Social media is turning education upside down. “Kids are coming to the Columbia University library now mostly to use the coffee bar,” says Kate Wittenberg, Director of Columbia’s Electronic Publishing Initiative (EPIC). “This upsets librarians. Yet the Columbia Library page on Facebook has over 1,000 friends. They are coming to the library […]

The second panelist explained how her company is helping social media expand. Karon Weber recently joined the Yahoo!’s Youth and Education Research Group after two decades of developing digital animation software. She said that social media operates at the intersection of people, media, and technology.

Karon Weber.  Click for larger image.
Yahoo runs three of the biggest […]

Handheld technologies are emerging as powerful educational tools for six reasons, said the third and fourth panelists, Jennifer S Groff, Program Manager, and Eric Rosenbaum, Research Manager, from The Teacher Education Program at the Massachusetts institute of Technology (MIT). Game Boy game consoles, cell phones, play stations, Tamagachi toys, Palm Pilots, and pocket […]

Julie Evans is the CEO of NetDay/Project Tomorrow, an organization devoted to promoting innovation in the teaching of science, technology, and math.  Net Day is known for its “Speak Up” surveys, which explore the attitudes of students and teachers.  Julie is also a panelist at the “WebKids” session of the NSDL Annual Meeting, and she […]

Eric Rosenbaum and Jennifer Groff are on the “Meeting Web Kids” panel  at NSDL’s Annual Conference.  They work for MIT’s Education Arcade, which is a collaboration between MIT and the University of Wisconsin to explore the educational gaming space.  Its web site is about to undergo a major renovation, but you can see information there […]

Kate Wittenberg recently placed a wake-up call that ought to jolt any sleepyheads who still think that publishing is the business of putting ink on paper. “Students have been quietly revolutionizing the discovery and use of information,” she wrote in the June 16 issue of the Chronicle of Higher Education. “Most students today arrive at […]

Brad Edmondson is a journalist who has been writing about NSDL for the last three years. He is the former Editor-In-Chief of American Demographics magazine and co-founder of ePodunk.com, which offers free, comprehensive profiles of places in the U.S., Canada, and the United Kingdom.