Prezi, Tablets, and Social Media in Education

I have been really busy with graduate school for the past few weeks, but I wanted to throw this out there for a two fold purpose. One is to show a new type of presentation tool called Prezi (not all that new) and the second is to open some deabte about the role of social networking in education.

Below is a link to a presentation I made this past summer for a mock faculty meeting. This is also a chance for me to try blogging on a Droid Tablet, which my wife and I went for on Sunday night when my computer died druring a week when I really needed to be studying for an eight hour exam this coming this Saturday. Just a simple post to investigate the tablet viability for blogging.

I guess this is really a three-pronged reason for posting (if you don't count taking a break from studying).

Prezi on Social Networking by Pete Mody

Researcher: Technology might be returning us to Stone Age-thinking

from eSchoolNews.com » Top News by Meris Stansbury

It’s not a new concept: Technology is changing the way we think. But one prominent researcher at a recent conference discussed a more controversial idea: Technology could be moving us away from innovation and progress, and closer to the Stone Age in terms of how we process information—a scary thought, considering the country’s desperate call for 21st-century thinking.

This disturbing theory comes from Pulitzer Prize nominee and New York Times bestseller Nicholas Carr’s book The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brain. And at the 15th annual American Association of School Librarians (AASL) conference in Minneapolis, Minn., Carr emphasized that it’s not just adults who should be worried.

“Schools and libraries are good places to see a snapshot of the cultural mindset on digital issues and change, and what they’re showing us is that instant access to information is everywhere,” said Carr.

Carr began his opening keynote by relating his own experiences with technology and the internet, saying he one day realized he had a harder time concentrating on one task.

“My mind wanted to jump around and not go word-to-word in a linear way. I thought: My mind wants to behave like the internet, like my smart devices,” he explained.

Carr then began to research why this brain pattern change could be happening. The answer, he found, lies in neuroscience and psychology.

According to Carr’s research, the invention of the internet is nothing new, in terms of history—objects like the map and the clock also changed the way our brains operate.

For the full article: http://www.eschoolnews.com/2011/11/01/researcher-technology-might-be-returning-us-to-stone-age-thinking/

The ModyBlog is a Changin'

Alright, so this blog has become massively defunct over the past two years. I just realized that there is nothing I need to say that is that important. So I am making a change and taking something I used to for GlobalSpec out for spin and I am going to tackle Tech in Education here instead. Hopefully it will generate some conversation, but since I think Jake is my only current reader, that might be too much pressure!

Gender Revealed

We are having a boy!!!
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Updated Blog Roll

I have decided to add all of the blogs that I write for in the right hand column for easier navigation. They will auto-update every time a new entry is added. Please keep in mind just because it is there, doesn't mean I am always the author. There are several of the blogs that have multiple authors.

If you see ShakespeareTheEngineer in the byline, those are ones that I have written. Any other names (like TechOutReach - who is Mr. Reach, Jaxy, Natural Pro or Moose) are people who are on the same editorial team with me.