New Book I'm Reading

I'm reading the most fascinating book. It's called 'Rewired: Understanding the iGeneration and the way they learn' by Larry D. Rosen, Ph.D. It's about how educators should be enbracing technology, such as Wireless Mobile Devices, and using them in their day to day teaching (sound familar, anyone?)

The most interesting statement that the book has said so far (I'm only on page 71 out of 226) is, and I quote: "The research does demonstrate rather convincingly that students who communicate during a learning experience (including texting) perform equally as well as those who just read the material and have no outside communication-it just takes them longer to finish the assignment." Kinda of pulls the rug out from under the traditionalist way of teaching, doesn't it?

It also states that teachers should embrace the social netwroking sites, such as facebook, as a means of communicating with their students. In one example, a teacher created a group on Facebook about a particular novel the class was reading, and told his students that he expected everyone to respond to at least one comment.

The results of this were amazing: the students actually read the book (instead of using online summeries or Cliff Note apps), and it promoted class discussion regarding the text.

In summary, this is a great book that I would highly recommend to anyone thinking of using the student's technology in the classroom. The link for those of you interested in buying this book is on the side  under 'Websites to Visit'.