"Facebook has hit the 500 million member mark, adding 100 million new users to its ranks in the past six months alone."
http://www.v3.co.uk/v3/analysis/2266968/facebook-500m-users
"If Facebook were a country, it would be the third largest one in the world. "
"Mobile searches across Google's Android operating system increased 300 percent over the first six months of 2010. Its mobile traffic has grown 500 percent over the last two years.
The Android platform has 160,000 devices activated daily. That's two every second."
“It doesn’t seem as hard as a computer.” (5th grade teacher, upstate New York)
The referent of the “it” is a cellphone. Cathie was talking with a teacher who was participating in a “hands-on,” professional development workshop on the use of smartphones in the classroom. The teachers were seeing what a lesson on the water cycle would look like where all the learning activities carried out by the students and all the informational resources needed were accessed on/through the smartphone. And, since texting and voice calling were disabled by the carrier, the smartphone was literally functioning in the same capacity as desktop/laptop/netbook computer.
Cathie: The quotes speak for themselves.
Elliot: Yes, but…
Cathie: … I knew you couldn’t resist talking… ha ha ha…. But what?
Elliot: The scale of the growth is what gets me in those quotes – 500 percent, 300 percent, 500 hundred million, 100 hundred million and then 1 teacher.
Cathie: <spoken in a tone dripping with irony> I have told you this for how many years? Each and every teacher is THE gatekeeper of his or her classroom; if the teacher is uncomfortable with it, then the students won’t see it, whatever IT is. We change education one teacher at a time, one classroom at a time.
Elliot: Keep reminding me… I am a little slow sometimes…
Cathie: …sometimes?
Elliot: …. especially when it comes to practical matters.
Cathie: The fact that the smartphone is, for all practical purposes a computer, is not the issue.
Elliot: Yes, the teacher perceives the smartphone as being less complex, less intimidating than a regular computer.
Cathie: Teachers are familiar with the cellphones; they use them every day. Using them in the classroom then is not an issue.
Elliot: I don’t have the patience to change education one classroom at a time!! I want to move faster!
Cathie: Sorry, Charlie…
Elliot: Ok, blog readers, to whom is Cathie referring?
Cathie: What you want is of little consequence, but you are doing a good job, Elliot…
Elliot: ... thank you!
Cathie: … changing education – one teacher at a time!
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