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Our students have been working on their wiki learning more about different types of online tools that can be used in education. In order to learn more about the online tools and applications they have been finding examples of how they are used in education. But a most important thing that we are

To stimulate discussion and get the thinking happening we used a video created by Vicki Davis, coolcatteacher who says in the notes about the video Technology is not the enemy — ignorance is. I am concerned that we need to intentionally teach students the technology skills they need to know. They do not get it automatically nor do they learn it at home.

Her challenge to us as students and teachers is to recognise that these understandings and behaviours don’t just happen. They have to be made explicit, discussed and taught to ensure that we are safe and smart when we are using technology.

So today you are to consider her thoughts and answer the following questions in your blog.

What are the issues that think are important when when using and working with technology?

What are the responsibilities?

As you know the deadline for creating and uploading the edutopia video is coming up very soon. To inspire you and to hopefully move you along, here are a couple of videos already created and uploaded to teachertube.

Post note: I have removed the embedded documents because they are not downloading correctly.

We have 10 days in which to complete your video entry on the Edutopia site asking “what is the most important skill to learn for your future and why?

Today I want you to share with the group your ideas and progress so far.
We will also take a look at a website that considers the skills that a person living in the 21st C might need. Have a look at these skills and write a response in the comment section of this post about which of these you think are particularly important.

Then continue with your video development.

Giving Students a Voice

Edutopia, supported by the George Lucas Foundation is a great resource for teachers and students. There is great depth in the site which gives a wide range of resources, lesson plans, videos, links to other blogs as well as blogs within the site.
I came across this rather simple yet powerful idea to give students a voice.

Edutopia.org wants to hear from students about which skills you think your school should teach to help you succeed in life.

Kids are experts on the modern digital world, and we think it’s time adults listened.

Create a video stating your opinion, and submit it by October 30 — we’ll publish our favorites on Edutopia.org.

It’s simple — there are just five steps:

1. Create a video, no more than one minute long, answering this question:
   “What do you think is the most important skill to learn for your future — and why?”
   The footage could consist of straightforward talking to the camera, or something more creative.
2. Introduce yourself with your first name only.
   
3. Obtain parental consent for taping and posting on the Internet if you are younger than eighteen years old.
   
4. Post the video on YouTube and tag it “edutopiaskills.” (Note that YouTube users must be at least thirteen years old.)
   
5. Send an email to skills@edutopia.org, telling us your name, age, parental contact information, and hometown, and include a link to the video.

You’ll need a (free) YouTube account to do the upload. Find YouTube’s instructions for uploading here and for directions for tagging here.

So how about it Year 9/10s? We’re game if you are…

Now that we have returned to school after our two week break, it’s time to continue from where we left off.

Check in with your partner to see where you are up to in your creation of your pages on the web2teen wiki. I would also like you to go to the blogs of three students of Liz Davis. They are doing something similar to us in that they are looking at web 2 tools.

Liz has asked us to go to their blogs and comment on what they have written so far.

You task is to browse all three blogs, choose one post and comment, then copy what you wrote in a blog post on the ning. You should also write about why you chose that post. Don’t forget to add a link to the post that you commented on.

It is great to see that students have begun or even completed their internet safety pages.

I want to mention though that you should guard against simply copying and pasting the information that you have found. This is not actually what I want you to do.

Copying and pasting doesn’t teach you anything (except perhaps how to copy and paste!! ) It also doesn’t demonstrate your own learning and understanding of the issues.

And of course it is against the law. Did you know that? If you copy and paste something that is copyrighted then you are actually breaking the law.

There are of course exceptions to the rule and in an educational context we do have some leeway in terms of information that we can use. But remember we are posting this information to a public site so we must ensure that we are not breaking any laws.

One thing that you can do is acknowledge where you have gotten the information. This is called citing or you cite the information.

But you should still put the information into your own words.

Year 8’s have just started out on the blogging journey. I want them to be enthused and excited by this activity so what better way than to engage them in a competition. Sue Wyatt has set up a blogging competition for students who are interested in communicating more via their blogs. They will first register on Sue’s class blog then follow the instructions and get blogging. Most importantly students need to comment on other’s blogs as well as write in their own. There are lots of ideas for topics to write about on this blog so check it out before you get started.

Most importantly students need to tag their posts with stubc08 .

In that way we will all be able to find the posts that are entered for the competition.

Miss Wyatt has just reminded me that the actual competition does not start until 21st September. At that time we will be on holidays so we will begin the blogging competition in the first week we return to school.

Internet safety and in particular cyberbullying are issues that we all should be aware of. Even though most (or all) of the students in our 9/10 class claim to have not experienced cyberbullying this does not mean that we then stick our head in the sand and simply say that it’s all blown out of proportion and that we should have to worry about it.

It is important that we are aware of what it is, why we should put things in place to prevent it and what we should do it it occurs.

Each group in our class will take a page from the three wikis that I have given you. You should write on these pages the following things.

http://teaching-with-technology.wikispaces.com/Internet+Safety

http://web2teen.wikispaces.com/Internet+Safety Georgia and Leona

http://wedderburnp12.wikispaces.com/Internet+Safety

Give an explanation of what cyberbullying is.

Make some suggestions of what to do if a student or parent of a student suspects that they or their child is being bullied
List some strategies that people could use to ensure that they aren’t cyberbullied in the first place.
Provide some links to websites that give more information about what to do if you suspect someone is being bullied or hurt in any way.

If you are looking for ideas and suggestions about what you might add to your page try the following links

Teaching with Technology Wiki Links on Internet Safety

educationalOrigami page on Cybersafety

Digizen a site that explores the role of students as global citizens

Gidday Year 8’s. Today we are going to start a new project where we will be posting and sharing ideas and information with others on the internet.

This will be an opportunity to share and learn from others from all around the world.

It’s important that we get a good understanding of what blogs are all about as we get started.
Here are a couple of blogs that we will visit so you get an idea:
This blog will be our main blog that we will use as we work with blogs for the rest of the year- Wedderburn Wonderings
http://burners.globalstudent.org.au/- This blog is one that we have been using with the Grade Prep-4 students

Today you will be doing the following:

• check your email as you should have received an invitation to join up with our blogs
• sign into your blog.
• looking at the design of your blog and making it your own.
• looking at some of the widgets that you can add to make your blog more unique and interesting.

  
  We will be making some online connections with students from Hawkesdale P-12 school. Here is their main blog ejourney with Technokids.
  If you scroll down the right side of this blog you will also see the blogs that the Grade 8’s at Hawkesdale have created. Choose one of them and post a comment.
  The comment should say something about the post and respond with a question, a thought and idea that has arisen in your mind because you read the post.
  Remeber that when we are blogging we would be following the same rules and understandings that we would if we are in our classroom.

Australia’s Today show highlighted the issue of cyberbullying by discussing a Myspace site where someone had created a page called Let’s Kill Michael Murray. The piece said that a 17 year old student called Michael Murray is being threatened by the 64 members who have joined the space to date.

We touched on this issue last week in our ning forum.
Cyberbullying can take many forms and can affect many people. I wonder if we truly understand what cyberbullying is about?

The purpose of this post is to have us explore the issue of cyberbullying a bit more in order to understand the forms it can take and why it is important to be very aware of it.

I have an article from the Herald Sun for you to look at that was published on Wednesday August 20th 2008.

StopCyberbullying

Bullying No Way

This is a blog of a student called Tom Wood http://www.thewoodverdict.blogspot.com/ who has written a great deal about this issue of internet safety and cyberbullying.

Use these sites to inform yourself a little then go to your own blog and respond to these questions.

Now that you have explored cyber bullying a little more have your ideas changed?
What have you learned that you didn’t already know about this issue?
Does it make you more concerned or more empowered to be able to deal with this issue?

I also want you to select one of the new members of our ning. They are teachers who are interested in what we are doing, and I would like you to ask them about their experiences of cyberbullying. We are not necessarily interested in their own personal experiences but more whether they have seen it occur in the schools that they teach in for example.

To ask them, go to their page on the ning and post the question to their wall.

Finally we need to create some useful pages for others so that the awareness of Cyberbullying and internet safety is to the fore.

So I have three wikis on which we need to create a Cyberbullying page.

http://teaching-with-technology.wikispaces.com/Internet+Safety - Lisa , Rebecca

http://wedderburnp12.wikispaces.com/-  Jess, Tammy, Matt

http://web2teen.wikispaces.com/- Leona, Georgia,