Bell Primary School

Last month we posted a free digital citizenship poster for our educator community to download. The response we received after posting it was incredible - more than 20,000 downloads in the first week! After publishing the post, many international educators requested a version of the poster in their native language and today we're please to announce that it's now available in Dutch, French, German, Greek and Spanish. In addition to these new languages, we also created a black and white version for those looking for a more "printer-friendly" version.

A great site created by the Oz Gov that discusses cyber safety. Should be included on any class blog. 

"Global connectivity, smart machines, and new media are just some of the drivers reshaping how we think about work, what constitutes work, and the skills we will need to be productive contributors in the future. This report analyzes key drivers that will reshape the landscape of work and identifies key work skills needed in the next 10 years. It does not consider what will be the jobs of the future. Many studies have tried to predict specific job categories and labor requirements. Consistently over the years, however, it has been shown that such predictions are difficult and many of the past predictions have been proven wrong. Rather than focusing on future jobs, this report looks at future work skills-proficiencies and abilities required across different jobs and work settings."

A fabulous presentation put together by John Pearce that discusses some features of Global 2 blogging platform.

At school our big focus on CBL and Inquiry Based Learning has led to conversations around how to scaffold and teach students skills relating to researching on the web. It's my opinion that Primary School students should not be left to do open searches Google - there is simply too much information to sort through. (This doesn't mean we don't teach them how and give them opportunities to practise, it just means we don't set them Challenges and let them 'go for it' on the open web) Instead, teachers need to find relevant websites for students to search for information from, and post them on their class Site or Blog. This limits the amount of information students need to search through, and guides their searches to appropriate websites for their reading level etc.

This looms like another great mind mapping tool. It's great that you can save it to your Google drive. I was able to create a map on my ipad with ease. Online mapping is a great way for students to make their thinking visible and because it can be saved to drive they have the capacity to share it with others and collaborate.

Over the last month I've shown the picture that you see to the left during a number of presentations and workshops. I've used the picture to model using pictures to spark students' minds at the beginning of lessons on search strategies. This is a strategy that I've developed by borrowing ideas from Daniel Russell's Search ReSearch activities and Dan Meyer's strategy of using videos and pictures to prompt students to ask math questions.

Some free resource videos for Literacy. I particularly like the "When Two Vowels Go Walking" song.

Would a person with good handwriting, spelling and grammar and instant recall of multiplication tables be considered a better candidate for a job than, say, one who knows how to configure a peer-to-peer network of devices, set up an organisation-wide Google calendar and find out where the most reliable sources of venture capital are, I wonder? The former set of skills are taught in schools, the latter are not.

A great example of using google sites as a platform for eportfolios

A great example of how student blogs can be used to create a student eportfolio. This example amazingly is all done through an iPad. Imagine having a couple of class sets of iPads to share across P-2?

Scope and sequence that Megan had put together in 2012 based on VELS. This is a great starting point and it would be good to compare and contrast with the Aus Curriculum ICT competencies. 

A great collection of resources, ideas and examples of schools who have transformed the way they do things through ICT. 

How blogging could possibly look at Bell PS. Would like to align this document with Ausvels and Australian Curriculum ICT Competencies. These competencies could all be easily covered through student blogging and other Web2.0 online collaborative spaces. 

"n the Australian Curriculum, students develop ICT capability as they learn to use ICT effectively and appropriately to access, create and communicate information and ideas, solve problems and work collaboratively in all learning areas at school, and in their lives beyond school. The capability involves students in learning to make the most of the digital technologies available to them, adapting to new ways of doing things as technologies evolve and limiting the risks to themselves and others in a digital environment. The Melbourne Declaration on the Educational Goals for Young Australians (MCEETYA 2008) recognises that in a digital age, and with rapid and continuing changes in the ways that people share, use, develop and communicate with ICT, young people need to be highly skilled in its use. To participate in a knowledge-based economy and to be empowered within a technologically sophisticated society now and into the future, students need the knowledge, skills and confidence to make ICT work for them at school, at home, at work and in their communities. Information and communication technologies are fast and automated, interactive and multimodal, and they support the rapid communication and representation of knowledge to many audiences and its adaptation in different contexts. They transform the ways that students think and learn and give them greater control over how, where and when they learn."

This is a great comparison/juxtaposition of the Australian Curriculum ICT General Capabilities with the 21st Century Fluencies.

We're putting together some research for some upcoming BYOT policy content, and in the course of doing so found many existing policies enlightening. For starters, it is clear that some districts were more open-minded entering their BYOT programs than others. Many "policies" (not included below) were really more of a set of rules and consequences for breaking the rules than they were a supporting framework for teachers and students. In the end, every situation is different. There is no single "right way" to implement a BYOT program, so we've included 11 widely varying policy styles below, with each authoring school or district named inline.

Where data meets design and art. Amazing.