Suzie Vesper visits Shelly Park School

Yesterday we had a visit from Suzie Vesper and Belinda Johnston.  It was great spending time discussing our school's progress towards completing the Final Milestone Report at the end of 2010 which marks the completion of the Eastnet Cluster we have been involved in for the last 3 years.  We re-visited the Contract Goals and discussed where next in terms of gathering evidence to support the statements we will make against each Goal for the Report and also sustainability for the rest of 2010 and beyond.

It was very interesting to me that this week in the middle and junior schools Kathy Pittaway and I are doing work which is contributing towards achieving one of the Goals which is as follows -

National Goal: Increase the school community's understanding of the education contribution of eLearning;
Cluster Goal: Parents will attend information evenings and workshops to develop an understanding of our eLearning community;
Success Indicators: Parents access and contribute to online learning environments eg KnowledgeNET, UltraNet, wikis, blogs and e-Portfolios.

The middle school are involved in online Homework related to their current inquirt about Water Conservation this week.  The task is to undertake a survey, created in Google Forms, and embedded into their Pod KnowledgeNET page then the following week to complete a Poll where they will self-assess their work using the traffic lights system.  Kathy and I plan to interview some children and ask them about how they felt about doing their Homework this way.  Then we can use this along with screenshots of the gathered data and the childrens' responses to this as evidence for the Milestone Report.

In the junior school yesterday I organised a feedback session for the Pod 1 and 2 Digikidz to share their learning with their parents and also to provide the parents with an opportunity to ask questions about the process.  The children recorded their parents' ideas using the easi-speak microphones and we will upload these, along with the photos they took using the digital cameras, into voicethread next week as a revision exercise.  The feedback was overwhelmingly positive and the parents reported the following:



The second Goal I was very interested in was:

Cluster Goal: Parents will be aware of the value of cybersafety protocols and its implications.
Success Indicators: Increased awareness of eLearning issues and cybersafety requirements.

I am interested in this at the moment because of my upcoming session with the BOT and skype conversation with Suzanne Barr about the possibility of participating in the Super Clubs Plus pilot in Years 4, 5 and 6.

Real Life Stories

Visit http://www.netsmartz.org/resources/reallife.htm for video scenarios, activity cards and related news articles.

There are helpful sections for Parents/Guardians and Educators.  Many scenarios are at a teenage level, however, these could be adapted or give teachers ideas to explore with their class.  NetsmartzKids has lots of usable videos and games for children that are safe and appropriate.  The Hector's World is also excellent and has a lot of new areas in development.  I am curious to find out about the Telephone Booth and I like the look of the Digital Citizens Advice area.  The only area I have made really good use of thus far is the Episode Theatre and then reinforcing the important messages within the clips through everyday practice working with Junior age children.  I need to take it further.

Digital Citizenship and Cybersafety

Just joined this wiki http://ictpd-digital-citizenship-and-cybersafety.wikispaces.com/ .  I am very excited to be participating in a cybersafety and digital citizenship project as this has been something I have been interested in for a while.  I have looked into Super Clubs Plus and am keen to see what else I can investigate to increase my knowledge and understanding of this very important aspect of eLearning.

When I visited the wiki I watched a couple of youtube clips, the first of which I was familiar with having shared this with the staff at our school last week during a staff meeting. 



The other one, however, I had not seen and was very interested in.


The idea of myself as a Digital Immigrant speaking digital as a 2nd language versus my children as digital 1st language learners worries me, however, I was slightly reassured after watching the clip when Jukes said that the mind can re-wire and you can learn new things!  There's hope for me yet.  Jukes recommends reading: Steven Johnson's book 'Everything bad is good for you' - which, according to Jukes, says children playing sophisticated online games learn to take risks, deal with failure, become motivated and confident and have high expectations of themselves. He then goes on to recommend 'A Whole New Mind' by Daniel Pink. I am now adding another blog to my list of subscriptions in Google Reader http://www.committedsardine.com/blog.cfm .
I also was interested in the Educational Origami Wiki which had further information and Patrick Woessner's Presentations wiki on digital citizenship which I will have to spend some time exploring.