Say no to drugs, cigarettes, alcohol and...social networks?

It is interesting to me as a parent to see the change in the dangers we need to warn our children about.  When I was at school it was all about drugs, then it was smoking and more recently the ads on TV about alcohol and not introducing it to kids too early.  


I now have a teenager in the house and a pre teen, and the one thing that I am being told to talk to my children about...the danger of social networks and cyber bullying. 


The experts are right, we need to talk to our children about this, in fact all the above mentioned dangers need to be openly discussed, but how do we go about it? How do we prevent our children from falling prey to any of these dangers without sounding like over protective, boring parents?


I say go where the kids go - YouTube! There is a wealth of videos out there aiding parents to deal with these issues. Many produced by government bodies designed specifically for parents and teachers.


Here is one that has caught my eye a couple of times, for some reason I can't seem to embed it but click on the link and that should work.


How Cybersmart are you?

Google + what's the fuss?

I have been caught up in the wave of Google +, after my friend John mentioned he received an invite (after pestering many people), I couldn't help but get one too.  The fact that he was promoting this on Facebook had us all giggling a bit.

What is Google Plus? Well, Google + is Google's version of Facebook.  Yes, another social media tool for us to follow, join, tweet about and endure.  But I like it! It seems that those in education, who are into such tools, are happy about the fact that it offers more privacy and security and therefore may be more suitable for a school environment.  One aspect of t Google + is the ability to categorise people into different circles and thus not sharing everything with everyone.

Doug Peterson talks more about it here and it's implications for education.  There are many people tweeting about this and the reviews are positive for the most part. I have been enjoying having a look see but Jeff Gibbard's article Google Plus (Google +): The Painful Realization highlights to me some issues I had yet to realise.

I can see that if my friends and family made the move, that Facebook may play second fiddle to Google Plus but as Jeff points out that requires their family and friends to move as well.  

We will have to wait and see...in the meantime watch the promo video from Google.

Minecraft in education?

My son LOVES playing Minecraft and now I have heard about a teacher in the US who uses Minecraft in the classroom, aptly named the Minecraft Teacher.  


@heyjudeonline retweeted the @edtechcrew who have just published a podcast on their website about Minecraft via an interview with the Minecraft Teacher, Joel Levin.


Interestingly, when I was at Sam's recent parent teacher interview, I suggested to Sam's geography teacher that if he taught mapping, direction and the other skills he was trying to teach, through Minecraft that Sam, and no doubt the other students, would be so engaged and would be able to apply these skills in the game itself.


Have a listen to the podcast, you don't have to listen very long to get some ideas from the Minecraft Teacher about how to incorporate this into your school computer lesson.



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Technology update with a twist

I am in the process of upgrading to a smartphone.  This is actually taking me way more time than I thought it would and eating up quite a bit of my download allowance.  An iPad is on my horizon as I can see so much potential in the classroom and if I want to be a teacher with today's generation of students then I need to be on top of all things techno and I see the iPad as my vehicle.  


However when it comes to phone choice I face a dilemma, I would love to just say iPhone 4 is for me and that is what I am going to buy.  But there is so much talk out there about problems with it that it made me look at the alternatives.  HTC Incredible S being one and Samsung Galaxy S II being the other.  Samsung I am afraid is out purely on battery life, so that leaves me with two.  My heart says just go with the iPhone and be done with it, my head says consider other options, do your research, read reviews etc etc.  Well I have done all that and it really comes down to Apple or not, you are either with them or against them.  So no decision!


I was also hoping to find out if one brand was more ethical in it's manufacture than another but my trusty Shop Ethical app does not yet include smartphones, or any phones for that matter.  Love it for lots of other products, but I digress...


So here I am stumped, feel free to offer your opinion, I may not listen but hey I just might! 

3things

While reading one of my favourite magazines Peppermint I came across a campaign run by Oxfam Australia called 3things. It is a wonderful initiative where people are asked the question What are 3things you can do to help change the world? The 3things can be very simple from riding bikes, taking public transport, eating organic, being nice, listening, recylcing - anything to make the world a better place.  Everyone is encouraged to add their 3things to the website.  You can also view other supporters pledges.  


I thought this would be a fantastic project for children to become involved in.  3things states that they are challenging the perception that young Australians are self involved and chained to their mobile devices not caring about the world at large.  I think if we use this initiative in classrooms we can start the ball rolling in the mind of our students and the future custodians of the globe.


Think HSIE, Science, English so many ways we could use this in a positive way in the classroom.


So check it out www.3things.org.au

Great minds...and the wonder of the web.

I am always amazed at how quickly one can navigate the worldwide web, I start reading a blog of a fellow crafter which leads me to a teacher blog which leads me to a twitter recommendation.  And from there I start following someone who points me to a new discovery, it is not a vicious circle but it is a circle that you can roll around over and over again finding new and wonderful things.


I am following the twitterer @TeachingIdeas and they like 'providing free ideas, resources, links and news to teachers around the world.' They tweeted today about an article at Teaching News. The article discusses the top five teaching discoveries of the week.  Interestingly I too have made a couple of these discoveries recently, both image related.  Dear Photograph and Pinterest.  Pinterest is a virtual pinboard and I have been using this for a variety of reasons for about a month now, one of the reasons is there are often great ideas for teacher resources pinned on the boards of other pinners.  

I discovered Dear Photograph only 2 days ago and it is such a wonderful idea, it is a blog of photos of photos taken in its original location showing changes over time and as Teaching News suggests it could easily be used in a classroom environment and as a series could be made into a digital story.

And how did I make this discovery? Twitter of course, but from a scrapbooker I follow.  This web truly is a wonderful place!

To blog on or not - is that really the question?

I have been watching many a vodcast of late and one that stood out to me was Gemma's . She asked the question whether her pre-service teacher colleagues would continue to blog now that it is not a requirement of our PE3 subject?


I think the answer must be yes!  I have found this to be such a great tool in not only reflecting on what I have learnt but also helping me fully understand the content. I am able to read others insights and in some cases change my opinion about certain subjects.


I have enjoyed reading other teachers blogs too, those already out there doing what we hope to do very soon. If we want to weave technology into our everyday classrooms then we must keep up with the latest and greatest.  We should read articles, blogs, follow links via twitter and search YouTube for related videos.  There is a wealth of knowledge out there being graciously shared by experts and we should take advantage of that.


So I, along with Gemma, intend on blogging my way to graduation and beyond.  I hope you will join me on the adventure!



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