A couple weeks ago, Karen Blumberg and Don Buckley sent out a great article on teenagers social networking behavior. Instead of an article warning parents and teachers about online safety which has been the focus of discussion for many years regarding social networking, it referred to the MacArthur Foundation Reports on Digital Media and Learning. The report finds that youth engage in peer-based, self-directed learning online. Below are some notable quotes:
“Teens share their creations and receive feedback from others online. By it’s immediacy and breadth of information, the digital world lowers barriers to self-directed learning.”
“New media allow for a degree of freedom and autonomy for youth that is less apparent in a classroom setting,” the study said. “Youth respect one another’s authority online, and they are often more motivated to learn from peers than from adults.”
“Implications: New media forms have altered how youth socialize and learn, and raise a new set of issues that educators, parents, and policymakers should consider.”
You can also find more information about the research at the link below:
http://digitalyouth.ischool.
From this discussion came the topic for NYCIST’s December meeting, which will be held as Spence today, December 17, 2008 at 4:00PM EST. After sending out a Google Form, I received several responses with quality additions to the topic. Adam Kenner, from Horace Mann suggested that we spend a little time also talking about Michael Wesch’s collaborative learning method using web 2.0 tools. I’m looking forward to hearing more from Adam on this topic.
The meeting will be streamed live at starting at about 4:15 EST at http://www.ustream.tv/channel/nycist. Join us and participate! You can also go to http://nycist.net anytime to view the meeting notes, and the video recording of the session. We are looking forward to hearing from you!
Here I am testing out ustream.tv and camtwist!


I’ve been discussing the possibility of moving our school to Google Apps instead of Firstclass for some time now. The benefits are a no brainer for the IT side of things. No server work, lots of space (6 gigs), and it’s free. There are also plenty of benefits from the academic side of things. Teachers and students can share documents, calendars, and sites. I don’t want to write about the features of Google Apps.
I also think planting the seeds for a grassroots bottom-up approach is important. So when thinking about changing to Google Apps, I know that I need an “ambassador” of change in each academic department. This worked very well for our change to Moodle. We first had a trial period, in which the early adopters took to it quickly and loved it. I also did a little bit of “selling” to Faculty that I thought would be interested. This gave a strong base of people comfortable with Moodle before implementing it school wide. The Faculty room was then full of “ambassadors” for Moodle and were very helpful to others. I’m hoping that the same can happen with Google Apps. Of course it helps when the technology is great to begin with, much like Moodle and Google Apps!






