Parents Internet Safety Morning

This morning I invited the parents along for a talk on the upcoming Internet safety topic we'll be running for the next 4 weeks. The Presentation that is embedded below is in several versions depending on what you prefer.

The links in the final slide aren't there, instead they are here which makes things a little easier.

The next presentation will be all about games in education and how to engage our learners at various points in a topic. It wil also highlight how games are now common place and used to build Literacy, Numeracy and other topics' levels of attainment. This article my help you get an understanding.

The Presentation in PDF Download from here.

Parents Presentation for Internet Safety May 2012

For Parents:

fbparents

Safer Internet Day

Safe Kids

Digizen

Our Internet Safety Guide/ Manual/ Whole School Assessment

Family E-Safety Kit

Resources we use in Class

Brain Pop

Hector's World

Moshi Monsters

WebWise

BBC

Welcome to the Web

Edmodo.com Using a Social Platform in the Primary School

I have been using edmodo now for a while and find that it's very simple to use and a real hit with the children. The most common remark being " it's just like Facebook". Not quite.

The children love it and are on there daily sharing their links links to games (mostly Sploder.com links to their home made games) and chatting in a safe environment- the language being used is excellent if a little short.

We have tried to encourage the use of proper grammar and not use this: !!!!!! or ????????? or "what the..." which is a commmon phrase here in Asia schools (they know the word that comes after it so they should not be using the phrase at all!

We currently have a Moodle setup at our school that is really never used and pretty defunct - this seems the perfect ticket. I just hope that Edmodo's business plan incorporates importing iCal (and others) to their systems or some kind of 3rd party cross app ingenuity that will really get the party moving. 

If you're wondering what is going on here then look at the comments from Simon Haughton about it too.

This helping guide should be pretty helpful too. The below embed is in HTML 5 so hit the link if you can't see it.

As much as I like Edmodo I kind of feel that there isn't much in the way of expansion in an education context. Moodle, as we know is a little clunky and filled a void of affordable LMS, Edmodo fills a void that is NOW using a Facebook skin but out of our (general) control (ICT folk baulk at this).

Please, don't get me wrong, I like the whole premise but am waiting for the day when the money pot is dry leaving us high and dry - and those who have advocated its merits - even higher as we've pushed it as a LMS to our devoted colleages.

Personally, my staff enjoy the links and guidance I give them, but this could be too much should Edmodo one day say (a la delicious.com) "Yeah, we love your enthusiasm but we're done; so and so has bought us for 140 gadrillion Dollars" = Angry teachers. The knock-on effect would mean that our teachers would think twice about hitting the link I give them. 

So, in summary, I am going to make this plain and clear to our teachers and maintain that should they want to stay with Google Apps then all is good - just make sure that parents know which platform you're going with.

Edmodo

IPC ICT How Big is the Internet? (International Primary Curriculum)

From my old blog on Wordpress....

How Big is the Internet?

This article has raised some questions I would like to bring to ICT lessons in Augustwhen we start back at school. The amount of users globally and the percentages. I think it would make a nice one lesson intro to the price of progress (an IPC topic for year 6) on a global scale. What implications does this have? The children could then brainstorm the after effects of the impact this has on the local and wider international environments with an ecological angle as well as the socio-economic (not that we’d use this language!).

If your local area has access to computers and the internet (here in Vietnam it’s booming with an estimated 5 million in the southern area [HCMC]) then what does this mean? There are other factors to take into account; in Asia there is a darker side to internet use. The Gold farming from sites like WOW and the Linden doallars being transferred as real life dollars for characters and popular virtual niceties. But that’s another story.

In addition, I would hasten to add the impact of Internet cafes here in HCMC as a local factor to price of  progress that affects the social aspect of children. Many of the Internet cafes house children of the same age as those in my studentship who are studying this topic late into the night. What further implications does this have? Is there a gender issue attached? Is there a knock-on effect to the content they view? Is there a difference to the content they view/ interact with and the content they view – some may say no. It could also be a good grounding for my international students who are slightly detached from their surroundings due to their family’s wealth. It is startling sometimes as to how they are oblivious to the world outside of school. The more I think about this the more I want to kick this off in the new term.