ourselves on both the volume and the value of our choices and personal abilities to daily assimilate vast quantities of new information. We might consider what info-behaviors we are modeling for students with an eye toward teaching related Òbest practices.Ó

 

No child left behind standards, many will tell you, do not address the call for teaching creativity and innovation. And do not address the need to responsibly maintain our digital reputation, or to self-assess our level of civic participation, service learning, or moral responsibilities to help those less fortunate than ourselves. And most importantly it doesnÕt address our level of motivation, or our related level of self-confidence, or whether we feel emotionally supported by those educating us, as students, or whether we feel directly threatened by the risks of failure.

 

As an aside, most GED programs are presented in a mastery learning context as different than traditional K12 education where there is the risk of failure. Could dropping out be a rite of passage to adulthood, where one plans to assure control of oneÕs own destiny, with plans to finish the HS diploma as an adult in a GED program instead of as a subservient child in a traditional classroom? 

 

One third of all HS students drop out, with over 50% dropping out in the 17 largest cities.  In most Native communities the rates can be as high as 70%.   The volume of students opting to finish their K12 education via virtual High Schools also speaks to the potential motivation, as their rite of passage, as well.  Motivations Matter!

 

In addition to required state standards, acknowledging the trend toward national common standards, and also acknowledging the ISTE EDTECH standards.  Common sense suggests we need additional standards for Out-of-the-box thinking. You might relate this to our box of required submissions in each lesson, as an analogy, and self-assess how many optional resources you have explored.


OPTIONAL: National Ed-Tech Standards:

The following short documents are recommended reading and present the conceptual framework for this course.

 


International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE)
http://www.iste.org/standards/

Extensive current resources, including Common Core Standards.


21st Century competitiveness at all levels requires we become self-motivated learners, carefully nurturing our innate Òlove of learningÓ and increasing our abilities to be creative, innovative, and proactively productive, leveraging the tools at our fingertips for collaborative engagement, public problem solving and more.

 

The trick here is to learn to enjoy playing and learning, and how NOT to feel threatened with failure by an antiquated Victorian era institutional mindset.  MaslowÕs hierarchy of self-actualization applies here. The more we can reduce our own fear of failure, the more psychologically open and motivated we are to unlocking our potential for self-directed learning.

 

The Future of Distance Learning: Web VS Apps

With both attention spans shortening, as well as the useful shelf life of knowledge, just-in-time learning may be the future of education.

 

"There are two kinds of knowledge, that which you know directly, and that which you know how to find information upon." Samuel Johnson 1867

 

It used to be we all believed in general education requirements to give us a lifelong base of core knowledge. Today, everything is changing so fast, the trend almost seems to be in the opposite direction Ð donÕt bother with obsolete knowledge until you need it, then get the latest update. (Is there an app for that?)

 

The OnStar system in many vehicles might be the future of learning. You pay to ask an expert for what you need, and they either deliver it on the spot or provide you with an ILP Ð individualized learning plan Ð literally as a map for you to move in the right direction.

 

Use of web pages is being replaced by the use of apps, which would be loaded on your mobile device, and draw information from online courses, but are often not associated with web pages or sites as we know them today.  Social media is evolving to become our Òpersonal learning networks.Ó

 

With more and more software tools available online in Òthe cloud,Ó they can be updated daily, and are being increasingly integrated with literally everything else.

 

(OPTIONAL: See the explanation of cloud computing at http://www.commoncraft.com/video/cloud-computing. )

 

Explore: http://www.apple.com/apps   

With hundreds of thousands of apps, There's an app for almost anything.

Apps for iPhone

Over 140,000 apps for iPad

The Mac App Store

Top 100 Apps

 

Students can now create their own Apps without programming. It can be as simple as dragging and dropping a module. (Optional)

 

App Inventor Moves to MIT Center for Mobile Learning

Beginning in early 2012 App Inventor will be available as an open source project and the MIT Center for Mobile Learning http://mitmobilelearning.org/  will provide the application for educational users.  To keep up with these and other changes please subscribe to the App Inventor educators forum:   http://www.appinventorbeta..com/forum/
 

Playing the Game?  Which Game do you really want to play?

Social media, on the one hand, can be viewed as a silly game of mutual exploitation of our own friends, and of our friendsÕ friends. Commercial businesses are very much mercenary focused on the advertising goals of profiting from eyeballs, and the data that comes from users clicking the ÒLikeÓ button on facebook and posting what products and brands they do and donÕt ÒLike.Ó   Knowing IÕm being manipulated Ð my first reaction is not to want to Òplay.Ó 

80 Million facebook users play Farmville and Mafia wars and social entertainment is an understandable use. There are actually a lot of social skills that can come from serious gaming. The World of Warcraft for example, can be extremely sophisticated, and pre-teens are learning global collaboration with realtime voice conference calls immersed in exciting visual 3D environments with collaborative tools, mathematics, and literally lots of amazing magic.

A 14 year old showed me briefly how he interacts via voice with 40 peers, all monitoring online data feeds while conducting coordinated attacks  - their monsters again other monsters. It was comparible to flying the space shuttle Ð great use of logistics, collaboration, math, tactical strategies and more. 

Another game might be how to leverage the good in people worldwide such that the exponential benefits of effective collaborative can mitigate the dire realities suffered by the majority of the global population.  Dissemination of free education as a start, compounded with Just-in-time real world solutions, disseminated within a day of their invention and discovery.

 

Social Enterprises; Doing Well by Doing Good

Social entrepreneurship is the middle ground here; businesses whose primary goal is to promote the social good, Doing Well by Doing Good.

Senator Tester held a Small Business workshop in 2010 and invited the three Tech Giants to present on Social media. http://tester.senate.gov/workshops (Click on Kalispell)  Google and Microsoft (Bing Search engine) presented for 15 minutes each on their search engine advertising businesses, touting free local listings for small businesses requiring only 5 minutes.  

Facebook presented on their social media services. At the time of the conference, Google and Microsoft were looking at how to expand into FacebookÕs social media world and successful models, while Facebook was looking at how to expand into the advertising worlds of Google and Bing.

A lot has changed since then, OMG, that was a year and a half ago, ancient history, and the changes are accelerating. Google is now in the mobile devices manufacturing business, Ipads and smartphones have exploded in popularity.  Facebook and Twitter have dramatically altered the global political realities for how quickly an idea can become street level demonstrations worldwide. 

The Occupy Wallstreet demonstrations expanded to 80 countries in a week, with almost causal certainty, following a year of dramatic Arab Spring events in a dozen countries.

What is next? The rapidity of global impacts in expanding exponentially, and in a sense weÕre limited only by our imaginations Ð our increasingly coordinated, shared, global imaginations. Something fundamentally profound has begun. 

LetÕs take a deep breath from exercising our expansive imaginations and bring this back down to K12 social media innovations in education. How best to gather and share best practices use using social media for K12 character education, digital citizenship, civic participation, 21st Century workforce readiness, and building positive social capacity both locally and globally. 

If we all share the best related resources we each can find, weÕll all benefit.

We must learn by doing, and yes Òplaying the gameÓ in order to understand from the experience what each of us finds useful, and/or not worth the time and effort.

Planning Your 8 Hour Final Project:

Please start thinking about what you would like to do for your 8 hour final project, and email your idea to me for possible suggestions. 

Like creating your own wiki to share great links! Rather specifically you can post links to your Jings showing cool content creation tools in 30 second bits - one 5 minute jing could show your top ten favorites as a compelling way for raising awareness for, say, your principal or superintendent or parents?

Jing videos won't upload to youtube, etc., unless you purchase Jing Pro for $14/year - which allows saving as Mpg4 files - compatible with youtube, ning, wikis, blogs, and most everything else. However, you can post Jing links anywhere. When in doubt - experiment.

You might think about the highest impact/utility final project possible - which you could easily create within the 8 hr window.  I've thought about showcasing Alaskan cultural examples by tool type, perhaps in the context of "here are digital storytelling cool tools"  - of the easiest new media tools and methods.  Imagine a ten minute video capture or 20 30 second jings - each showing as briefly as possible,  a quick peek at the best AK examples of their purposeful use for cultural expression and/or education.

If you think about it, TV commercials are done in rapid fire 2-4 second cuts and what I'm talking about is rather just like that - for the ADHD in all of us, ideally accessible via smartphone. 

In a sense, we talked around the edges of how we can both quickly communicate to non-techies the essence of what they don't know that they need to know. Creating a 2-10 minutes "commercial videos" would certainly be an interesting challenge. 

If you think about the highest need for our immediate classmates Ð it might be some of us use 20+ cool tools, while most of us feel pretty much like beginners. If you, or ideally each of us, were to quick a fast-moving jing showing our info-diet tools and best practices in under 5 minutes Ð how amazing would it be for most of us to see what all the rest of us are doing?! What if everyone, everywhere, were regularly sharing in this fast and efficient way? It might create a Knowledge society, and as important, a whole new structure for a Knowledge Economy.

Politically as of November 2011, what education can prove most effective for broadband adoption and best practices utilization is very much a Hot Topic!

I.E. "What can broadband be used for?"  The need is to enlighten non-technical vulnerable populations including top leadership administrators, governors, senators, and legislators.

Consider this instructional format;

To be accessible as a learning app on mobile devices:

The What and the Why it is important:

Start with a 30 second visual show and tell on what it is: Example: Twitter is microblogging - a summative means of following thought leaders with one postings. And why it is important; Ò200 million tweets a day has become the preferred means many people use to literally follow those whose expertise they value.Ó

The How -Summary:

Then have a link to a one minute show and tell showing just the basics for how it works. 

The serious training on How Ð in short stacked modules

Once people know enough to make a decision as to whether they wish to learn, then link to successive short training bits on the how.

 

Here are Four Final Project Ideas.

1. Skyping with Beau Ward in Petersburg yesterday, we talked about creating a five minute Jing video capture specifically for superintendents with 10 - 30 second quick demos of top online content creation tools available for both educators and students at no cost.  I believe this would be an easy and painless way to help superintendents to understand quickly what they don't have time to learn in depth. 

2. Using http://www.jingproject.com  on laptops, students would create 1-5 minute video captures showing the benefits of broadband in a short term competition focused on Alaskan-created examples of new media.  This free tool is being used by my teachers and everyone is amazed at the ease and broad utility. A short term competition could result in a simple "show and tell" of the top 20 cool tools in an Alaskan Cultural expression context. 

Alex is 11 years old and created the following jing after a quick intro by his mother who is in my class from Kenai - Alex's video:

http://www.screencast.com/t/h3hvWG4HjLSF
 

Here's a sample Jing from Tom Coray in King Cove:

Getting by with crummy internet

http://www.screencast.com/t/FQvhCslZ 

Here's a sample animation from Adell Bruns in Ketchikan http://teachingonlinewiki.pbworks.com/w/page/47468199/Adell%27s%20Links

3. Web-raisings - are 1 hour events where everyone attending, regardless of age, creates their own free ecommerce website, blog, and/or family photo album.  http://www.tripod.com - In Metlakatla, I did this with teachers during a 5 hour inservice, and later for 7th graders, whose homework was to create an ecommerce site for a local artist or business person. Examples at http://lone-eagles.com/web-raising.htm  and several 30 second videos showing webraisings in action are at http://youtube.com/fodasz  - one with elders, and one with First Nations. 

4. Elder's digital storytelling. Elementary students with Ipad2's would be matched with elders to record and upload videos of elders' oral stories, and/or histories.  Also, narrated photos posted online at sites like voicethread.com literally can "preserve elders' wisdom and stories for all future generations."  A demo of an Elder's flipalbum is http://www.youtube.com/fodasz#p/u/7/huWWzNz0ePM  

If you've not seen it, a 3 minute video on Metlakatla is on the homepage at http://youtube.com/fodasz


Required Video Viewing and Resource Explorations 

VIEW This video from the small Yupiq Eskimo Village of Quinhagak, Alaska , was a school computer project intended for the other Yupiq villages in the area. Much to the villagers' shock, over a half million people have viewed it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=LyviyF-N23A  (4 minutes)

VIEW the Kindertown Video at

      http://www.freetech4teachers.com/2011/11/kindertown-find-best-education-apps-for.html 

and note the Edublog content awards for the site sharing this video!
 

Explore http://freetech4teachers.com  and Optional the K-3 resource collections by
Alaskan teachers are listed at http://lone-eagles.com/teachercreated.htm
See also http://lone-eagles.com/guide.htm for more K12 resources.

Review the page linked below from the Applications for Good web site with this fact in mind:

Just the self-paced eLearning portion of the education software market is expected to double from $24billion to $49billion by 2014. Both the needs and business opportunities are clear.

http://applicationsforgood.org/need-definition/connect-learners/

Review the organizing structure of the Benton Foundation newsletter: 

http://benton.org/headlines/newsletter

Headlines listed by category, followed by paragraph summaries with links to the full articles. All articles archived in a searchable database by category. One can find a lot of great information in a hurry. They do a nice job at organizing via this free service.

 

Lesson Feedback: Optional, but much appreciated.

You're invited to privately email your instructor:

       1. What areas, if any, did you have trouble with during this
            lesson?

       2. What questions remain now that you've finished this lesson? 

       3. Approximately how much time did you devote to this lesson?

                   4. What improvements would you like to suggest?

 

OPTIONAL RESOURCES

Rich Media Content Sites for Educators Ð A Short Sampling
All are Optional.


Free Online Course Materials | MIT OpenCourseWare

http://ocw.mit.edu


Open Courseware Consortium

www.ocwconsortium.org  

Open Educational Resources Commons
http://oercommons.org Open Educational Resources 

Eduforge
http://eduforge.org  Open Source Learning Lab

Sourceforge
www.sourceforge.org  Open source software consortium.

Moodle being one of the best examples.

The Portal to the World of Knowledge
http://www.educating.net
Links to many sources of online learning and teaching.

Learner.org
www.learner.org/interactive
A major educational portal Ð this link to interactive units.
 

MERLOT http://www.merlot.org  Multimedia Educational Resource for Learning and Online Teaching Extensive collected multimedia resources by topic.

IMS http://www.imsproject.org   Instructional Management Systems standards - an industry site focused on promoting standards among all Instructional Management Systems so content can be easily shifted between systems. 

An Introduction: What are Learning Objects?
http://www4.uwm.edu/cie/learning_objects.cfm?gid=55
A rich array of resources from the Univ. of Wisconsin's Center for International Education. See also their "Collections of Learning Objects"

 

The following Hewlett Foundation report addresses this potential in depth:
A Review of the Open Educational Resources Movement (OER) Achievements, Challenges, and New Opportunities
 http://www.oerderves.org/wp-content/uploads/2007/03/a-review-of-the-open-educational-resources-oer-movement_final.pdf  (Start at page 33.)

 

YouTube.com/Teachers - Learn, Teach, Share through YouTube
http://youtube.com/teachers

 Curious about how to effectively incorporate YouTube into your classroom? Looking for ways to engage the visual learners in your group? Want to access a vast array of free educational content to support your lectures? Hoping to extend the power of your teaching to a global audience through video? Look no further than YouTube.com/teachers, a resource for educators of all levels that will empower you to learn, teach and share through YouTube.

Google for Educators

http://www.google.com/educators

            Slideshare.com 

http://slideshare.com  Powerpoints searchable by topic

Thinkfinity

http://thinkfinity.org

Teachers Domain

http://teachersdomain.org

Webquests
             http://webquest.org

Free Instructional Videos Ð How India is leveraging global video content

http://freevideolectures.com/blog/2010/11/130-nptel-iit-online-courses/

Mashable
http://mashable.com

Social Media sharing site (to mash up is to utilize the work of others in creating curriculum.

 

A History of Global Educational Competition Partnerships Between Youth and Corporations

The role of youth, in partnership with corporations and foundations, demonstrating the educational and collaborative potential of the web is well documented. Starting in 1995, Thinkquest tasked youth in multiple countries to create the first collection of web-based instructional web sites demonstrating online collaboration in order to demonstrate the educational potential of the Internet. Oracle Corporation purchased Thinkquest and their sites include www.think.com for education. 

 

Thinkquest Internet Challenge Competition  Library
http://www.thinkquest.org/library/  National Thinkquest competitions are held annually in many countries.
Explore some of the 6,500 student-created instructional web sites created.

 

IEARN www.iearn.org  
International multi-classroom projects have been sponsored for 20 years involving millions of students in over 80 countries.

 

The Global Schoolhouse is at http://www.gsn.org 
Join the Global SchoolNet worldwide community and collaborate with 90,000 educators from 194 countries. Select the link to the "Projects Registry," and review projects posted by teachers. Note you can post your own projects and/or find other educators with which to partner for multi-classroom projects and review the Cyberfair project and other projects. Cyberfair has a long history as a international competition for elementary youth to create web pages to celebrate eight aspects of their local communities. http://www.globalschoolnet.org/gsncf/  The World Future Society is a sponsor.

 

Epals, www.epals.com 

Claims to be the InternetÕs largest community of collaborative classrooms engaged in cross-cultural exchanges, project sharing and language learning.  

 

Intercultural E-mail Classroom Connections IECC www.iecc.org 

A free easy to use interface and database to quickly locate and contact a student or a class from around the world.
Offers intergenerational partnerships with volunteers over age 50 IECC-INTERGEN

 

Social Entrepreneurship and Social Enterprises

 

Social Entrepreneurship Teaching Resources Handbook

http://www.usasbe.org/knowledge/socialentres/
 

social media for the social good

http://www.devex.com/en/articles/social-media-for-social-good

"Neighbors online" a new Pew social media report just out. http://pewinternet.org/Reports/2010/Neighbors-Online.aspx
 

Social Media CertificateEarn a Social Media Certificate in 8 Weeks 100% Online - Enroll Now! 
www.USanFranOnline.com

Learn to Use NetworksNeed more leads? Use Social Media. Get a Free How-To Kit Here! 
www.HubSpot.com/Social-Media

Facebook Connect is the software by which most online systems can interface with Facebooks growing number of features. Facebook recognizes their future hangs on demonstrated meaningful applications in both the social outcomes areas, as well as the money making, smarmy, snarky, and sleezy mercenary activities.

 
Facebook Causes are often social causes, but can also be advertising venues to promote corporate brands.
 

Facebook Insights are analytics to show you how effective you are creating a following Ð for either your social good, mercenary, or combined social enterprise goals.