Group items tagged

Britannica is now free for bloggers. Another endorsements for the increasing importance of bloggers.

Encyclopedia Britannica is now free for bloggers from an article on 4/18/08 -- yet another reason for our students to blog. (I have students blogging publicly under pseudonyms.) This is fascinating, but also interesting to see how Britannica is playing catch up to Wikipedia in the market it once owned. I wonder, which would be more authoriative to you, a wikipedia quote updated daily, or Brittanica updated less often that doesn't display the authors of its content?

Mike Bogle's post on using YouTube and the harsh criticisms that content creators sometimes face from anonymous viewers and commentators.

Symantec is developing a Web-based service that will let parents control almost all aspects of their child's Internet activity from anywhere in the world.\n\nThe rising use of instant-messaging programs and social-networking sites by children has posed new challenges to parents seeking to prevent kids' access to inappropriate content or contact with creepy online adults. A demo seen by IDG on Friday showed the application gives parents sweeping control over their child's activity.

What to do with all those cell phones, PDAs, and iPods tucked away in students' backpacks? Forward-thinking administrators have found a 'smart' solution: Load them with educational content and welcome them into instruction.

John Palfrey & Urs Gasser [Berkman Center] identify 9 myths about Digital Natives and offer succinct interpretations based on research and observations of youth. Educators involved in digital citizenship efforts may find a shift in thinking is necessary in how we educate students about issues related to online safety, copyright, privacy etc....where their confusions are and what they do/don't understand. It's also important to understand the significance of social groups and online communities on our youth and how they motivate development of friendship-driven and interest-driven content.

New safety rules from Telestra aim to give parents a tool in the fight against cyber bullying, with many struggling to understand what they can do to protect their children.Families should learn how to report cyberbullying and to work on building trust about discussing online problems. The article gives five suggestions for how adults can become an internet parent:
Familiarize yourself - talk with your child about their use of the internet.
Explore - websites and technologies yourself.
Restrict inappropriate content and consider parental controls such as filtering.
Talk to your child and encourage open communication
Know - be aware of the potential dangers and know where to report potentially illegal or inappropriate behaviour online.

From Anastasia Goodstein: Here are some of the lessons I've learned from studying young peoples' online habits, helping to launch a number of successful Web sites and TV properties for teens and twentysomethings, and founding a blog about youth culture for media and marketing pros.
1. Teens are multitaskers.
2. Teens prefer byte-sized entertainment.
3. Teens expect content on demand
4. Teens want to participate.

Class Blog used to support reading Richard III. Social networking used to demonstrate understanding of content. This same site used to have the Richard III theme used as a MYSPACE page, with students taking on the roles of characters within his circle of influence. Check out all of the student comments for each blog entry!

Public schools and local governments may have more stringent requirements than most businesses for email archiving and electronic discovery. Yet, with their limited budgets, schools and local governments are often the least equipped to respond.The newly revised Federal Rules of Civil Procedure define how email must be handled in federal court cases. Businesses tend to think that the FRCP focus is on interstate lawsuits. Schools and governments, however, also need to be concerned with emails relating to federally funded activities or any activity governed by federal legislation.In addition, schools and local governments have the burden of responding to (1) requests under open meeting and Freedom of Information Act laws, (2) offensive emails or those with sexual content involving students, and (3) emailed threats.

In collaboration with several content area organizations, the Partnership for 21st Century Skills developed a series of ICT Literacy Maps illustrating the intersection between Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Literacy and core academic subjects including English, mathematics, science and social studies (civics/government, geography, economics, history). The maps enable educators to gain concrete examples of how ICT Literacy can be integrated into core subjects, while making the teaching and learning of core subjects more relevant to the demands of the 21st century.

The social Web has given users great power: the ability to create and share content with people around the world - easily and quickly. The problem of course, is that power is often not compatible with effective and clear thinking. The thought that germinated in an instant can be immortalized in perpetuity on the Web.

American Association of School Administrators, Education.com and Symantec have launched a Special Edition on Bullying at School and Online reflecting new evidence-based, peer-reviewed content to dispel common myths about bullying.

Children are among the most frequent users of the Internet, yet searching and browsing the web can present many challenges. Studies over the past two decades on how children search were conducted with finite and pre-determined content found in CD-ROM applications, online digital libraries, and web directories. However, with the current popularity of the open Internet and keyword-based interfaces for searching it, more critical analysis of the challenges children face today is needed. This paper presents the findings of an initial study to understand how children ages 7, 9, and 11 search the Internet using keyword interfaces in the home.

According to new research, more than half of parents cite inappropriate people such as strangers or child predators and content such as adult imagery or depicted violence as the biggest online threats they perceive to their children. But it found that only about a third of them know that there are parental control tools available that can help insulate kids from these perceived threats.

Note that this "research" was done by a company that sells security products so the questions about "biggest online threats" may have been slightly skewed.

The NECC Program features a broad spectrum of content focused on the standards, curriculum, best practices, and essential conditions for creating a 21st-Century learning environment for students.

The Entertainment Software Association has put together a comprehensive web site on intellectual property geared for K-5 and middle school students. Through hands-on learning activities, students explore the significance of intellectual property in their everyday lives. There are suggestions for integrating content with classroom curriculum, teacher's guides, reproducible worksheets and Powerpoint templates. All of the activities are designed to raise copyright awareness and build respect for intellectual property.

Networks are evolving so that people may customize what is sent to them. Again, the best filter in the world is the human brain and through RSS, people will have access to many things (that will make it through your firewall.) This is an example of a space for TV buffs that is increasing in interest in the entertainment field.

This is a website where tv enthusiasts are sharing videos and collaborating. This is an example of how television and all of our entertainment is evolving to become more customized.\n\nIn addition to creating personal learning networks, we will also be creating personal entertainment networks (PEN's) -- all via this amazing thing we call RSS. Understanding RSS is not only important for learning but just living your life.\n\nUser created content is here to stay.

This unit of work was part of the Semester 1 Grade 9 MYP Technology course at Qatar Academy, 2007-8. Each link to a strand of digital citizenship reveals student work: research and lesson content as well as evaluation.

Copyright Infringement or Not? The Debate over Downloading Music
Students discuss their own experiences and conduct further research on the controversial topic of sharing music and other audio content on the Internet. Based on their research, students take a stand on the controversy and develop persuasive arguments on their position that they present in a class debate on the subject of downloading.

Started in January 2008 by the founders of MyYearbok.com, SocialSafety.org is an effort to educate US teens on the dangers of social networking. Social Safety provides hundreds of thousands of free safety education packets for U.S. high school students, and provides free safety content to any student or site that requests it.