This site presented in book format by Google with illustrations by Christoph Niemann answers a lot of questions about the Internet; the ‘cloud’, browser cookies, phishing, open source and other things that students need to understand.
What’s a cookie? How do I protect myself on the web? And most importantly: What happens if a truck runs over my laptop?
For things you’ve always wanted to know about the web but were afraid to ask
There has been a very noticeable shift for Secondary students to search YouTube for resources. TED, TEDEd, Vimeo and other sources are also searched regularly by our students.
Google Education have provided interactive lessons for Secondary Students to assist in teaching responsible digital citizenship particularly in the use of YouTube or other online resources.
Teacher resources of videos, slides and summaries for each lesson are available. The topics include:
YouTube’s policies
How to report content on YouTube
How to protect their privacy online
How to be responsible YouTube community members
How to be responsible digital citizens
We used to talk about Digital Literacy… Now ‘digital fluency’ goes a step further to include utilising and integrating digital skills into everyday communication, problem solving and learning. How teaching and learning has changed! Now the teacher must also ensure he or she is constantly upskilling to the point of ‘fluency’ then changing pedagogues in order to be relevant.
The Buck Institute for Education (BIE) is dedicated to improving 21st Century teaching and learning throughout the world by creating and disseminating products, practices and knowledge for effective Project Based Learning (PBL).
This skills framework contains definitions for each skill and sets them against the focus for which it needs to be developed. Project based learning has much in common with the Guided Inquiry approach we follow at Broughton and these definitions assist in making some of the 21C skills ‘jargon’ clear as more teachers learn new pedagogues.
Most of us are aware that there are many Social Media traps, pitfalls and netiquettes to learn about. Click this image link to a great reminder or indicator of some less obvious aspects of Social Media. It contains 25 different features that we need learn about!
Click on this image to go to an interactive fluency model – a useful refresher for students and a timely reminder about plagiarism, author bias and search strategies.
Over 500 leading education professionals voted on the best tools for learning and Jane Hart has compiled a list from the results. It also distinguishes “where the Top 100 Tools are mainly being used – ie for Personal/Professional use, in Education and/or in the Enterprise.”
This video, produced using data obtained from an extensive research study of School Libraries in New Jersey led by Dr Ross Todd, describes the situation in school libraries today and the role of Teacher Librarian (called Library Media specialist in the USA)
There is so much to think about and to learn about digital media on the JISC site linked below – and all in one place!
A framework called DiAL-e is described and the best part about this framework is that it:
encourages consideration of context, learners’ roles, content, learning outcomes, activity, feedback and re-usability – focusing on what the learner does with an artefact rather than giving priority to its subject or discipline content.
Eight core learning designs and six core learning spaces are described and then digital media to assist in transforming learning is placed into the equation.
As Australia looks at implementing a new national Curriculum, courses are being developed and programs rewritten it would be a great time for a rethink of how Digital Media can play an important role in encouraging the learner to use their ‘product’.
Students from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst present Aesop’s fables in 21st Century style. Students have published two versions – the traditional fable and a modern version of the same. Most are created using Flash – some with sound and interactivity.
This site clearly and succinctly explains about the use of iCloud for setting up, backing up restoring and updating devices.
The following link to the blog post from Educational Technology and Mobile Learning provides access to various tools for 33 different skills. It is wonderful to have such a varied and pertinent list including the tools needed to succeed in each skill all in one place. Both teachers and students shoud be aware of skills they need to keep up with digital learning in the 21Century. Here is a great place to start!
The 33 Digital Skills every 21st Century teacher should have
Students are often observed floundering in multiple website pages of useless information, or information that lacks authority.
At Broughton, Internet skills are taught specifically when I am assisting teachers in collaborative units of work – but more needs to be done across the board to enable all teachers and parents to guide students’ access to information and online activities safely, ethically and with authoritative results.
These two articles in eSchool News describe the dilemma – and what we as parents teachers and Teacher Librarians need to be doing.
Why more schools aren’t teaching web literacy—and how they can start by Alan November and Brian Mull
Web Literacy: Where the common Core meets common sense by Alan November and Brian Mull
Critical thinking skills are extremely important in order for students to be able to search and find relevant information to meet their research needs. This video clip states that there is now a new digital divide – “those that are able to search and those that are not able to search.” Google provides online tools, webinars and lesson plans to help teach students search skills.
Many students go straight to the search box without noticing the many extra tools that help to narrow the search field down to relevant information.
AND…Don’t forget that our school library offers Teacher Librarian support and seminars to improve information and digital literacy.
Maurice Saxby spoke at the Awards Night for the School Library Association of NSW on 30 March held at the Children’s Bookshop at Beecroft.
In 1955 Maurice Saxby was the second Teacher Librarian ever to be appointed to a school in New South Wales. He has inspired teachers and Teacher Librarians for many years and his book “Give them wings” impelled many to offer exciting opportunities for children to experience literature.
He spoke of his own encounter with books and reading as a young boy and told us of the influence of the special teachers he had as a child – who inspired in him a love of literature simply by reciting a poem or leading a discussion. Teachers, parents and even ‘Nannas’ still do this today but we now have at our fingertips so many rich resources to extend these experiences even further.
Maurice told us why reading literature is important: “Apart from what we see about human beings when we read and what we find out about life, we’re attuned to story and to the shape of story and to the way words work.”
The night of the awards I went to stay at the home of my son where I regularly read books to my two granddaughters and we make up and enact imaginary stories. With renewed energy to instill a love of literature and reading into the lives of these two little girls, aged two and four, I seized hold of opportunity and here is what enfolded the next morning.
As usually happens, the four year old commandeered my iPad to open a folder full of books and activities selected for her. The younger two year old went for my iPhone where she too knows how to open relevant folders and spends a lot of time looking at family photos and videos of herself in particular! This photo was not “set up”!
Miss Four had, on a previous occasion, asked me to get the “Playschool App” as she had seen it advertised on Playschool and it had cool puzzles in it! I had done so and she now was looking at a previous episode of Playschool she had found on the app – streamed live from the ABC website. She was watching the reenactment of “The Hare and the Tortoise” and we discussed the meaning of the fable and the saying “Slow and steady wins the race”.
I was a little dismayed to find there was no print copy of the story in this home to read to the girls – Nanna will have to rectify that!
Later I took the girls outside to play.
“Lets play races”, said Miss Four…
”I’ll be the tortoise and you can be the hare,” she said to her little sister.
“Well, we’ll need a washing basket and some ears,” I said. So she ran off and came back with some ears out of the dress-up box – left there from Easter bunnies last year. The washing basket was emptied and straps were attached to it by her mother.
With very little help from Nanna the story was enacted – again and again! The little hare asleep on the mound of the basketball stand was just beautiful… then she awoke just in time to see the Tortoise win the race!
Later in the day when the technology was again “picked up” Miss Four asked if there was a book app for the Hare and the Tortoise. I found a traditional version with original pictures as well as a more modern version. Both offered read-a-loud support and some interactivity. A couple of dollars later we read both versions together and Miss Four mastered all the activities – while Miss Two once again watched herself in family videos on my phone.
An exhausted Nanna was sure by the end of the day that both girls had encountered literature in many engaging ways – a day we will all remember! Thank you Maurice!
