Group items tagged

"It's nice to see Khan getting some critical attention here-it's not particularly useful to anybody to continue to smother the project in unthinking praise; particularly not to the Khan academy itself. Many have complained that Khan's been unreceptive to criticism, and these efforts have cracked the door for a more robust conversation."

"Have you heard the phrase "That's true because I saw it on TV" at some point? It was often the truth in the old days when people only had the TV or newspaper to relate to. What you saw or read was the truth, although it obviously wasn't always so. Today, thanks to the Internet, we consider ourselves much more enlightened. We can discuss and examine the source in a way that was not possible in the past. But are we really aware of all information flowing up over the net? What is really true and what's not? When someone presents a bit of loose facts on Twitter, I usually respond with something like "64% of the facts on the Internet is 48% incorrect according to 52% of respondents", completely made up numbers out of my head, but it makes people think a little extra. It is somewhat disturbing at times when the bandwagon takes of and speeds up, without people being critical. People stand up for situations that may never have happened, and spin on it which ultimately results in that it will be trated as facts, or a faktoid."

"DocumentaryZ offers hundreds of documentaries organized into two dozen categories. Many of the videos are served via YouTube, but some are not. If you're fortunate enough to work in a school that allows you to access YouTube, DocumentaryZ is worth bookmarking. If you're looking for a documentary to use in your classroom, take a look at DocumentaryZ. I do have one word of caution, the Health and Sexuality categories do include some topics that may not be appropriate for all students. Therefore, it would be best to use DocumentaryZ for your own searches rather than letting students search the site on their own." Evaluation summary from http://goo.gl/42ouh

This is not mere Google bashing which has become very fashionable these days. It is not about the deteriorating search quality of Google everyone is starting to notice or why Microsoft's Bing is any better. It is really about how the cyber world is changing and shaping the needs and expectations which have evolved beyond mere key word search. Services like Scoop.it will meet those because Google won't. Pretty soon the question will be "have you scooped it?" rather than "Have you Googled it?"

"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."

"I was thinking today that I had to make it clear that competency with technology is not the first issue you should worry about if you want to make SAMR progress. The issue to tackle first is the teaching conventions and mindsets amongst the staff, and for this you need some pretty simple and effective arguments. So here are some I've used to move staff on a little:"

"It's the iPad's versatility, portability, camera, app selection and user-friendliness that keeps it ahead of the others for education but it's the approach taken by the teacher to learning within the classroom that realises these benefits, not the iPad alone. Worry first about what you are asking of your students and how much they are reliant on the teacher."

This list suggests some readily available digital tools that could be useful for VCE Students. It is not a definitive list but rather one that is not too daunting but offers a few options in

"Parents across the globe today - from Lagos to Los Angeles and from Myanmar to Moscow - need to have a new conversation with their kids. No, it's not about how their kids are behaving in class, why they should never talk to strangers, or when they need to be home at night. It's not even the talk that parents usually brace themselves for, about sex. It's something new, something parents never considered as a critical issue 20 or 10 or even 5 years ago - but something that is just as pervasive as any of the other issues in their children's lives and, in so many ways, just as important. It's data permanence. How we can preserve our reputations in the digital era?"

"Mobile phone tracking techniques are becoming more commonplace. Waste bins target ads. Shopping centres follow customers. Spooks follow airport passengers. Will the Privacy Act's new definition of personal information provide enhanced protections against mobile phone tracking? Not really. Here's why."

"Whether you realize it or not, dozens - if not hundreds - of apps and services have access to your social accounts and can see everything you're doing online. Tweets, Likes, your location, are all there for the taking. What's worse, there's a pretty good chance you unwittingly gave them permission."

"Would any of my students turn down a 1:1 MacBook Pro? Of course not. Still, I believe there is great value in the limitations of resources. When we engage in Device Wars on twitter and the blogosphere, we all seem to exercise significant bias in equating the best classroom tool with the one that we find most productive in our personal or professional lives (I touched upon that in disagreeing with folks who contend that the iPad is not a creation tool). Do I have a vision of what technology I'd like in my class in the perfect scenario? Sure I do. Do my students and I really need that state of shiny utopia, especially when it is (in my view) impossible to achieve in an equitable fashion? I don't think so."

"For years, Windows users have been plagued by ransomware demanding several hundred dollars to unlock their computers. The bad guys know there is a growing market of Apple consumers who, for the most part, feel pretty safe about browsing the Internet on a Mac without the need for any security product. Cyber-criminals, well known for not re-inventing the wheel, have 'ported' the latest ransomware to OS X, not by using some complicated exploit but rather leveraging the browser and its 'restore from crash' feature."

"It's Not Paranoia: The Internet Knows More Than You Think"

"While schools should promote creativity, I'm not sure that it is wise to prioritize innovation in education."

"This would not be the first time. For example, when Sir Francis Bacon said that knowledge of the world should be grounded in carefully verified facts about the world, he wasn't just giving us a new method to achieve old-fashioned knowledge. He was redefining knowledge as theories that are grounded in facts. The Age of the Net is bringing about a redefinition at the same scale. Scientific knowledge is taking on properties of its new medium, becoming like the network in which it lives."

"One of the great things about Minecraft is that there's not just one version. It exists as a stand-alone game, but creative players also create modifications, or "mods," that add all sorts of upgrades, features, and options for every taste. One of the most popular mods for classrooms is MinecraftEdu. Since it's targeted at classrooms, teachers may be tempted to ignore Minecraft and head straight for MinecraftEdu -- but not so fast! Both Minecraft and MinecraftEdu can serve as great learning tools. So which version is right for you and your classroom? Consult this list of pros, cons, and suggestions to make your decision."

"Computers and tablets, as they are currently used, do not encourage the development of complex thought or the ability to concentrate for long periods of time. If we were truly wise, we would cut back on computer use in schools indefinitely. "

"It's creepy to think that you're being stalked. But how much creepier is it that a group of people sit around a long table analysing information on your Facebook profile in order to decide whether you're worthy of a job in their organisation? Not only are we told that this repugnant practice occurs but it's promoted as a reality in the education system."

"Unfortunately, the code in your browser that powers Facebook still knows what you typed-even if you decide not to publish it.* It turns out that the things you explicitly choose not to share aren't entirely private. Facebook calls these unposted thoughts "self-censorship," and insights into how it collects these nonposts can be found in a recent paper written by two Facebookers. Sauvik Das, a Ph.D. student at Carnegie Mellon and summer software engineer intern at Facebook, and Adam Kramer, a Facebook data scientist, have put online an article presenting their study of the self-censorship behavior collected from 5 million English-speaking Facebook users. "