Last week I was contacted by Jewel Topfield, a reporter from The Age newspaper, who wanted to visit my classroom to watch me teach and talk to me about how I use technology in the classroom. Jewel and a photographer visited one of our daily reading rotations in my grade two class and had the […]
General News
Social Media Monitoring
Last week I posted about Denis Masseni’s report “Why Schools are Spooked by Social Media.” An interesting component of this report was on social media monitoring. That is, monitoring the internet for mentions of a particular keyword (such as your school). This is a good way to take defensive action if negative mentions occur and […]
Why Schools are Spooked by Social Media
I was pleased I was listening to ABC Radio Melbourne this morning when I heard the next segment was going to be about social media in schools. While I braced myself for a flood of ill informed callers harping on the negatives of Facebook and the like I was pleasantly surprised at the outcome. Denis […]
Why I think Blogs Should be Public
I have had a number of educators have asked me in the past about my privacy guidelines for my class blog. Recently, an educator contacted me for advice when their principal would not allow their class blog to be public. That is, the principal would not allow blogging unless the blog was completely password protected. […]
The Reform Symposium
Kelly Tenkely, who writes one of my favourite blogs, iLearn Technology, has been busy working with some fellow educators on a free worldwide e-conference. The conference, called the 2010 Reform Symposium is scheduled to be held on July 31st and August 1st. The focus of the 2010 conference is on innovative practices in education and […]
Twitter from a Newbie’s Perspective!
According to the website, http://www.whendidyoujointwitter.com I joined Twitter on 9 March 2009. It wasn’t until early 2010, however that I started really using Twitter. I had tried many times previously to get into this social networking phenomenon but, like all things technological, I needed to see how Twitter could enrich my life in order to […]
Tech Tools for Teachers #14 BTN
Each week Simon Collier and I collaborate on an email newsletter for teachers called Tech Tools for Teachers. Click here to find an archive of past newsletters and to subscribe. This week we review the website Behind the News (BTN) http://www.abc.net.au/btn/ Behind the News (BTN) is a fantastic Australian site by the ABC that helps […]
Global Collaborative Projects
One of the richest ways you can use technology in the classroom is to collaborate globally. I am becoming a big fan of global collaborations and the projects my Grade Two students work on are proving to be powerful learning experiences. Global collaboration provides authentic learning opportunities that help students learn about another culture while […]
Thoughts on the Ultranet
The Ultranet is a $60.5 million online portal for teachers, students and parents in Victorian government schools. After years of build up, the Ultranet was officially launched on Monday 10th May and my school was in the first group of schools to come online. The first stage of the Ultranet allows students and teachers to […]
Teach Like a Champion: A Guide for the 21st Century?
Teach Like a Champion by Doug Lemov is a book that came out in April 2010. It has the byline “49 Techniques that Put Students on the Path to College” and comes with a DVD of real teachers demonstrating 25 of the techniques in the classroom. The author, Doug Lemov, is the managing director of […]
Research Skills and Google Posters
Teaching students how to effectively use search engines such as Google to search for content is a valuable skill. This is something I’ve even started introducing to my Grade Two students. Many people don’t realise there are many tricks to performing the most effective Google search. I also like to have discussions with my students […]
Clasroom Resources: Teachers Pet
I have been using the website SparkleBox for quite a while to find a wide range of printable resources for my primary classroom. I was therefore surprised to discover that the SparkleBox website has been been undergoing a troubled time recently with it’s creator and editor, Samuel King being imprisioned in January 2010 for child […]
Create a Global Avatar with Gravatar
As I read quite a few blogs, I always like it when a commenter has an avatar (picture of self) next to their comment. Even if the avatar is not a true picture, it adds interest and a personality to the commenter. Often, when someone does not have a recognised avatar, their comments on blog […]
Digital Natives
Many people talk about the divide between digital natives and digital immigrants in today’s society. Digital natives are said to be those people who have grown up in a world of computers and 21st centuries technologies. People who are considered digital immigrants grew up before the digital age and have had to learn how to […]
Teaching Technology Post “Noughties”
For a while now I have been questioning the curriculum that is seen in many primary school I.T/ICT/Technology/Computer classes. Many primary school students spend an hour each week in a computer lab learning about Office programs and the like….”how to make a PowerPoint, Word Document, Photo Story etc”. Now that we have left the “noughties”, […]