Monday, June 25, 2012

Welcome to SmartBlog on Education « My Island View

Welcome to SmartBlog on Education « My Island View:


Welcome to SmartBlog on Education

For several years, I have been involved with social media as an educator — asking questions and sometimes providing answers with other educators. I was once asked for my special power. My answer: “My ability to connect the dots.”
It enables me to look smart without knowing the answer to the question, because I connect people with questions to those with answers. That is one of the advantages of being a connected educator. Social media is a great vehicle for these connections because of the vast variety of collaboration-minded educators who populate it and their willingness to help. It’s a teacher thing. What I like the best about social media is that ideas are considered on their own merit, without regard to the title of the person offering them. Administrators, teachers and students are all equals.
Some of the brightest educators I have known over my 40-year career are people I met through social media. Without Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Google+ and others, I would not be connected to as many educators as I 

A Letter to Change.Org « Diane Ravitch's blog

A Letter to Change.Org « Diane Ravitch's blog:


A Letter to Change.Org

Dear Change.Org,
You told the world that you stopped collecting the signatures of unknowing people for StudentsFirst.
You didn’t tell the truth.
You informed me that I was a member of StudentsFirst because I signed a petition on your website a year ago.
I never knowingly signed on as a member of StudentsFirst.
I was duped.
Apparently StudentFirst has cynically used your website to dupe a million other people as they duped me.