General Social Network Tools v. Collaborative Web 2.0 Education Platforms - TCEA 2012

8/3/2019 General Social Network Tools v. Collaborative Web 2.0 Education Platforms - TCEA 2012

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ePals, Inc. Confidential

www.epals.com

[email protected]

Tim DiScipio Founder

Dr. Rita Oates VP Education

General Social Network

Tools vs.Collaborative

Web 2.0 EducationPlatforms

TCEA Booth #1423


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A recent Columbia University studyof college students found that

94% were sharing

personal information on Facebookthat they had not intended to make

public.


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Recent Facebook Statistics

20 million minors on Facebook

7.5 million younger than 13

5 million younger than 10

Fastest-growing user base: ages 8-13


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What are Mass Market

social networks good for?

Twitter: connect teachers on happenings

andevents and brief communication; parents

with homework and tests

Fast, push-out info

Facebook: publicize school events; name with

a face; building friends / project network and

group discussion; RSVPs


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When Teachers Are AskedWhy They

Selected Facebook / Twitter etc

To Use In The Classroom

#1 Answer: Im familiar with it as my own

personal communication tool

#2 Answer: Im not aware of other products

#3 Answer: Saw a teacher demo at a conference


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What are Mass Market social

networks not good for?

Safety & Policy Management

Role-based permissions at customized andadministrator levels

Not always on-task

Students under age 13 (age of consent)

Archiving / Storage ..building a legacy of work

Privacy - personal info tracking / advertising

School / District deployment


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What are Mass Market

social networks not good for?

Not curricular in functionality

Require more time to complete collaborative tasks

Require outside third-party applications be used tocomplete those tasks..needing additionalusername/password accounts = web sprawl

They do not integrate other K12 third-party appswhich are relevant


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Most breach US school usage & safety policies

Usage can easily put student names and

schoolwork with teacher comments out on the

open Web forever

No support / training / professional developmentteam

General Market Social Network Tools


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An Actual School District Policy Excerpt

to District Users OnA

Certain ProductThey Use

Remember that __________ is not an

acceptable storage solution. Do not keepofficial docs here

Do not use ___________ for storage ofstudent data or other secure information.


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District Excerpts On User Support

When you have a technical issue with _________,there is not a lot we can do to assist you.

This also means that __________ will update the toolwhen __________decides to update the tool. This willhappen without announcement and may be(understandably) unsettling to some of you.

We are not made aware of changes in advance, andhave no ability to control the release of new featuresor functionality.

- _____________ Public Schools


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Here are some companies

providing K-12 focused

online products:


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AreWe Teaching Students

the Proper 21st

Century Skills?

We know they should be digital and online

but does that mean anywhere with anyone?

What kinds of communication and net skills are

they acquiring going from nothing directly toFacebook?


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Do students have a public and/or

private space for their work?

Are students focused, on-task and

free of distraction at the moment oflearning and critical thinking?


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Social Learning TheoryLev Vygotzky (1935)

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Learning is cognitive development through social interaction with

adult / instructor guidance and peer collaboration.


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What Is Your Technology

Providers Business Model? K-12 Edu Providers

Free

Subscription-based usage

May be e-rate eligible

Educational content sponsors

Facebook / Twitter

Advertising

User profile data capture to sell to marketers


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Are schools mindful of their

obligations for the personaland schoolwork privacy of

students?

How will we protect studentprivacy under FERPA in the

context of commercial

market profiling of students?Is there school liability

when something goes

wrong?


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Districts indicate students are lesslikely to challenge a school-based

solution with inappropriate behavior


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ePals, Inc. Confidential

The Largest and

Fastest Growing

K-12 Social Learning Network

Leading Provider of Safe K12 Collaboration Technology

www.epals.com


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Customizing and Managing The

Digital Learning and TeachingEco-System

Moving Away From One-Off

Resources and Solutions, Each with

Unique Usernames and Passwords

Enterprise-level deployment


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Internets largest and fastest growing K-12

social learning network, reaching 25M+ teachers

and students in 200 countries and territories

Leading provider of safe, policy-managed

collaborative K12 technology and virtual

workspace tools

Leader in project-based and community-based

methodologies that produce literacy and

meaningful learning online


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> Allows students and their teachers to locate,

connect with and work collaboratively on projects

with another class down the street and around the

world.

> Gives students, parents, teachers and

administrators a secure way to communicate online,

offers instant translation in 35 languages, and allowsadministrators to establish school-safe usage

policies.

> A virtual workspace supporting collaborative

learning and projects through social media tools,

access to high-quality content, digital storage areas

and ePals SchoolMail and Global Community.

> Curriculum-based service for enhancing reading,

writing and critical thinking skills by matching

students with ementor pen pals and high quality

genre-based books & materials.

ePals Products Bring 21st Century Learning to Schools


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Global Community Membership

Teachers

Students Home School

Parents

ePals activities are developed for classrooms. Onlyeducators or parents set up collaborative partnerships.

Activities built for independent student learning and

teacher lesson plans or classroom activities.

Classroom Homeschool

ePals is a Safe Online Classroom Community

700,000

Reaching

25 million


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www.epals.com Home Page


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ePals SchoolSafe Desktop and SchoolSafe

CONNECT

COMMUNICATE

COLLABORATE

Largest social learning network globally. Collaborative

projects, community discussions, global classroom

connections in a safe environment.

ePals solutions enable policy-managed access to third party applications and services

such as Microsoft Office & Web Apps, Skype, Schoolsafe Applications

Enabling schools and classrooms to connect and collaborate with

next generation learning

Enterprise-grade communications solution for K-12.

Robust policy management and embedded instructional

value.

Social learning virtual workspace designed for project-

based learning and group collaboration -- schoolwork /

documents all reside in one place.

LEARN

Curriculum-based literacy program matches students

with e-mentors to enhance reading, writing and critical

thinking skills. First in a series of learning applications

built on the ePals platform.

ePals Solutions Create a Unified Framework


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Who belongs to the ePals Global Community?

> 700,000 educators

Millions of students

who speak 136

different languages

In 200 countries and

territories


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Safe platform for 21st Century collaboration

Connect with approved foreign and domesticclassrooms

On-task and self-directed learning

Home-to-School Connection / Rural SchoolReach

Store and share content and school documents,useWeb 2.0 tools

Enterprise-grade and robust platform built toscale

Policy-management with roles and permissionsgranted

Teacher supervised

Why Schools Use ePals


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ePals Differentiators

1. Designed specifically for K12 safety and

curricular functionality

2. Experts in project-based learning and virtualcollaboration

3. Policy-managed and configures to school

usage-safety policy

4. Expertise on large scale deployments, setupand training

5. Pioneer in social learning


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Yaodong Chens Students in Guangxi, Chinapracticing English with their ePals at PatrickHenry High School in California, USA

China California

Chinese and US High School Students use ePals

for Global Studies, learning about economy and

practicing language


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ePALS helps my students practice English.ePALS is introducing many Chinese students

to authentic English and will help teachers in

China use web-based language teaching

more effectively.- Yaodong Chen, teacher in Southern China who

has connected more than 700 of his students with

native English speakers via ePALS in the last 8 years


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Virtual Communities+

Curricular Collaboration Tools

+Curricular Content

=

Powerful Student Engagement


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A safe K-12 virtual workspace where tools and docsreside in one safe online space with authorizedclassmates, teachers and mentorsTools - email, blogs, wikis, shared portfolios and mediagalleriesSchoolwork / documents -Word, PowerPoints, filesand rich mediaContact Groups - Teachers and classmates

Shared environment with project and document access Open architecture Selected by International Baccalaureate to be their new

global collaboration and learning platform for 700,000users in 140 countries


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ePals LearningSpace in one school


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Teacher view


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My Homepage


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Teachers and students can create profiles seen only

by their virtual classroom and school community


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Classes


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Assignments


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Calendar


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Groups


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Connections


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Files


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Authenticated Homepage


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Inbox


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Moderate Mail: Teacher Task


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Address Book


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Moderation and Policy Badges


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Smart Address Book


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1st Email to Embed

Language Translation

into an Email Browser(1999)


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Educational Partners


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The class collaborates in the cloud


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- and in the classroom.


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ImagineImagine

ThisThis

M t h t ff d I f llM t h t ff d I f ll


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My tech staff and I are on a conference call.My tech staff and I are on a conference call.

Somebody asks a question about the newSomebody asks a question about the new

schoolschool--safe global collaboration platform wesafe global collaboration platform weare pilot testingare pilot testing


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and discover thatand discover that schoolschool isis in sessionin session..

ON A SNOW DAY!

So we logSo we log--in to:in to:


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Shakespeare on Snow Days

An entire classroom of students logged into their ePals

LearningSpace on an emergency snow day to completetheir Shakespeare project.

The teacher never asked them to, she never participated,

she just watched the teamwork, self-directed learning andcritical thinking all happening virtually on a snow day off!


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The amount of writing that our fourthgraders are doing in LearningSpace hasincreased 9 10 times over the last year

The quality of work has increased

because they now see and comment oneach others work.

- ePals LearningSpace Teacher in NY

anywhere and anytime they want


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anywhere and anytime they want

d h b h d h


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Digital-age learners of all ages

can benefit from using web 2.0

collaboration technology.

Mrs. Arnolds 4th Grade Classroom Blog

So do their brothers and sisters in the

elementary schools.

Classrooms can connect to collaborate in the schools


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Classrooms can connect to collaborate in the schools


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Providing a cloud-based, school-safeWeb 2.0 collaboration

platform can inspire digital native students to make

schoolwork part of their reallives outside of school. Thepower of authentic, collaborative engagement can transform a

class into a connected learning community.

Communication and Collaboration

Can Make A RealDifference

But just when we thought we were done


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Students have many talents they cant always use during the

school day. The ePals LearningSpace global collaboration

platform is 21st Century,Web 2.0, social, communicative,

collaborative, multimedia, anytime and anywhere just like

them. Technology can empower students and teachers to do

some of their best work. For some students and teachers,

that means Multimedia.

The Multimedia Started

We found students had skills and abilities we

didnt know about in their projects and

sharing!

Writing and Recording Original Music: Hamlet as a Pop Song


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Writing and Recording Original Music: Hamlet as a Pop Song


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LearningSpace Case Studies


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More LearningSpace Case Studies


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Your presenters:

Tim DiScipio, [email protected]

Rita Oates, PhD, VP, Education

[email protected]

@ritaoates

See case studies ofLearningSpace in K12 schools:

http://learningspace.epals.com

Documents

General Social Network Tools v. Collaborative Web 2.0 Education Platforms - TCEA 2012