I was listening to NPR this morning and caught an interesting segment. China is attempting to limit on-line gaming to those under 18 by requiring software developers to install “anti-addiction” software to their programs.
The Chinese government has clamped down on the amount of time youngsters can spend playing online games, according to the official news agency Xinhua. Under-18s who play for more than three consecutive hours a day will have limits imposed on the amount of points they can score, the agency reported.
Gamers playing for more than five hours will get no points. A teenager was interviewed for the NPR segment, and said that they have already figured out how to get around the software - they register with someone else’s name who is over 18.
All of this makes me think of the discussion about filtering in schools here in the states. I read Steve Dembo’s TechLearning blog post last night, since it relates to the message he delivered to our Walled Laked teachers during his keynote address at our Spice it Up Technology Conference. One of his main points that I heard is that we cannot block all the social networking sites to protect our children…. they know how to get around the filters and restrictions that we set. They use on-line social networking sites at school and at home. The key is EDUCATION. Since Steve’s keynote, I have been thinking about strategies to employ to make on-line safety education a part of what ALL teachers do in Walled Lake, K-12. The students who spoke at the Spice it Up Student Panel agreed that on-line safety has not been addressed much by their teachers. Awareness is the first step, so I suppose broadcasting Steve’s message (that we taped) so that all the folks who did not hear it should be a priority. Then what? How do we ensure that the education is not done in a “hit and miss” fashion? Yes, all 8th graders have on-line safety instruction as a part of the NCLB 8th grade tech literacy requirement. This is obviously not enough! Please add your ideas as a comment to this post. Thanks!
I have had the pleasure of working with several people from across the state of Michigan on a professional development project for the 1:1 Institute. We have used Moodle (for file upload, wiki, and chat), Ning, Skype, and email to collaborate over the past several weeks. I found that I was able to closely connect with these folks using these on-line tools, something that I didn’t think would be easy to do. Now I feel even more strongly about the need to give our students more opportunities to use on-line communiation tools for educational purposes.
The school district where I work in Michigan held our 3rd annual “Spice it Up” Technology Conference. It is conference for teachers, put on by our own TALENTED teachers. We had a great start to the day with a virtual presentation by Discovery Education’s Steve Dembo. Can’t get much better than that. Some of the teachers really missed being able to see Steve’s face (although they did get to see a photo of him in a Star Trek outfit), but they listened intently and the feedback was overwhelmingly positive. We also had a student panel; a mix of high school, middle school, and elementary students. The students were candid about their experiences growing up in the digital age. One high school student said “Technology is here to stay. We really need you teachers to jump on board and use technology with your students.” Another student wanted us to know that teenagers really can read email and study at the same time.
I facilitated workshops the entire day. The teachers in my MovieMaker video created a “I am a Teacher” video, following the same format as the “When I Become a Teacher” video that is posted on YouTube. That was a lot of fun! I’ll load it on TeacherTube and link it up here sometime in the near future.
The day was exhausing and invigorating at the same time. The turnout was good and the teachers who attended were appreciative and are anxious about putting into practice some of what they learned today.
The National School Boards Association published a report in July, 2007, to communicate their stance on social networking for education. The report, called “Creating and Connecting: Research and Guidelines on Online Social - and Educational -Networking,” is posted on their website, http://files.nsba.org/creatingandconnecting.pdf. All educators need to read this report.
81% of the students surveyed (1,277 students ages 9-17) have used a social networking website sometime over the past three months, and almost 60% report discussing educational topics on social networking sites. Yet the vast majority of school districts ban social networking during the school day, even though students and parents report few problem behaviors on-line.
The stance of NSBA is “Safety policies remain important, as does teaching students about online safety and responsible online expression….but students may learn these lessons better while they are actually using social networking tools.” NSBA is seeking a balance between protecting students and providing a 21st century education.
From my experiences working with teachers, I find that the general perception of online social networking is that it is bad, scary, and has nothing to do with education. However, I find that this thinking is due to having had no experiences with social networking. The 60 teachers who joined me in a Web 2.0 usergroup have now had positive experiences with social networking for their own professional development and learning. Once teachers discover the fun, exciting, motivating, and powerful learning that can result as a result of online social networking, they hopefully will take the risk to allow their students to learn using social networking tools. There are safe tools to use…. Moodle comes to mind.
Does anyone have other ideas about how we can keep our students safe while allowing them to use the social networking tools that are such a huge part of their lives? How else can we help teachers and administrators overcome their fears about social networking?
http://mail.google.com/mvideo
Help us imagine how an email message travels around the world. Take a look at the collaborative video we started, and then film what happens next. Post your clip as a response to this one. We’ll edit a selection of submissions together to make a final video, which will be featured on the Gmail homepage and seen by users worldwide.
Respond to this video with your own clip by August 13, 2007 to be considered to the final collaborative video. Learn more about the project at http://mail.google.com/mvideo
The how-to videos for using Vista and Office 2007 are now available from Walled Lake’s Tech PD webpage. Hopefully they will be helpful to teachers and students (and anyone else) as they learn to use the new software.
Linda Criddle was the guest on the WOW chat tonight. She has written a book called Look Both Ways: Get Smart About Internet Safefy. Her philosophy is not to scare kids into being safe on-line. Instead, they need to LEARN safe on-line practices. The WOW chat was lively and thought-provoking. Linda’s book is available for purchase from any book store (2 chapters are available on the web site provided above).
Dr. Hamilton, Superintendent for Walled Lake Schools in Michigan (the district I work for), is presenting at the Laptop Institute Conference in Memphis. Wish I could be there! He will talk about 1:1 research, and its implications for modeling a collaboratiave, process-oriented, student-centered learning environment. Dr. Hamilton understands the importance of administrative leadership, teacher leadership, technology support, and instructional support for 1:1 initiatives. Walled Lake has had a 1:1 laptop program since 1999.
WOW! The Conference was awesome. The best part was meeting/connecting with with others I have only known on-line. The climate of sharing and helping each other to try to change the way we do business in schools was evident everywhere.
Many people took notes at sessions and posted them immediately to their blogs to share with those who could not make it to Atlanta. My laptop is just too heavy to lug around all day, so my goal for next time is to have a lightweight tablet PC with me so that I can do the same!
The Discovery Educator Network(DEN) hosted a dinner and showed some videos that teachers made at a pre-conference event. They were given a digital videocam and used Adobe Premier’s green screen feature to place themselves in the videos. The videos came out very cute… teachers kissing gorillas, running with lions, etc. I HAVE to learn how to do this!
After attending the conference, I know that I need to intentionally focus on strategies to help teachers provide students opportunities to be CREATIVE…. using video, images, and sound to convey a message.
Karl Fisch and Scott McLeod just created another remix of the famous “Did You Know” video that has been circulating around the world. This version, about 8 minutes long, has more visuals. It also includes some important questions to ask ourselves, our school leaders, and our legislature. All of us need to do what we can do to change the way we do business in US schools to successfully prepare our students for the future. Karl and Scott have set up a collaborative workspace to share ideas.
I’m getting geeked about attending my first National Educational Computing Conference. I leave Sunday morning for Atlanta. I have sessions picked out and have been reading others’ blogs about suggestions for making the most out of the conference for newbies like me. For those who cannot make it to Atlanta, you can listen to podcasts and download presentation handouts from the Conference website. Subscribe to NECC podcasts in i-Tunes, or get the raw feed here. Session handouts will be posted from now until mid-July. I cannot wait to meet some of the folks I’ve met over the past 6 months in the blogosphere! Thanks, Langwitches, for reminding me to let others know about these podcasts. Last year, I was not able to attend, but enjoyed many sessions from home!
The Michigan Dept of Education is sponsoring several technology lesson plan writing sessions across the state. This year, the focus is high school, with an emphasis on UDL (Universal Design for Learning). Lessons included strategies for addressing needs of all students. The lessons will soon be posted at www.techplan.org/ci2007.
After using Office 07 for a week, I already know I love it.The ribbon makes sense to me and I really like the new features.I know that it will take some time for teachers to get used to it, but I also know that they will also like it.I spent last week exploring the programs with our district computer resource teachers.We tried things, explored the new features, created written how-to directions and video tutorials.Participatory PD is the best!
Here’s a great example of the power of web 2.0. Bernie Dodge, the creator of WebQuests, spent an hour this evening discussing the evolution of WebQuests during the weekly Women of the Web 2.0 chat. How cool is that? Those in attendance were able to ask questions. I wanted his advice on how to help teachers understand the difference between an Internet scavenger hunt and a real WebQuest. Bernie thinks that the most important part of a WebQuest is coming up with a really good Task, and from that all the rest comes along. I am envisioning a small group of teachers discussing WQ Task examples: excellent, good, mediocre, and bad. Perhaps I could come up with the examples. After hearing Bernie talk, I see that this discussion would be much more beneficial than on focusing on all the components and how to create your own WQ. This mini-lesson will help teachers determine which ones to use in their classroom from all the ones that are available to them by doing a simple Google search.
Bernie says the form really doesn’t matter - He says “It’s more about the teaching than the technology.” He has seen excellent WebQuests made in PowerPoint and others on fancy web pages… how it is presented is irrelevant, how it makes kids think is the key.
Bernie also talked about the next generation of WebQuests…. WikiQuests, BlogQuests, VideoQuests. I’m interested in exploring this more!
There is an on-line conference coming up, called The Future of Education, that takes place June 4-8. Read more about it at the conference website. There are a couple of presentations each day. The timing isn’t great for many of us due to the end of the year… However, you may be able to find the time to join one of the sessions. There are many great topics that will be covered. Check out the conference schedule to see what interests you! “Educators Gone Wild - Instructional Mashups” by Brian Lamb sounds like a winner! Another sure-to-be-interesting presentation will be Vickie Davis presenting on the value of global callaborative projects.
I was invited as a guest speaker on the weekly Women of the Web 2.0 (also known as WOW2) Chat. For those who have never hear of WOW, you need to visit the WOW website…. and guys are welcome, too! Every week there is a Tuesday chat that is facilitated by Cheryl Oakes, Jennifer Wagner, Sharon Peters, & Vicki Davis, four women who not only love using the tools of the Internet but also love sharing the tools with others. I was honored to be asked to contribute to their Tuesday night chat. They have had some well known folks on in the past - David Warlick, Will Richardson, Steve Dembo, and Leslie Fisher, to name a few. Tonight’s topic was staff development, and I shared some of the staff development I am facilitating in my district in SE Michigan - the web 2.0 usergroups and how we are using Moodle to assess 8th grade tech proficiency and also to fulfill the new Mighigan on-line learning experience. I enjoyed the conversation and felt it was personally valuable to put my beliefs and visions on my sleeve for all to hear about.
Mark Lada is a 6th grade science teacher at Sarah Banks Middle School. He is featured in a “Best Practices” video on Michigan streamnet. The lesson is about electromagnetism and is 21 minutes long. Check it out! http://www.mistreamnet.com/archnew.php
Beth Baker, a friend of mine from Wayne RESA, facilitated the videotaping and editing.
There’s no way to stop it…. Vista will be coming to Walled Lake come Fall. Due to our laptop program, supported by our parental community, we must make way for Vista. Since parents cannot purchase a laptop with Windows XP any more, we have no choice but to support Vista. I don’t know of any other school districts who are supporting both operating systems next year, so I’m a bit nervous about this! I’m working on a plan to get ready - training for our computer resource teachers after school gets out in June, then training for the classroom teachers in August. My first goal is to obtain a computer that has the power to run Vista and Office 2007. Then the fun begins!
I saw this video on Steve Dembo’s blog. Authors: Bobby Barrett of Cary Grove High School and Kyle Barrett from the University of Illinois. Subject: bullying.
I am facilitating a 8th Studies unit on the rise of big business after the Civil War. The unit includes data analysis and graph making in Excel, creating queries using a huge railroad construction database (MS Access), inquiry & research based on the data, and finally creating an interactive timeline with PowerPoint. It’s all on Moodle and ALL 8th graders will do this project (about 1200 students). The 8th grade SS teachers have been fantastic to work with - enthusiastic and open to this new delivery of instruction. We had some “issues” on the first day. The server couldn’t handle so many students hitting it at once and it was a bust. However, our tech dept understood the importance of having the technology work for this project, and the whole thing was moved to a new server last night. Today, it worked great! The students love it and the teachers do, too. Grading is a snap and the ability to offer prompt feedback is invaluable. Our district uses this project as a performance assessment to determine if our 8th grade students are “tech proficient,” something each Michigan district reports to the state at the end of the schoolyear. I love Moodle!
The Michigan House of Representatives reported its 2008 budget recommendations last week. The budget included $38,000,000 for 21st century learning environments. The idea was for the Michigan Dept of Ed to work with school districts, ISDs, businesses, and innovative education organizations to create a state-wide initiative to create academic content and digital curriculum. The funds would be used to provide professional development, create a content repository, coordinate efforts with other programs, and assist districts in obtaining innovative content creation and distribution tools.
Sounds great! However the Detroit News and Free Press (to name a few newspapers) reported that the state would purchase an i-Pod for every Michigan student. Letters to the editor written by Michigan citizens about this idea have been less than favorable, as you might guess.
The initiative as laid out by the legislature is much more than a device purchase program. It includes professional development for educators, sharing of resources, and collaboration. It’s too bad that the initial communication to the public was done in a way that leads to negativity.
I am reminded once again that the leaders of our state are supporters of educational technology to be used to improve instruction.
Many of the teachers I work with have asked about Flickr, what I use to add photos to this blog. Here is a screencast created by Jeff Uteche, author of The Thinking Stick blog. Thanks, Jeff.
I am looking for school districts that allow students to have & use electronic devices at school, as this is something we are looking into in my Michigan district. It seems that students have them at school anyway. What are the benefits? Risks? I would appreciate seeing examples of policies that other districts have implemented.
Will Richardson wrote a post on his blog yesterday about an eye-opening experience he had substitute teaching for a grad class on educational technology at a New Jersey University. He expected that this class full of dynamic young teachers would embrace the use of technology in the classroom. However, they responded with excuses and yeah, buts. In two days, 44 people have commented on Will’s post, and the comments are ALL worth reading. What will it take to change paradigms for teachers, new ones and seasoned ones?
I just returned from the Michigan Association of Computer Users for Learning (MACUL) Conference. I enjoyed presenting with Gina Loveless & Terri Waklid on middle school technology-enhanced social studies lessons and the MDE Curriculum Integration Project. Click here to download our presentation.
I most enjoyed Steve Dembo’s presentation “The Top 10 Free Web 2.0 Tools.” I may need to work a few more web 2.0 tools into my agenda for the Walled Lake web 2.0 usergroup! Of the ten tools he highlighted, four were new to me and I learned new things about all the rest. His top 10 tools are:
Bloglines - a Feed reader/aggregator & also one of my favorites.
Delicious - A social bookmarking tool & another one of my favorites. I learned that you can use delicious in new ways, such as: creating memory games, adding comments, making trading cards, and finding photos with creative commons licensing.
Flickr - A photo sharing website. I learned to spell words with images!
Picnik - a photo editing website - a simple Photoshop-like tool.
Jumpcut - a video editing website. I want to check this one out before using with students.
Google Docs and Spreadsheets - Great for on-line collaboration. Can save as Word or Excel documents. I see this as coming in very handy for compiling data for science experiments and creating a class database.
VYEW - Cannot wait to try this out for staff development! It works sort of like WebX.
