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Virtual schools here and throughout California provide flexibility needed by child actors, musicians and serious athletes, and offer options to regular students dissatisfied with traditional classrooms. Vincent is enrolled in Capistrano Connections Academy, an Orange County charter school available in neighboring counties, including Riverside. "I get home just in time for my science live lesson," Vincent said by phone after skating practice. "I eat lunch and I start school." Several Inland districts operate their own virtual schools, including the Perris Union High School District. Lake Elsinore Unified School District will launch its online school in August. San Bernardino City Unified chartered a virtual school.

"As I lamented in my last post, many of the fabulous Web tools out there are restricted to users 13 and over. This limits what Elementary/Primary schools students can access online to create content to collaborate. To save others at school some time, then, I have compiled a list of popular/well known Web tools that can and can't be used by children under 13 - 1), so we are legally covered in what we are allowing our students to use and 2), so they know what is available. Please note that generally the sites that allow for under 13s still ask for parental permission ( even Edmodo if you haven't read the Terms of Use) so a solid school user agreement is needed to use these tools. Some of the sites are not US based so are not bound by COPPA and CIPA regulations. It still requires schools to carefully check out what can be viewed on these sites to ensure they are appropriate to access."

"People complain that they want privacy, and then they put all their information up on Facebook. Thus, hacking is ultra-easy. I have seen teenagers post pictures of their first credit card, then a month later their new college student I.D. These kids are so excited to have signs of growing up, but as we grow up our lives need to be more private to guard from hackers. Now I am a culprit of being very relaxed about my online privacy, meaning, I have the same password for multiple sites, I use my high school name as my clue, and the name of my high school is on Facebook somewhere. So hack away, I look forward to meeting the person who decides to take up my identity!"

This is a great article. I never thought about fraud or being hacked on the internet, until I uploaded a picture of my working with children check for in the Northern Territory onto Facebook. Straight away, my mum called me and told me to take it off! even though my Facebook is set to private, she made me realise that anyone can still find it and use it! I've always been one to be super careful of these things and now am even more careful when I hear about people's email passwords and Facebook passwords being changed without them knowing! I think if my students were to have online accounts such as blogs etc. I would make sure they had them all set onto private so that they can't get hacked, especially of their identity.

"This year at my school we've begun to dip our toes into the waters of online communication (some staff are already swimming while others are still sitting on the edge thinking they'll drown without support). We've introduced both Edmodo and blogging to varying degrees this year. In a nutshell, I see Edmodo as an all encompassing classroom management/teaching and learning/collaboration system. Blogging, on the other hand, while it can be used for all the purposes just mentioned, is a tool for writing, publishing and sharing your body of work, be it major writing tasks or quick reflections on life or school work. While it aims to share and craves feedback, blogging is a personal tool. Edmodo, however, it more group oriented. Because of the differentiation between the two, I think they should both be part of classroom practice."

"Teachers and their students are moving more and more online. Kids are blogging their learning as an excellent way to build confidence, reflect and gather feedback. Schools are showcasing the best of their students' work on their websites.and the educational world is benefiting from a collaborative worldwide connections. That's all exciting and positive but we have one important question: Who owns the material and it's components when it's published? This is where we must all be careful. A quick Google search will find a growing number of cases where people have sought damages for even single images republished on both blogs and social media like Twitter. This link tells the story of a bad photo taken on a phone that was found on Google and used In a blog Post resulting in an $8000 out of court settlement. Every photo is owned by the photographer automatically and if you choose the wrong image you can loose out substantially."

"Published on 25 Sep 2013 Henry Sibley High School believes in educating students now for the digital realm of the future. This means being aware of the implications that today's online interaction can have down the road. This 15 minute video walks students through how to protect themselves online, and how to create and manage a positive digital footprint. Special Thanks to Azul 7, the University of Minnesota, and the Mendota Heights Police Department."

"I've been support educators to integrate technology since 2008. I've been fortunate to do this at school, region, state and online situations. In that time I have seen those I now consider friends go through a bit of a continuum in 'online content integration'. It believe it goes something like this."

Smartphones and tablet computers are radically transforming how we access our shared knowledge sources by keeping us constantly connected to near-infinite volumes of raw data and information. We enjoy unprecedented instant access to expertise, from informal cooking lessons on YouTube to online university courses. Every day people around the globe are absorbed in exciting new forms of learning, and yet traditional schools and university systems are still struggling to leverage the many opportunities for innovation in this area.

"Blogging in the classroom was a watershed discovery for me.  I had such an acute need for a better way to manage my student's writing, but I was wary of blogging.  There are challenges to helping students learn in an online community.  Until I met Matt Hardy from KidBlog, I viewed these risks as too big to manage on my own.  I believe that as a teacher I have to both innovate and protect my own professional reputation.  When I heard Matt talk about how he created KidBlog to support exactly the kind of connected learning I want to happen in my classroom, I realized how accessible this learning is now.  Using school specific tools like Kidblog, or  Edublogs, can give you more control and management potential than using conventional tools like Blogger, or WordPress"

"I've been thinking and reading about what it would be like to teach a (math) class in a school with a Bring Your Own Device policy. My answer: "My class will teach the world what they learn with me. Everything will be accessible online and on a mobile device." Here's what I would set up: "

This binder is an attempt to collect and organize Digital Citizenship resources by age (grade level). Often when we think of Digital Citizenship, we only think about the safety aspects of it but being a digital citizen is much more than just being safe. The nine elements of Digital Citizenship as outlined in the book Digital Citizenship in Schools by Mike Ribble and Gerald Bailey are: Digital Etiquette Digital Communication Digital Literacy Digital Access Digital Commerce Digital Law Digital Rights & Responsibilities Digital Health & Wellness Digital Security (self-protection) Source: http://www.digitalcitizenship.net/Nine_Elements.html If you would like to collaborate on this binder, please send the email address that you used when signing up with Live Binders to stmcomputers@gmail.com.

This Livebinder is a really comprehensive and up to date, (August 2011) collection of links to Digital Citizenship Resources

"In the digital age, kids need to have an understanding of what it means to be a responsible digital citizen. They need to learn the technical how-to's, as well as a more global comprehension of how to navigate the online world. To that end, Melbourne educator Jenny Luca made a commitment to help her students start blogging and to create ePortfolios. Here are five reasons why, at her school, these skills are now a high priority."

At our Digital Technologies Curriculum Summit in 2013 we announced a partnership with the University of Adelaide to create a free open online course for primary school teachers to help prepare them for the implementation of the new digital technologies curriculum in Australia which will have compulsory computational thinking & coding from K-8.

"Technology is transforming today's educational landscape, reaching children's fingers before they reach their shoes. According to the infographic below from LearnStuff.com, 70 percent of children between the ages of 2-5 can use a computer mouse, while only 11 percent can tie their own shoes. Today's generation is growing up with technology, proving to reject traditional beliefs about how people learn. 90 percent of students think tablets help them study more efficiently, and cause them to read 1.5 more books annually. Read the infographic below to see how students interact with technology along their scholastic path, from grade school to graduation."