The Student Reporting Labs of PBS Newshour has been going strong for years. Now is educators’ chance to usher in a new era of reporting.
Journalism needs us now more that ever. With the blistering attack that the media is getting from the left and the right, whether it’s the non-stop sputtering of Hillary’s emails, or Sean Spicer unloading “alternative facts” in a White House press briefing, the role of the journalist has never been more in question. At the same time, good journalists have also never been more necessary. We need people who aren’t afraid to ask tough questions, learn how read between the lines, and get to the heart of a story.
We need good journalists.
On my wish list would be scientifically…
Helping teachers to grasp new technology has, over the years, been a challenge, as any school technology coordinator will tell you. Sitting in staff meetings when the proverbial naysayers question the direction of technology in the classroom is a routine part of the process. You listen, and continue to point the train toward the future.
In my role as STEAM Coordinator and tech educator for that past 10 years, I’ve seen classroom technology evolve from webquests to Web 2.0 to collaborative documents spearheaded by Google Apps (now known as G-Suite). Google Apps were all the rage in 2009, and I…
President Obama, in a presidential proclamation, proclaimed the week of June 17th, 2016 as the “Week of Making” all across the United States.
Having just returned from The White House for the kickoff to the Week of Making and witnessing the Champions for Change event, celebrating makers from all over the United States, the winds of change are moving in the direction of creating community makerspaces.
What is a makerspace, might you ask? A makerspace is a gathering place for creatives, business developers, tinkerers, do-it-yourselfers, artists and more- to design and build things. It’s a place where people from the…
Twitter ignored how its small, dedicated communities were using its service, and now it’s suffering because of it.
We’re reading it everywhere right now: Twitter is dead.
One of my favorite writers and tweeters is Mathew Ingram, a writer for Fortune and one of those journalists who makes themselves extremely accessible on Twitter. You can usually expect him to respond to your tweets, like a modern journalist does. It makes what you’re reading even that more interactive when you’re able to chat with the author.
This is why I love Twitter.
I follow Mathew on Facebook, but there, Mathew’s profile is not public where just anyone can comment on one of his articles. He clearly favors Twitter as…
This holiday season is turning out to be a great season for Virtual Reality. Verizon stores are giving away free Google Cardboard headsets. What is Google Cardboard? It turns your smart phone into a virtual reality headset! You can’t beat free, and you can’t beat VR!
Why is this important? The amount of new immersive content available on YouTube (and other apps) related to science, STEM, and more is an opportunity for our kids to be whisked away to new planets, solar systems, jungles, and experiences. And with a 360 Degree camera- we can also create immersive content.
This is…
Brace Yourselves for a New Wave of Classroom Integration
By Daniel Rezac
Every year in the last days of June, twenty-thousand educators gather for what could be known as the “Auto Show” of education technology. The ISTE conference, as it’s known, showcases the latest innovations happening in the ed tech space. Students, teachers, exhibitors, and district leaders share their strategies, their struggles, and their triumphs in the classroom with these many new tools.
If you’re a parent, you don’t have to care about this event, but rest assured- what happens at ISTE, like a Paris fashion show, is going…
For those of us who aren’t educators, Twitter for teachers is an entirely different beast. It’s not about celebrities; it’s about connecting and sharing.
There was a time a few years ago when, for the tech-education zealots, Twitter was the thing. Every education conference had its own hashtag (and still does), and the promise of sharing- the ease of sharing using Twitter was hard to resist. For many- it was addictive.
These “techucators” jumped on Twitter, connected, shared, and waited in droves for their school Personal Learning Networks (PLN) to explode. They did workshops, created all-school hashtags. And they waited…
This post is also cross-posted to my blog HyprFocal.com. You can connect with me there or follow me @drezac for more about education and the media.
Sometimes it’s good to get a dose of reality.
Last April I stumbled upon an EdSurge post entitled, “Twitter Exec Reports that Educators Dominate the Twitter-sphere.” I kind of sat on that news for a while, waiting for educators to uproariously respond to it, either positively or negatively. That… never really happened. The National #ConnectEd movement, at least as it’s been promoted by Ed.gov was in full swing for over a year, however, the…
It Breaks Every Time
Just listened to This Week in Google with Jeff Jarvis and Leo Laporte. Great show, which is getting to be less and less about Google, and more about Jeff’s increasingly innovative ideas about how we can change journalism and the news.
I find it fascinating how Leo Laporte’s model for Tech News Tonight and Tech News Today goes completely contrary to his co-host Jeff’s new vision of news. …
The Alternate Life of Billy Joel: A Mirror Universe Biopic
Billy Joel is a star. That’s undeniable. He’s The Piano Man. He’s sold 150 million records.
But he could have had another life. A different life.
He’s often said that his inspiration for “We Didn’t Start the Fire,” the popular song from 1989, was that he was a “history nut,” and he’s quoted as saying “at one point I wanted to be a history teacher.”
What if he was? What if, because of Mr. Joel’s own known personal demons, life took a different turn, and he had not become the famous pop artist that we all know…
Daniel Rezac
Education Community Manager @ Tynker.com, Maker Faire Producer, EdCamp Illinois Organizer, Illinois Computing Educator. Proud Maker.
