This ACER article describes the benefits to students of strong school-community collaborations. How might ICT be used to enhance school-community collaborations?
This is something worth reading! Have you considered the long term effects of WIFI in the classroom on student health? Or maybe your childrens health? Watch the Video and be informed. As teachers we have a moral obligation to ensure the safety of students.
You may also wish to explore a little further on this issue, rather than just rely on a single source. Teachers also have an obligation to be fully informed.
WIFI - The uncontrolled global experiment on the health of mankind
There are little to no studies of the long-term effects of EMFs and on a developing brains, which are physiologically more vulnerable than the adult brain for a number of reasons. With WIFI being a relatively recent technology, there is a gap in the literature addressing longitudinal studies of EMF and children. If you wish to view a recent peer reviewed study assessing just the short-term effects you may read Kuzniar et al. (2017). As we know, in our current metropolitan environment we are exposed to EMFs constantly.
Markov and Grigoriev (2013) have clearly addressed some of the ethical and political issues arising from the use of WIFI technology and the unregulated global approach and safety guidelines. Grigoriev has explored this with a number of peer-reviewed studies. One that I found interesting was his article "Cellular communications and public health, 2012". From what I have read, there seems to be a consensus in the scientific community that this is an area for further research as conclusive results of the long-term effects of EMF on children cannot be found.
Further reading is included below (apologies for inconsistent referencing style):
Grigoriev & Markov (2013) Wi-Fi technology - an uncontrolled global experiment on the health of mankind: http://dx.doi.org/10.3109/15368378.2013.776430
Kuzinar et al. (2017). Semi-quantitative proteomics of mammalian cells upon short-term exposure to non-ionizing electromagnetic fields. http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/metrics?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0170762#citedHeader
Stable URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0170762
Grigoriev YG. Cellular communications and public health. Radiat Biol Radioecol. 2012a; 52 2: 1-4.
Anke etal. (2015) Environmental Radiofrequency Electromagnetic Fields Exposure at Home, Mobile and Cordless Phone Use, and Sleep Problems in 7-Year-Old Children, http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0139869
Thank you for sharing I watched the video and it certainly illuminates some serious concerns not only in schools but also in our homes. I will now be looking at where our wifi unit will be situated and taking a closer look at our homes technologicial set up. This is very important to share and my children will be taking a look at this video later today.
I have also read about some experiments students have done at school with a living plant that they placed near the computer and Wi-Fi as a science experiment I will see if I can find the link.
I agree it is also important to research such a topic to get a broader scope of the situation.
Regards
Faye
U1069753
Thanks for your input Faye,
The intent of my original post was not to create hysteria but to encourage critical thinking, as National Government institutions can be slow to respond to new global research...especially when it may challenge our current 'comfortable' way of life and assumptions.
Cheers,
u1070429
Thank you for sharing this information. My thoughts are an education in civilised countries can't function without these devices. Children response to technology than any other educational diverse. There are more positive than negative. Using technology in the 21st century is helping our kids engage in the classroom, and our children need these devices to function in their learning to become capable and able students in future. I work in a school setting where the majority of the student's complete task using computer and iPad. We as teachers need these devices to function properly in our role as educators.
Technology is fun, engaging and reliable to some extent, these methods over the years have help to improve our student outcome.
Thanks,
Joy
The Student Blogging Challenge is just one project that aims to help school age learners connect to folk outside of the classroom. An example of ICTs being used to exchange information/communicate
A new challenge runs every March and September.
The effective use of ICT allows for the development of highly creative and inspirational learning and teaching resources and activity programmes.
It is a dynamic medium which, when used appropriately by students and teachers, can significantly reinforce and deepen geographical knowledge and understanding.
Allows students to collect, display, communicate and evaluate findings in a highly creative and personal fashion. Supportive of independent learning.
This is a great website that I found, it is primarily set up for Pre-Service Teachers to help them build their ICTE (Information, Communication and Technology in Education) capabilities. It even has little packages that you can log into the site with your Scootle account and look at practical hints and tips on integrating ICTs into your lessons in English, History, Maths and Science. Easy to use and quite informative. Has a lot of information about TPACK too :) the packages come in three areas, early childhood, upper primary/lower secondary and years 9/10. There is even reflective video clips from Pre-Service Teachers that have used these packages.
ICT - the ability
of individuals to use ICT appropriately to access, manage, integrate and evaluate information, develop new
understandings and communicate with others in order to participate effectively in society.
Quite frankly I found the SAMR-model, as it was presented,
to be over simplistic and even trivial.
The idea that technology not only
affects the quality and efficiency of tasks but also changes the conditions for
communication, interaction and learning,
There are, for instance, studies showing the decreased reading abilities among Swedish children
can be tied to an increase in computer use
A Swedish academic writes an open letter raising some concerns about the SAMR model. A common model for understanding what ICT can be used for. Mentioned briefly in the week 3 learning path.
A fantastic spec ed blog with tips, information, supports, videos and lectures designed to motivate, teach and create a community of like minded educators
Found this and thought it was an amazing list. Has helped a lot with prac. What are the best apps for teachers? We asked TED-Ed Innovative Educators and the TED-Ed community. Below, 25 awesome apps recommended for teachers, by teachers. TED-Ed More than 250,000 teachers use TED education tools to spark student curiosity and explore presentation literacy skills. "TED-Ed is an outstanding resource in my classroom," says TED-Ed Innovative Educator Jennifer Hesseltine.