April Hilland's Profile

The shape of a social network helps determine a network's usefulness to its individuals. Smaller, tighter networks can be less useful to their members than networks with lots of loose connections (weak ties) to individuals outside the main network. More open networks, with many weak ties and social connections, are more likely to introduce new ideas and opportunities to their members than closed networks with many redundant ties. In other words, a group of friends who only do things with each other already share the same knowledge and opportunities. A group of individuals with connections to other social worlds is likely to have access to a wider range of information. It is better for individual success to have connections to a variety of networks rather than many connections within a single network. Similarly, individuals can exercise influence or act as brokers within their social networks by bridging two networks that are not directly linked (called filling structural holes).^[4]

"Today, the definition of literacy has expanded from traditional notions of reading and writing to include the ability to learn, comprehend, and interact with technology in a meaningful way"

The authors of this report defined reading comprehension as "the process of simultaneously extracting and constructing meaning through interaction and involvement with written language"

"We could read parts of books, to show why we like them. We could do interviews. If there's a field trip, we could make a recording of it and post it," said Mohamed El-Sayed, 10. "Kids anywhere will like to hear about us."

To make a podcast on the Revolutionary War, Sanborn had her students spend a couple of weeks researching their material in books and on the Internet before shaping it into a script. They were graded on the written script, but what really motivated them, Sanborn said, was the hope that their work would be chosen for the 8 ½-minute podcast.