I had to quickly share this with you - here are some responses from my Year 6 (10 year old) students to a question posed using one of Tony Ryan’s Thinkers Keys: “The Prediction Key”
What will schools be like in 100 years?
I found the following themes:
Digital technology will still be around.
There is a feeling that technology will continue to make things easier.
Schools will be in interesting places eg: sky, underwater.
Some students believe technology will replace Teachers.
There were no real surprises as I felt students visionary skills were restricted to what they have seen on TV EXCEPT for two students that I thought were worth noting:
Does this surprise or freak anyone else?!
These two students showed me that they could think outside the box. I will therefore be watching their development closely.
It has been a while since I last posted. My wife and I have been enjoying catching up on some friends in Canada (Vancouver, Toronto, Edmonton), L.A and New York. We were away for 4 weeks and now it is great to be home :+)
I found some entertaining animations today on Youtube written by a Grade 5 Teacher named Tony Dusko. He has a website called “Notebookbabies” and I just have to share it with you.
As you can see these little fullas look quite simple……but he uses them effectively. My students (10 year olds) laughed at them when I showed them a few of the clips. Tony has produced a number of short animation videos to address issues or present information for his class. Below are a few that caught my eye:
“Homework Hero” - a funny video encouraging students to do their homework.
“Messy Desks” - used to challenge students to keep tidy desks.
“What is a Friend” - this video (below) is a good place to start a discussion on Friendship for ages 5-10yrs.
I’m keen to find some animation that would encourage creativity, integrity and internet safety in my students. Have you found any that are worth checking out?
The other night our ICT Cluster was offered the chance to listen to a internet safety talk presented by NetSafe. It was excellent.
The internet safety message reminded me again of the harmful potential that the internet provides. This was also hit home to Rocky, my Cluster ICT Facilitator, who wrote a post entitled: “The Problem Is Not The Technology, It Is How It Is Used”.
Something worth watching and using especially if you are a Teacher, Parent or Principal is this video that was shared during the evening.
Following this and after further discussions with my Principal we have written up some blogging guidelines for our school:
1. General safety rules must be agreed on by the whole class.
a. Only use our FIRST name when writing.
b. Only use SENSIBLE and KIND words.
c. Do not write any of our DETAILS - this includes phone number, address and personal email address.
d. Be careful when putting PHOTOS on (we have permission slips signed by parents). Photos must not have any part of a student’s name at the bottom of it. Where possible group photos are preferred over individual photos.
e. Ask PERMISSION when putting on other people’s photos - tell them what you are going to do with the photos.
f. Only display nice photos of other people (we don’t want people to be embarrassed) .
g. Be RESPONSIBLE when using and writing on our blog.
2. Remove the Navbar by editing the html.
3. Edit html on widgets/slideshows/etc where possible so advertising is removed. (These advertising links lead students often to inappropriate sites.) Note: It is easier to use Photostory or Moviemaker to create slideshows/videos and then upload this to blogger using the “video upload” button.
4. Links to other blogs or websites must be previewed before linking to the class blog. (Pages with non educational links should not be included e.g. games, advertising, social networks).
5. Comment moderation must be turned on (this will enable all comments to be sent to a designated email box to be moderated before they are published on the blog).
6. Posts must be saved by students in draft form to be viewed by the teacher before publishing.
7. Show http://www.hectorsworld.com/ to students and have this link on your blog so videos on internet safety can be viewed and discussed.
As part of my classes ICT program we created a Voicethread to discuss and highlight the need to follow the above simple safety rules while on the internet:
The internet is a tool and just like a hammerit can inflict pain or build a magnificent house. It is our responsibility as educatorsto make sure we have done our best to teach internet safety to our students AND their families.
We must make sure our blog is safe; is your blog’s seatbelt done up?
