Group items tagged

"The Department has a clear Anti-Bullying Policy through the strategy 'Safe Schools are Effective Schools' which highlights that every student has the right to feel safe from bullying at school. All forms of bullying, whether it be physical, verbal or cyber are not tolerated at any level in Victorian government schools. As noted in the Department's Anti-Bullying Policy, all Victorian government schools must develop and implement a Student Code of Conduct. The Student Code of Conduct must now be updated to include cyber bullying. See the Department's anti-bullying Policy & Code of Conduct ."

"Comments really make blogs come alive and transform your blog from a static space to an interactive community."

The concepts of digital citizenship and citizenship 2.0 are particularly relevant in the context of globalisation and the knowledge economy. The most recent technology standards for students published by ISTE enshrine a major category for digital citizenship (ISTE, 2007). "Digital citizenship" is now being dubbed as "citizen 2.0" and in the simplest terms it refers to the ability to participate in society online and to use technology appropriately. Digital citizenship represents capacity, belonging, and the potential for political and economic engagement in society in the information age (O‟Brien, 2008). Digital citizens practice conscientious use of technology, demonstrate responsible use of information, and maintain a positive attitude to learning with technology (ISTE 2007 cited in Richards, 2010). The affordances of the recent raft of web 2.0 technologies - sharing, collaborating, networking, customising and personalization enable new forms of civic participation which are changing existing social relations (Punie & Cabrera, 2006). Social communication technologies offer new channels for political engagement, contacting officials, and discussing issues. The network effects or benefits of bringing people together online exceed the satisfaction gained by individual participants - creating what economists call "positive externalities" or spill over benefits.

Grade level activities for students/teachers

From my personal experience, I believe text messaging can help kids with their writing. My 15 year old son has a pretty severe learning disability and struggles immensely with writing and spelling. Text messaging on his iPhone has been a Godsend. With corrective type he has much less anxiety to write (and feel embarrassed about his poor spelling), and with the short nature of text messaging he is far more willing to actually write to his friends. It may be 50 short lines, but it's 50 lines of writing every day which, in my mind, can only help. Obviously he needs help learning to organize his writing, but texting has given him a new, motivating outlet to write. I realize this article may point less to corrective type and more to kids thinking of the text abbreviations to type, but I feel corrective type may be one of the most effective assistive technologies in kids hands today.