Your Vision of Students Today

Professor Michael Wesch’s YouTube Channel is asking teachers to document, through video, special moments in teaching and learning. If you would like to participate in his new video, which will probably be titled, The Vision of Students Today, do your filming and upload a two-minute clip to his channel before February 15, 2011. Your students will enjoy helping you find that critical learning moment to share.

Free Online Professional Development

If you’d like to learn more about technology and teaching with technologies, all you have to do is to check out the opportunities online. The January issue of THE Journal provides a nice list of professional development links for you.  To upgrade your skills, why not try ASCD Webinars, OK2Ask, Educator’s Professional Development, Classroom 2.0, and Teachers’ Domain? Of course, there are other places to investigate for professional development. Think podcasts, blogs, and for-pay online Webinars and courses. In today’s world you can learn on your own, what you want, when you want.

Where Are Teens Getting Health Info?

When teens and preteens are looking for health information, according to the article “Technology Trend: Teens and Online Health Research” in CYFERnet, only about 3% of teens go to sites like Mayoclinic.com, Plannedparenthood.com, and Health.com for answers. Instead they do a Google or Yahoo search, use Wikipedia; check with online friends; and post questions in online discussion areas and confessionals. About half of the teens surveyed said they go online to learn about mental health, sexual issues, and general health. “Their top worries were sexually transmitted diseases, followed by drugs, unplanned pregnancy, unhealthy relationships, depression, alcohol use, eating disorders and cyberbullying.”  These interests differed from a Pew study in which adults said their main medical interests were: nutrition, fitness, specific diseases and treatments, diets, and supplements. Considering the differences in interests between teens and adults concerning health, teen-related health information needs to be readily available to young people and should be in places they are likely to frequent online. (CYFERnet is network that features practical research from leading universities.)

Bullying and Cyberbullying: Who Is to Blame?

With the wealth of information that’s been in the media about bullying and cyberbullying, it’s on just about everyone’s minds. We know that growing up isn’t exactly easy. We adults face problems with bullying, but we’ve learned how to handle it or perhaps we ignore it.  I’ve watched students let uncomplimentary remarks slide off like water on a duck, and I’ve seen children who are highly sensitive to any slight.  We know that the middle years are usually the toughest when it comes to kid nastiness, but we also find it from the elementary grades on. There are young people everywhere who are trying to find their place among their peers. Sometimes it goes beyond normal, day-to-day kid behavior and can cause lasting problems for those bullied or ignored. Teachers, parents, coaches, and others who work with children watch for bullying, but as we know, it often happens when adults aren’t around or anonymously online. Who is to blame for the bullying mentality and how might we stop it? A generation ago we confiscated the so-called Slam Books that featured inappropriate information about students in our classes.  Today we continue to watch during lunch sessions for “cool tables” for the in-crowd, try to keep up with school-related social interaction online, work with students on thoughtfulness and respect, and do our best to keep parents informed on the topic. Recently I asked a group of eighth graders who is to blame for bullying, cyber or otherwise. They agreed that the kids who do it were the problem. I asked if schools and teachers were to blame. The answer went something like this, “No, not everyone is nice. That’s the problem and kids should remember that. If a teacher sees bullying and doesn’t do anything, then the teacher is wrong, but usually teachers don’t see it. Who would do something not nice when teachers and parents are around?” When I asked what is the answer to the problem of bullying, one said, “Stay with nice kids. Don’t try to get into a group that does things that aren’t nice.”  Nice seems to be the answer, but how do we get everyone to take on that quality?

ISTE Conference In Denver 2010

The International Society for Technology in Education will hold its annual conference June 27-30 at the Colorado Convention Center in Denver. This year’s theme “Exploring Excellence” will include sessions on just about everything you need to know about technology in education.  On the ISTE conference site, you can use the Program Planner to select sessions that are appropriate for you. For example if you want to learn about iPhone apps for mathematics, the impact of e-book readers, LEGO Robotics, or 3D animation; just log on to the Planner. Early-Bird registration closes on 5/1 and mail-in registration on 6/11.

Keeping Up with School Online Postings

Think about all the “school-related” content that’s going online. Think about it from a school or district administrator’s point of view. How is it possible to keep track? Have we come to a point where it’s impossible to know what’s online that’s been posted by students, teachers, and administrators? With postings coming from both school and home, the amount of information that’s going online from a school or school district is massive. How do we avoid problems such as inappropriate content or links, private information accidentally posted, inaccurate information, mistakes in spelling and grammar, course areas that are not up-to-date, blogging or chats that aren’t carefully monitored, etc.? You can probably think of many other problems that might occur with online assignments, digital projects, online courses, and student blogs, chats, tweets—the list is long. Although most of what goes online through school programs doesn’t cause problems and many problems are caught quickly, that’s not always so. Parents checking areas specific to their children’s classes often call school personnel to report problems with content, and this may be the first alert school officials have to the knowledge that something may be wrong. Some solutions may be: making sure everyone has a thorough knowledge of what is appropriate for school-related online postings or communication, letting everyone know what their responsibilities are when it comes to online postings and communication, and making sure teachers and administrators check content as carefully and as often as possible. Maybe the question is: Are we jumping into all these wonderful 21^st Century resources without understanding how we can keep track of their output?”

Should We Brag about Our Use of Tech?

An entry in the TekJournal blog points out that we educators often brag about the wonderful job some of our teachers are doing with use of technologies in the classroom. It’s the opinion of the blogger that if, for example, there are four Grade 4 teachers in a school and only one is doing an outstanding job with ed tech, then there’s nothing to brag about because most of the Grade 4 students aren’t impacted. In so many ways this is correct, but it doesn’t seem wrong to praise the one who has stepped ahead to bring 21^st Century Learning into the classroom. One of the best ways to get teachers going with technology is for them to see other teachers modeling successful lessons and projects with their students. That one teacher can have a significant impact on the other three.

Looking for Ways for Your Students to Collaborate?

Ozge Karaoglu on the Tech & Learning site offers a list of “100 Web Tools for Collaboration”. Part I features the first 20 of the 100 and includes links to Dabbleboard and 10 reasons for use of this whiteboard; CoSketch, the whiteboard that needs no installation and works with all browsers; Stixy for creating online bulletin board interaction; Ning and Grou.ps to help you establish your own social network; ImaginationCubed, a “cool” multiuser drawing tool according to Karaoglu; and other tools such as GroupTweet; Wallwisher; PageFlakes; Whiteboard; Wiggio; WeToku; WebNote; MeBeam; SpringNote; DoingText; Creately; WikiDot; Phuser; and PalBee. With these tools, you can create chat rooms, start online notebooks, work with others to create professional designs, share content, track discussions, set up online video meetings, record interviews, send email, track changes—you name it. Wow. Nice list. Look for more by checking Karaoglu’s blog.

Frontline: Growing Up Online

The Frontline report, Growing Up Online, features information and discussions on the questions, “Just how radically is the Internet transforming the experience of childhood?” It tackles questions related to students and their beliefs about privacy, private worlds of teens online, teens sharing personal information, teachers and tech, and traditional teaching methods.  The section, Keeping Kids Safe, focuses upon what parents need to know about their children and the Internet, fear of predators, cyberbullying, and state and federal efforts to keep kids safe. You can watch the full program online, view the follow-up report, and read what people who saw the program had to say about it. If you want, you can add your comments about the Internet’s impact on your students. Don’t forget to check out the readings and links, teacher’s guide, and information on what we’ve learned abut kids and the Internet and how our digital generation is doing.

Tech Tools for Autism

Sara Stroud’s article, “A New Way Forward” in the T.H.E. Journal (December 2009), discusses tech solutions such as virtual worlds, interactive whiteboards, blogs, and notebook computers to help autistic students learn to communicate more effectively.  Using the virtual community Second Life, high school students with autism went to a “block party” where they practiced meeting others online.  With digital technologies such as interactive white boards and notebook computers, students are able to practice how to read facial expressions, raise their hands, do peer monitoring, and increase attention. Some are even writing their own blogs and are boasting about being published authors.