You Should Read... Nov. 27th, 2012

Smithsonian Institute's Photo Stream

I had the opportunity the past few days to read and uncover a panoply of thought provoking articles and blog posts by folks in my personal learning network. Listed below are a couple I would like to share and I believe you should read...

•  Return to Sender - Why Education Must Innovate 

 Dr. Marschhausen compares the current U.S. Postal system to the state of education today. He encourages schools to evolve with the times and innovate to better serve the needs of our students.

"...a national news program that was reporting that the US Postal Service is currently losing $25 million per day and ready to default on the first of two $500 million loans from the federal government." 

 "Use your imagination to turn the clock back 25 years.  Imagine if the U.S. Postal Service had the foresight and innovative approach to move to every-other-day mail delivery in the mid-1980’s – and at the same time this revenue savings was applied to innovative projects and development of additional services.  Instead of UPS or Federal Express cutting more and more into the market, the U.S. Postal Service may have produced creative alternatives.  In addition to this stagnation, the emergence of on-line banking and bill paying has reduced the volume of some business mail.  Simply stated, the post office does what it does very well . . . we just may not need it done the same way any longer."

Schools cannot fall into the same trap as the postal system. Fiscal responsibility as well as providing the best learning opportunities for students requires change. Clayton Christianson predicts in his book Disrupting Class that 50% of all high school courses will be online by 2019. This creates a problem for traditional brick and mortar schools. I agree with Dr. Marschhausen when he states,

"Blended and digital learning are the equivalent of Federal Express and online bill paying.  Public schools must act now or face growing competition, a declining market share, and continued questions about relevance.  There is a tremendous opportunity."

This is an amazing time to be in education. Yes, there are a lot of changes, reform movements and challenges but I see these challenges as an opportunity to make something really great for kids.

• 6 Ways For Teachers  To Successfully Use Social Media

 Edudemic is becoming one of my favorite blogs. I visit it often and they always have great information for educators. I recently read this post about teachers and social media. Many times social media gets a bad rap because we only hear the bad things but there are so many good ways to use social media with students. We need to harness the power of social media to support student learning.
Here are a few of the suggestions shared by edudemic:

1. Hold virtual office hours.
2. Have your students live tweet lectures.
3. Have your students create a blog.