Social media and reputation preservation!

esafety

This week Victorian media has been alive with the news of AFL (Australian Football League) recruit, Jake Carlisle, shown in a social media video where he appears to be snorting a line of white powder.  Leaked to the general media a day after he’d been signed to a new football club, this video actually came from the footballer’s own mobile phone and was distributed via his own SnapChat account.  A thoughtless action that has exposed his behaviour to the world and tarnished his reputation forever.

This is just one of the incidents our Year 9 Coordinator and I discussed today as we planned a digital citizenship program for Year 9 boys.  It’s essential that students have the opportunity to learn these skills.  To be effective, however, lessons should not be solely instruction or a one-off presentation from a visiting speaker, but should include time for students to have conversations with their peers.  They need time to exchange experiences and to clarify their own held beliefs if the message is to ‘stick’.

Enhancing Online Safety is the new website of the Australian Government – Office of the eSafety Commissioner.  It replaces the very popular ACMA Cyber[Smart] website and includes all the materials from that site.  This is an excellent resource for teaching digital citizenship to students at any year level.  Lesson plans and resources are organised in age-appropriate categories with videos and linked descriptions.

For example, the page Games, apps and social media: quick guide to social media sites and apps has links to 50+ sites popular with young people.  Knowledge and open discussion is easier when backed by quality information and this new site is a wealth of information.  Voluntary teacher certification is also available and will appeal to teachers who wish to build their own skills for teaching a digital citizenship program.

Enhancing Online Safety is a highly recommended resource.  The site is extensive and growing.  I suggest using the site map to support your exploration.  Students need to hear this message often and from many different angles if they are to become responsible in their online communications.  Digital citizenship instruction doesn’t address their behaviour but at least it may give them the chance to save their reputation for the time when they have matured and have their behaviour under control.

Hour of Code – skills and awareness

hour-of-codeThe Hour of Code is an international activity aimed at involving K-12 students in the understanding and creation of computer code.  Initiated by Hadi Partovi, the Hour of Code attracted approximately 20 million participants in 2013, the majority of whom were from the US.  This year the message has spread further with the goal to attract 100 million participants worldwide. With today’s students living and, potentially working, in a technology-saturated world, digital literacy is an essential skill. Hadi Partovi, founder and CEO of non-profit organisation behind the Hour of Code – Code.org explains the need for students to have a better understanding of how technology works, saying:

The Hour of Code is designed to demystify code and show that computer science is not rocket-science, anybody can learn the basics.

Students can register to participate in the Hour of Code between 8-12 December.  This is difficult timing for the Victorian students who finished school for the year last week, however, a bit of forward planning may be able to sort something out for next year.  Students aim to achieve the goal of participating in one hour of code development and the understanding of how code works.  Computers are not essential.  Computational thinking is the aim and educator Vicki Davis provides a range of options in her Edutopia post 15+ ways of teaching every student to code (even without a computer).

How to run an Hour of Code

Chris Betcher in writing for ABC Splash explains the importance of this initiative:

…this push towards helping our students learn the ideas of coding is not simply about getting them to write computer programs. It’s about helping them to learn to think clearly; identify and analyse problems; come up with creative, innovative solutions; and, ultimately, help make the world a better place. The thing about coding is that it’s far more about learning to think clearly and creatively than it is about doing nerdy computer stuff. Put simply, good coders are usually good thinkers.

Also check out The Hour of Code @ Splash and take your students to a new level of thinking.   This initiative also supports changes to the Australian Curriculum for Victorian schools to be introduced in 2015 whereby the Technologies program will include both Design and Technologies as well as Digital Technologies in place of the General Capability – ICT.

Untangling the Web with Aleks Krotoski

Aleks Krotoski is an academic,  psychologist and journalist who writes about the impact of technology on our lives. Aleks’ upcoming book Untangling the Web: What the Internet is Doing to You, explores the ways the web can influence our relationships and change our perceptions of ourselves and others.

Aleks is in Australia as the inaugural speaker for the Digital Society series at the State Library of Victoria (tickets are still available for both free events on May 20 & May 21). We were lucky enough to speak to Aleks about her work. You can listen to the full interview below, as Aleks explores the importance of cultivating an online persona,  the tension that exists between our private and public selves and the importance of information literacy. She also shares her ambition to own a full set of the 1974 Encyclopaedia Britannica.

 


Portrait of ASeks Krotoski © Kevin MeredithShow notes and links:

Aleks’ online reporter’s notebook for Untangling the Web

Aleks Krotoski on Twitter

Aleks’ Tech Weekly podcast series

Aleks interviews T. Mills Kelly on Lying about the past

Delete: The Virtue of Forgetting in the Digital Age by Viktor Mayer-Schönberger (Amazon)

Google’s Eric Schmidt: The Internet needs a delete button  

 

 

Tags: You’re it!

Students and educators are embracing all the advantages of digital technology; they are writing blog posts, sharing annotated diagrams and photos, creating video clips and much, much more. Many of these digital items are being uploaded/shared in the hope of attracting an audience and engaging in real world conversations for authentic learning. So, why do some items receive a lot of attention, while others are ignored? Often it is because of the way an item has been tagged, which makes the item much more ‘findable’.

Tags are words or short phrases attached to items posted online. You might see them on blogs, wikis, and social bookmarking sites; you’ll definitely find them on social media sites such as YouTube, Flickr, Tumblr, and Facebook. (It’s even possible to add tags to your own Word documents and all the photos saved on your hard drive.) New media explorer and consultant, Robin Good explains them simply as:

… short keywords that define what your online digital content is all about.

Social Media Word Cloud

Social Media Word Cloud by Rubber Dragon (Flickr CC)

Why tag?

Tagging is the primary way of labelling items on Web 2.0 sites so they can be easily found when searching/ browsing, but it can also be used for:

  • organising
  • classifying
  • applying identity/ownership

While tags look like keywords, they work a little differently. Tagging is an informal system and often a personal one; tags are chosen and assigned by the creators (and sometimes the viewers). This can make a search more meaningful or less so, depending on the creator’s and user’s understandings of the tag words attached. By including tags that go beyond browser-assigned keywords, the content becomes even more accessible. On many sites, tagging is a collaborative activity, so the more people tag on an item/site, the more accessible items become and the more useful the site becomes. Tags  also increase searchability because they are normally visible on pages so can actively link users to related items with the same tags.

Smart Tagging

If you have never tagged in item before (or even if you have), here are a few tips:

  • choose tags that are descriptive
  • choose tags that are specific
  • be comprehensive (most sites allow you to tag generously)
  • think like your potential audience, choose tags effective for their searches
  • tag with singular and plural forms of a word, if relevant
  • use suggested tags, if relevant (many sites have tools that offer suggestions)
  • do a little scouting on the site you are using (eg. Flickr) to see what tags others are using to describe items similar to yours
  • do the same on Google to see what comes up (Tip: watch Google’s auto-suggestions as you type in search terms)

Understanding and using tags is a digital literacy skill that any teacher can discuss and encourage with students, and one that could generate positive results for your students’ online efforts.

Howard Rheingold talks about being Net Smart

The Circulating Ideas podcast recently featured a fascinating discussion with author and digital literacy expert Howard Rheingold. Rheingold’s book Net Smart explores literacy in a digital age and touches on some of the skills that are critical for learning, particularly in regards to online information access.

You can download Steve Thomas’ interview with Howard Rheingold from the Circulating Ideas podcast stream (Itunes).  In the interview Rheingold speaks about the role of Wikipedia in research, Facebook’s threat to an open web culture and some of the skills that all learners need to find reliable and authoritive information online. Rheingold also advocates for the importance of librarians in teaching critical literacy skills and modelling effective research techniques.

For more of Howard Rheingold’s thoughts about the topic you might also read an interview with him by Henry Jenkins entitled How did Howard Rheingold get so Net Smart? You can find links to the three part interview below and keep up to date with Howard’s work through his website and on Twitter.

How did Howard Rheingold get so Net Smart? Interview: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

 

Student blogging with Verona Gridley

Verona Gridley, classroom teacher at St Luke the Evangelist School has developed an excellent blog that acts as a resource for her students.

Screen shot 2010-10-30 at 8.33.36 AM

Verona explains how she uses JuniorsJig with her students.

When our students reflect on what they have learnt in class, they are proficiently taking out some of their implicit understandings and clearly documenting it in the form of a blog. By both reading and commenting on others’ blogs, students start to learn from each other. A blog is a tool. It is a learning tool that can be tapped into by students, parents, and the global community.

Our Class Blog has enabled me to integrate all curriculum areas by promoting multiple literacies and skills. Through reflection on our discoveries and experiences we are able to share and deepen our understandings. It shows growth over time of our new learning, connecting with experts and finding out from broader sources.

There are growing connections with readers that show the great advantages of being part of a network and receiving feedback from contributors within a broader community. Our class has received feedback from all corners of the globe. When we received comments from beyond the school community a new digital dimension is opened. Overseas teachers, students and parents are taking the time to read our blog and leave meaningful and thoughtful comments.

Students are aware, that they are able to reach out beyond the schoolyard to share discoveries and experiences and in turn touch someone enough to leave a thought or offer a new perspective. Our young students can reach an authentic audience, that gives feedback and contributes new ideas and thus become part of a tangible global community.

I love the idea of students having a global and authentic audience and I believe that students take more care and effort with writing that will be read and commented on by a number of people. Congratulations Verona for providing this opportunity for your students as well as using your blog to communicate with parents and friends of the school.

Futurelab free handbooks: digital literacy and innovation

Futurelab are offering free access to digital editions of some of their digital literacy and innovation handbooks. This offer includes:

  • Futures Thinking Teachers PackFutures Thinking Teachers Pack

    Increasingly, collaboration is seen as important in creative learning. This handbook sets out some recommendations for ways in which digital technologies could be designed and used to support creative collaboration in the classroom.

    This free resource supports teachers and learners to develop approaches to exploring the future that are not about making predictions, but about considering possible, probable and preferable futures in order to support action and decision making in the present.

    pdf version (pdf, 2.9MB)

    • () (pdf, 1MB)

    May 2010

  • digital literacyDigital literacy across the curriculum

    March 2010

    This handbook introduces educational practitioners to the concepts and contexts of digital literacy and supports them in developing their own practice aimed at fostering the components of digital literacy in classroom subject teaching and in real school settings.

  • Home-school relationships handbookDeveloping the home-school relationship using digital technologies

    March 2010

    This handbook introduces key issues around home-school relationships to provide schools with a framework in which to consider how to support these relationships, and how to navigate the challenges afforded by the use of digital technologies in this field.

  • Thinking SpaceThinking Space

    January 2010

    This workshop resource aims to support people who are thinking about, or currently undertaking, redesign and rebuild projects. It provides a set of activities, tools and techniques that can be used to facilitate workshop sessions.

    pdf version

  • Digital inclusion handbookUsing digital technologies to promote inclusive practices in education

    April 2009

    This handbook provides educators with guidance on using digital technologies to promote inclusive practices, case studies of current practice, and a directory of resources.

  • Curriculum and teaching innovationCurriculum and teaching innovation

    April 2009

    Aimed at educational leaders involved in curriculum and teaching innovation, this handbook provides guidance for exploring the potential of personalisation to transform curriculum design and teaching practices.

  • Reimagining outdoor learning spaces handbookReimagining outdoor learning spaces

    January 2009

    This handbook focuses on the use and utility of outdoor space for play and learning, and aims to support those thinking about redesigning their outdoor spaces as part of the Primary Capital Programme or other initiatives.

  • Promoting transformative innovation in schoolsPromoting transformative innovation in schools

    November 2008

    This handbook aims to offer evidence, insights, ideas and recommendations that can be built upon to support and nurture a culture of transformative innovation within education.

  • Designing educational technologies for social justiceDesigning educational technologies for social justice

    April 2008

    This handbook explores the role that digital technologies can play in reducing inequality in education, and offers guidance on designing resources or projects to promote social justice.

  • Learning with handheld technologiesLearning with handheld technologies

    December 2006

    A guide for those considering handheld technologies for teaching and learning purposes, with case studies illustrating the potential of handheld technology for learning, and a wide survey of projects in this area.

  • Learner voiceLearner voice

    August 2006

    Despite the vast number of changes in education in recent years, learners are seldom consulted and remain largely unheard in the change process. If education is to become more personalised, then learners must be heard.

  • Games and learning (Myst image courtesy of Cyan Inc)Games and learning

    October 2005

    There’s an increasing interest in the potential role of computer and video games to support young people’s learning, and recent studies have begun to ask how games might be used or adapted for use in schools. This handbook reports on some of the latest developments.

  • Building collaboration between designers and researchersBuilding collaboration between designers and researchers

    April 2005

    How can research on teaching and learning be used to improve the design of e-content? This report uses case studies to illustrate a range of collaborations; a directory of educational researchers is also available.

  • Designing with usersDesigning educational technologies with users

    September 2004

    There is concern about the separation between developers of digital educational resources and those who use them – teachers and learners. This handbook suggests ways in which the communities might work together to create more effective and relevant resources.

  • Creativity and collaboration handbookDesigning technologies to support creativity and collaboration

August 2004


Certainly worth a look. Just beware that the print versions do cost, so look for the free digital downloads.