innovation — AEJMC Hot Topics

5 Ways to Bring Innovation Into the Classroom

By Tina Barseghian on KQED, August 27 –

For many schools across the country, today marks the first day of a new year. In addition to thinking about tools that help boost educators’ teaching practice, this moment might be a good time to pull back and think about some big-picture ideals, too. Here are a few to consider.

1. INFUSE PASSION INTO LEARNING.

Nine Tenets of Passion-Based Learning. Educators who focus on integrating kids’ own interests and passions into the curriculum will see them flourish as learners. Educators can think about integrating such practices as showing relevance of what students are studying to life outside school, connecting with parents, and using digital media as a way to spark interests and spreading ideas.

2. TRY SOMETHING NEW.

Jumping Into the 21st Century. For both veteran educators and newbies, the temptation to stick to what’s acceptable and what’s been done is hard to overcome. Educator Shelley Wright talks about how she took the plunge and redesigned the entire structure of her teaching practice. Her goal? “Changing to a student-centered, skill-based, technology embedded classroom,” she says.

Read the full post on KQED

How Steve Jobs has changed (but not saved) journalism

By Jeff Sonderman on Poynter.org, Aug. 25 – Steve Jobs resigned Wednesday as CEO of Apple Inc., but his legacy will be felt in the news industry for years to come.

In the past five years, Jobs’ Apple has simultaneously disrupted, transformed and aided the news industry.

It created or at least defined almost every aspect of mobile consumer technology that is now part of media’s future and its fastest-growing segment. The iPhone and iPad created inescapable trends. They were not just devices but whole new product categories and new content economies.

The iPhone was not the first smartphone. But it was the first to employ a full-face touchscreen, to decide finger taps and swipes were better than buttons, and to unleash the enormous power of third-party apps. Its largest competitors — Android and BlackBerry — have largely followed Apple’s lead in their devices and software.

The iPad was in some ways less new; it borrowed the same operating system and app environment from the iPhone. But in other ways it was entirely different — a whole new category of product between phones and laptops.

The iPad has proven to be an ideal device for long reading sessions, often at home during leisure time. As such, it is competing with print products that had served that purpose, while also offering new long-term hope of a digital transition for publishers.

Read the full article on Poynter