NLP: Week 1

This week I started my research of reforming education, and I succeeded in getting a feel for the basics. Education reform is largely about changing and updating public education to meet students' in today's world. I have been using technology to study ed. reform, and it has lead me to study technology itself, because part of reforming our education involves technology. Although there are many challenges that tech can bring to the classroom, it is widely accepted that modern technology and the internet are powerful tools for learning. I am excited to be able to experience this firsthand.

Some examples:

Diigo is a useful tool for online research. It allows you to bookmark sites and keep them organized, among other things. Here's a link to my bookmarks that have been tagged for my Web 2.0 Foundations class.

Twitter is also a useful tool for school. Recently I have been following some people who are doing great things in the field of education, and I have learned a lot from them. For example, when I published my last blog post, I tweeted it out and asked for research ideas on ed. reform. Within no time, Nikhil Goyal (17 year old author of One Size Does Not Fit All: A Students's Assessment of School) responded. This type of interaction is nearly impossible to have without the internet.

Evernote is a great note-taking application that I started to use this weak. It eliminates the need worry about loosing you notes as it can be synced with almost all of your devices. I have only used it to jot down a few ideas, but I know that when used to its full potential, it will work organizational wonders.

Google Alerts is another handy tool to use for school. It uses the search capabilities of google search, except it bring the results to you. Every time something is published that has your selected keyword/s, it sends it to you or your feed. I used this with the words "education reform" and now I have the latest developments in field at my fingertips.