The rise in the mainstream use of open source software in education shows the need for low to no cost software. California has called upon companies to submit their open source textbooks for review in K-12 schools. Radio TICAL veteran and the Director of CoSN’s K-12 Open Technologies Iniative, Steve Hargadon, shares an overview and the benefits of adopting open source software in your schools.
Rick Fitzpatrick, principal at Rother Elementary School in Enterprise Elementary School District shares how his school has exited program improvement. He provides specific strategies he uses to facilitate the change process including gathering teacher input on a variety of topics and allotting frequent staff collaboration time. Rick also highlights his school’s continual analysis of data as well as celebrations that are held in the community.
Part 4: Social Networks as the Educational Norm In the final interview, Steve addresses the public’s misconceptions regarding high bullying rates on social networks as well as sharing his views of ubiquitous use of social networks and social media for both teaching and learning and professional development. He explains the widespread use of this media by young people and how site monitoring is done by the users themselves.
Part 3: Sustaining Social Networks In the third of four interviews, Steve Hargadon shares how teachers and administrators are quickly starting their own social networks for educational purposes. He provides some reasons why many adults shy away from sharing online, but explains how empowering it is. Lastly, The connection between elearning and social networks are also discussed to show the correlation between the two.
Part 2: Widespread Use of Social Networks In Society In the second of four interviews, Steve Hargadon explains the various tools used in social networks and how they can be applied in educational settings both for professional development and teaching and learning. Steve shares how these networks can be used to create meaningful conversations globally.
Part 1: The Genesis of Social Networks in Education
In the first of four interviews Steve Hargadon, creator of the social networks Classroom 2.0, The CUE Community, and many others shares how he got involved in assisting educators in using social media— first with blogs and then with social networking and virtual meetings. You will hear how Steve’s vision for using social networks in education came to be.
Gabe Soumakian, Assistant Superintendent of Human Resources in Burbank Unified School District spoke with Professor of Educational Leadership Stephen Kay for a second time regarding how Burbank USD is implementing their district’s 21st century vision by adding several programs. Gabe shares the various ways the district is transitioning to a paperless environment for documents, student and personnel records, and surveying.