We had a wonderful break and are happy to be back at school. During our two week holidays we did a lot of exciting stuff. Here are some of our favourite things about our Christmas holidays: Karin-My favourite part of the holiday was when we went down island to see our friends. Sophie-My favourite part of the holidays was when my uncle bit me. Sharon-My favourite part of the holidays was getting my fish. It is a Siamese Fighting fish. Jacob-My favourite thing was getting my big giant Nerf gun. Bradley-I liked when I got the Lego. It is a ship. Kennedy-My favourite part of the holidays was seeing my little sister’s face when she got a jack-in-the-box. It was terrifying, but it was nice to see that she was happy. Gwen-My favourite part was when I went to my Daddy’s and got to sit in the hot tub. Trista-My favourite part was when I got an iPod from my mom. Solomon-My favourite part was when I went skiing. Ana-I went to Mt. Cain. Krystyna got to babysit me and we had a party. We’re looking forward to the new year and all the exciting things we will learn! What was your favourite part of the holidays?

Our latest art project was inspired by the book Dream Snow, written by Eric Carle.  The book has beautiful illustrations and uses plastic overlays to add snow to many of the pictures. We started by creating our backgrounds with shades of blue and purple and then painted our snowmen.  We added details to our snowmen using the painted paper we created at the beginning of the year.  Finally, we painted snow on overhead transparencies that we attached on top of our paintings. We love how they turned out and we hope that we will get some real snow soon!  

After dreaming about snow for weeks and weeks, we finally got some this weekend! Monday was an In-Service day and so the students had an extra day to enjoy the snow.  Here’s what they did: Gwen-Trista and I were playing out in the snow with our sleds. We went down a big hill and crashed into the bush. Trista-I liked it when Silkence, Gwen, Spencer, and I went down the little hill and we kept crashing into each other. Ana-At Mt. Cain we went for a big snowshoe. It was only my family and my dog. We walked for about 3 hours! Quang-I liked when Micheal gave me a turn on the sled. I slid down the hill very fast into the bushes! Brooklynn-Sierra and I built a snowman and we put a real carrot on for the nose. The nose is frozen into his head. Sharon-Bessy, Molly, and I built a little snowman and then we made it bigger and bigger and bigger! Karin-Sahara and I went sledding on the back roads with my GT Racer (a type of sled) and her garbage can lid sled. We crashed on the GT Racer and we thought that it was awesome. Mia-At my house there was 3 inches of snow! Sophie-I jumped off my tree fort into the snow. Solomon-I went up to Mt. Cain and I went skiing. There was a lot of snow and I had to dig my sleds out. Kennedy-My favourite part was when my little sister and I were hiding. When our Auntie Aleasha pulled in the driveway and got out of the car we attacked her with snowballs. Bradley-I made a big snowball. It was too heavy for me! Jacob-I made a snow boy. I couldn’t make his head because it was too hard. So I broke him down and stopped. Lily-I enjoyed the snow through the window. We also got to enjoy the snow at recess today.  It is snowing right now, but very lightly.  It is also MUCH colder than usual for Sointula.  It is currently -8° C and we are expecting lows down to -19°C with the windchill.  

We started this art project last Friday and finished this week. The funny thing was, that the very next day the snow started and it actually stayed around for a whole week. We may need to do winter themed art more often! The first week we painted the sky and the ice. We added salt to the sky to make it look like snow and we used Saran Wrap to make the blue look like ice. The students were all amazed when they lifted up the plastic wrap and saw the interesting texture it left behind. This Friday, we made our polar bears. We used recycled meat trays to create our polar bears for printing. We didn’t have any brayers and so we had to brush the paint on with brushes. We think they turned out great and we hope you like them too! You can find the directions for this art lesson at another great art blog Mrs. Watson follows, that artist woman.

The students did a wonderful job blogging about our visit from Tracey and the delivery of the salmon eggs we raise each year, and so it seemed only fitting that one of them had their post published on our class blog. You can read all the other wonderful posts about the salmon by following the links to our students blogs in the right sidebar. Today my school made 100 new fish friends. Here are some facts I want you to know: 1. They first start in an Egg but they start to grow and turn into an Eyed Egg, then an Alevin, then Fry, and then finally an adult and the last thing they turn into is a Spawner and that is when they head back to where they started, lay eggs, and die 2. Their eggs are pinkish orange not red 3. A lot of things like salmon like birds, bears, and bigger fish 4. The mom fish likes to find a safe place to lay her eggs 5. The fish have something in their head that tells them where to go to find home 6. The Alevin have a lunch box called an yolk sack 7. The place we let the salmon go is in a creek 8. When the ocean and the creek meet it is called a estuary 9. When a bear eats a salmon it rips it apart and the left over salmon feeds trees 10. When the fish are fry they start to look like a proper fish   A few minutes ago I put my 2 eggs in and named them Mage and Japana. I love salmon! Learn how to draw cartoons, comics, and anime at Sketchfu!

Today we celebrated Literacy Day with the whole school. We were divided into four different groups and each group focused on a different country. Students in kindergarten to grade seven worked together to learn more about India, Egypt, Kenya, and Vietnam. In our groups we used books from the library and information from the internet to research ideas for the books we would create about our countries. Our books were modeled after the example Mrs. Walker, our librarian, read us. It was titled, We’re Sailing to Galapagos written by Laurie Krebs. We brainstormed ideas and worked together to create the cut paper illustrations and the text for each page. After lunch we all got together and each group shared their book with the rest of the students. All of the students did an amazing job! The students in Mrs. Watson’s group also added their pages to a VoiceThread so that they could embed their book on their blogs. To finish the day everyone buddied up and found a spot to read the great books Mrs. Walker had for us to take home. It was the perfect ending to a great day. A huge thank you to Mrs. Walker for organizing such a wonderful day for all of us!

Today was a day to experiment with a new tool and to try out a new app. This morning we used our Livescribe pens for the first time. We have two pens and special paper that lets you record what you are writing and also what you are saying if you like. Several students had a chance to try the pens during our Daily 5 rounds. We are trying to think of other ways that the pens will be able to help us with our learning too. Do you have Livescribe pens in your classroom?  If you do, what do you use them for? In the afternoon we started a new topic in Health and Careers and used an app called ScreenChomp to brainstorm in groups what we know about healthy eating. We were able to write our ideas on the screen and record audio to go with them. You can see the ScreenChomp that one of the groups created at this link http://www.screenchomp.com/t/vDS7U5mMwS We would love to hear about your favourite healthy foods!  Please add your favourites to our AnswerGarden below. What is your favourite healthy food?… at AnswerGarden.ch.

Yesterday we only had 7 students in our class! Several of our classmates got to go to a special First Nations performance in Fort Rupert and so we decided to do something special too. In the morning we did a round of Daily 5 and then we went to the computer lab to create ToonDoo comics and SketchFus for our blogs. ToonDoo and Sketchfu are both free and we love that your finished product can be embeded on your blog. After recess we had a special visit from the intermediate class who came to share their social studies projects with us. Then we worked on DreamBox and Xtra Math until lunch. DreamBox is a lot of fun and Xtra Math is a great way to master basic math facts. The best part of the day happened after lunch. We dedicated the whole afternoon to claymation. Some of the grade 3s had tried claymation in Tech Club last year and so they were able to help the others out. We found out that it takes a lot of time and patience to make even a very short claymation video. Here are three short videos that are ready to share: Have you ever tried creating a stop motion animation?

last weekend I was in Japan working with the amazing Kim Cofino and her COETAIL (Certificate of educational technology and Information Literacy) cohort. tweetpic image from @mscofino The 2 day workshop was Authentic assessment and digital media. We had an underlying them them of developing a unit of work they could use with their students to create a digital media product. We wanted a project or problem based learning approach as this brings together core aspects of twenty first century learning, particularly: relevance context higher order thinking, particularly creativity and evaluation (this was part of the authentic assessment component) problem solving challenge engagement The projects that were created were all of these, it was a pleasure to see engaged and enthusiastic teachers developing challenges for their students. One thing we did that was different from many of the other workshops was that we had the teachers develop the media product and preset it, with the unit plan and assessment rubric back to the course. This was a particularly interesting aspect of the weekend. Many times people will create the unit outline and plan, develop the rubric and "guess - timate" how long the product will take to create or the level of complexity of the product. Several teachers reflected that they had revised their product because they could not complete it to a satisfactory  standard in the time frame they had indicated for the students. I wonder how many of us, when developing a PBL based unit or task actually go through and develop the product? Here is what one participant said "You can’t truly ‘teach’ a project without going through the process first. Thanks @mscofino and Andrew Churches for a great #aadmc " The advantages of actually making the product are obvious. The teacher has: experience in the process, an exemplar to show the students an idea of timing a bench mark product to assess against. I wonder how many of  us would have produced and excellent product and how many would have produced a acceptable one?  

Every year we run a series of workshops with our year 11 student to revise and review the acceptable use guidelines. The guidelines we use are based on ones I developed and shaped by the students and the rest of the school community. Everything in them is up for discussion and review. We believe that there is no point in making a guideline or rule that does not bear scrutiny and discussion. If you can not justify the statement and support/defend the stance then you should not have proposed it in the first place. So the process we go through examines reach of the different aspects of digital citizenship: Respecting yourself Protecting yourself Respecting others Protecting others Respecting intellectual property Protecting intellectual property (http://edorigami.wikispaces.com) We support the presentation and discussion with some great stimulus material from various sources: https://www.thinkuknow.co.uk/teachers/ This has great videos and teacher resources for all school age groups http://www.netsafe.org.nz E-safety: Developing whole-school policies to support effective practice http://edorigami.wikispaces.com The discussions that develop are amazing, often challenging but very worthwhile. Investing the time to explain why you recommend a behavior and discussing the rationale and reality behind it adds transparency, integrity and scrutiny to an area of the school that is often dictatorial and prescriptive. Having the students shape the the policy and review it brings ownership to them as this is their policy and ours. These factors combined with a realistic common sense approach will help to achieve the long term goals of the process - safe, ethical and appropriate users who act appropriately and suitably when confronted with the many challenges the internet and its variety presents. I would love your comments and suggestions:

AUT has been part of the World Internet Project which attempts to map internet usage. The highlights below are the key points for New Zealand and make for very interesting reading. The sample group was a little over 1250 individuals. We are a country that is online (86%), alot of us on a daily basis (59%), we socialise online (64%) of which 96% use facebook, buy stuff online (72%), bank online (58%) and use it as a key information source ahead of traditional mediums (69%). When we also link the number of mobile connections we have - 5.02 million connections  compared to 1.87 million land lines (source: https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/nz.htmleala). We as a nation are embracing technology. Interesting huh. Is this reflected in the use of technology in schools, is it as ubiquitous as it is becoming in the home? Highlights of the 2011 New Zealand World Internet Project Use of the Internet in New Zealand has continued to rise reaching 86 per cent in 2011, up from 79 per cent in 2007 and 83 per cent in 2009 69% of respondents rated the Internet as an important source of information ahead of television, newspapers, radio and other people. 58% of New Zealanders feel the Internet is important or very important in their everyday lives 40% of Internet users look up the definition of a word every week 59% surf the web daily Māori, Pasifika and Asian ethnicities are more likely to ‘make friends’ online than NZ Europeans 64 % of Internet users say they belong to a Social Networking Site (SNS) More females (68% of those that use the Internet) use Social Networking Sites  than males (59%) SNS membership is highly stratified by age, attracting 87% of under-30s but only 34% of over-60s Of those with a SNS membership, 96% say Facebook is the site they use the most 72% of Internet users buy things online Almost half (48%) say they use the Internet to sell things 58% of Internet users log onto their Internet banking accounts at least once a week Link to full report - http://www.aut.ac.nz/__data/assets/pdf_file/0005/252077/WorldInternetProjectNZ_2011final.pdf

Thursday, I was down in sunny Nelson for a one day leadership conference with the link learning cluster, working with Charles and Allanah and the principals and lead teachers of the 20+ primary schools that make up this ICTPD cluster. The keynote was Key competencies in the 21st Century. In work that we (21st Century Fluency project) have done all round the world we have had our participants come up with the key competencies they see important in our dynamic world. The key competencies are: problem solving creativity analytical thinking communications collaboration ethics, action and accountability This match very nicely with the key competencies from the New Zealand curriculum framework: thinking using language, symbols, and texts managing self relating to others participating and contributing Source: http://nzcurriculum.tki.org.nz/Curriculum-documents/The-New-Zealand-Curriculum/Key-competencies The things I love about the ones we have developed and the New Zealand Curriculum is not only the obvious similarities and synergy, but also the focus not on learning and recalling knowledge but on processes and relationships. The day in Nelson was great, a receptive and hugely enthusiastic group, eager to discuss, debate, contribute and share. Kia Kaha, our kids are in good hands.  

This is an interesting Infographic looking at Games and education. I found the post here - http://www.knewton.com/gamification-education/ I think we are going to see the use of games in a learning context increase. If we consider the importance of feedback in learning,the level of engagement that games provide the users, the opportunities for genuine learning that these tools provide us, it will be no surprise to see them appearing more and more often in a classroom near to us. here are some links from the info graphic and a couple of my favorites: http://www.fas.org/immuneattack/ http://brainage.com/launch/index.jsp http://www.seriousgames.org/ http://www.globalconflicts.eu/ Created by Knewton and Column Five Media  

I have long been a fan of the work of Sash and Lee Le Fever of the Commoncraft show - http://www.commoncraft.com/ The videos they ahve produced have provide excellent professional development resources and I frequently direct my students and staff to these resources on their website. Earlier in the week I visited the commoncraft site again and noticed they now have a membership option. Membership is essentially an annual subscription to the site and rights for me as an individual to use the videos in my classes, blog and my presentations. The price is ok, well actually it stings a bit, but it is worth it for the convenience and to help support their work, as well as the obvious ethical reason. So this week as part of the digital citizenship aspects of the ITGS course we have been using http://www.commoncraft.com/video/copyright-and-creative-commons http://www.commoncraft.com/video/plagiarism http://www.commoncraft.com/video/protecting-reputations-online http://www.commoncraft.com/video/phishing-scams http://www.commoncraft.com/video/computer-viruses-and-threats http://www.commoncraft.com/video/secure-passwords It is appropriate after all as I am teaching digital citizenship, that I ethically use the resources and acknowledge the developers. Also worth looking at is the Educase 7 things you should know series of educational resources. The latest of these is focused on the flipped classroom - http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ELI7081.pdf This concept is an excellent starting point for changing and adapting the classroom. It provides excellent opportunity for discussions in the classroom that lead into higher order thinking  - particularly analysis and evaluation. As an approach, the flipped classroom has merit, but it does require the students to buy into the concept and participate, the families to have access to suitable technology and internet connectivity and the school to enable the teachers. But learning shouldn’t be limited to school and learning & school shouldn’t be limited to the four walls of the classroom. Learning is a life long process and is a family opportunity to be cherished and valued.

I have long valued and used a constructivist approach to teaching and learning. Tasks of short or long duration where the emphasis is on constructing the knowledge, process, product or understanding is core. Students develop ownership of the concepts, ideas, product or knowledge. Learning is practical, hands on, multi-sensory, collaborative experience. There must be engagement of the learners and they must be motivated to learn. To do this the tasks have relevance to them as learners and are set contextually. There is transparency and clarity in assessment and where possible the students help to develop and administer this.  They often involve a digital medium, but the medium is isn’t ever the focus, the journey is everything. My personal underlying education philosophy matches quite nicely to what I see in the Reggio Emilia Philosophy often used in primary and early years education. Consider the following explanatory statement about Reggio Emilia Children must have some control over the direction of their learning; Children must be able to learn through experiences of touching, moving, listening, seeing, and hearing; Children have a relationship with other children and with material items in the world that children must be allowed to explore and Children must have endless ways and opportunities to express themselves. As an education philiosophy it allows the teacher flexibility to seize the teachable moment. It encourages problem solving and project based learning. It does not restrict solutions to being text based but celebrates expression and communication in its many different and varied forms. It is multi-sensory  - Visual, auditory,  kinaesthetic, tactile  and potentially olfactory and even taste. Its collaborative and because students have a degree of control it is motivating, engaging, relevant and contextual. This is not a bad teaching philosophy to have. Resources and sites: http://eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/search/detailmini.jsp?_nfpb=true&_&ERICExtSearch_SearchValue_0=ED355034&ERICExtSearch_SearchType_0=no&accno=ED355034 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reggio_Emilia_approach http://www.stellamaris.school.nz/joomla/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=93&Itemid=75 http://www.reggioemilia.org.nz/ http://www.reggiokids.com/about/about_approach.php http://www.education.com/magazine/article/Reggio_Emilia/ http://www.educate.ece.govt.nz/learning/curriculumAndLearning/Learningenvironments/ThirdTeacher.aspx http://www.reggioemilia.org.nz/pdf/PRINCIPLES%20OF%20REGGIO%20EMILIA%20APPROACH%20TO%20EARLY%20CHILDHOOD%20Powerpoint%202011.pdf

This week has been hectic, not that that is much different to any other week. But on Wednesday night I gave a presentation to teachers on Bloom’s Digital Taxonomy. The session was 50-60 minutes with about 10 minutes of Q&A. The Q&A was spread throughout the presentation as the teachers had questions we would pause and discuss them. The presentation went well.  After the presentation there was Pizza and wine and working dinner followed. The difference was I was in Auckland and the teachers were in Beijing at WAB, the Western Academy of Beijing. It was 10pm in NZ time and 5 pm Beijing time. We used Blackboard Elluminate (they call it Collaborate) to host the session. While we ran into the odd problem with the size of the presentation I wanted to use (I had to reduced the file size substantially), the program worked well and supported the file I uploaded. The audio was good, but there was a 5-10 second delay, which when we left the microphone on in the room in Beijing was quite disconcerting. However, with the microphone off while I was speaking and using the chat window, we were able to communicate, keep me up to speed on the slide (its very strange not seeing your slides pop up) being displayed at the time. Madeleine was brilliant and had every thing running like a well oiled machine. Doing distance presentations is very different from standing up and presenting in front of an audience. There are some advantages, you can build in interactivity, polls etc and deliver to people in remote locations, as well as the obvious reductions in costs and the carbon footprint. The disadvantages are quite profound at times, its hard to gauge the impact your presentation is having, that the funny bits are coming across as funny and the serious elements are delivered. Its hard to pick your speed of delivery and to feel confident that your slides are presented as you would want. The importance of rehearsal and great support on the ground can not be under estimated, seeing comments flowing in the chat window are brilliant for adjusting and modifying your delivery to suit the audience. Doing distance presentations and working with teachers across the world is a great example of Transformative use of Technology. This would not have been possible with out technology. There are three levels to consider: Literacy, Augmentative and Transformative. The three levels come from the work of Bernajean Porter Level 1: Literacy use - This is often "Teaching about technology". This level of use often manifests itself as learning how to use technology etc. This is critical as there must be an aspect of this before we progress to the higher levels. eg. This could be teaching of word processing techniques, discussing use of colour in a presentation, writing formula in a spreadsheet etc Level 2: Augmentative/Integrating use - This is often "Teaching with technology". Does the use of technology reinforce, augment or substitute for a traditional teaching approach? The key question here is "Can we do this without technology?" If the answer is Yes, then this is augmentative or integrating. eg. This could be using an email system to distribute class notes or materials, having students process mathematical formula or process on a smartboards, developing a presentation etc. Each of these can be achieved using traditional teaching approaches. Level 3: Transformative use - This is "Teaching through technology". Here the activity or learning you are doing can only be completed by using the technology. The learning is focused is on learning by and developing skills in collaboration & communication, self-directed learning, higher order thinking and use of electronic information. Technology here is not the goal, rather learning is. At this level the use of technology is seemless and this level of learning could not happen without the technology. eg. Students collaboratively researching a presentation topic and assembling the research in Google documents and then each students prepares a section of the presentation synchronously using the presentation tool in the Google apps suite. A teacher who holds a regular evening homework tutorial between 7pm and 7.30pm for his students using a collaboration tool. etc. Source: http://edorigami.wikispaces.com/Tech_audit_tool

This is a BBC clip about the hole in the wall experiment - This is about a computer made available to the young people in Gurjola. Professor Sugata Mitra of Newcastle University is setting up a ‘hole in the wall’ experiment to explore the impact of access to computers on learning. Watch the video - its quite amazing. I love the fact that the computer is in English and the students are still able to navigate and use the computer. - http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldclass/17461332. I suspect that we take for granted the access to such technologies. The young lady who is the center of the article has been teaching her father to read and write. Education is the key, its opens opportunities and more. This is a useful article for ITGS education.

I have been working on a new rubric for storyboards for production of a video. My students are developing an advertisement and part of the production process is the development of a suitable storyboard or plan which provides structure and flow to the final product. The storyboard must have a start, middle and end. They have to consider timing, sequence, structure, purpose, audience, balance, alignment, transitions, images, audio etc. storyboard rubric Level Criteria Not achieved Does not reach the minimum level Acceptable The storyboard contains some detail.A script is provided.(Script has a start, middle and finish) Most scenes have some detail and some action is described. There is information about some of the following: Transitions between scenes Camera action, angles and shots Lighting effects Sound effects Timing are approximate Sketches are included and have some accuracy. The Storyboard is understandable and has some flow Good The storyboard is mostly accurate or detailed.A suitable script is provided (Script has a start, middle and finish) Most scenes are detailed and the action is described. There is detailed information about most of the following: Transitions between scenes Camera action, angles and shots Lighting effects Sound effects Timing are relatively accurate compared to script Sketches are reasonable accurate It is relatively easy for a third party to understand the shot and flow of the advertisement Excellent The storyboard is accurate and detailed.A suitable and appropriate script is provided (Script has a start, middle and finish). Scenes are detailed and the action is accurately described. There is Consistent detailed information about: Transitions between scenes Camera action, angles and shots Lighting effects Sound effects Timing is accurate and consistent with the script and transitions Sketches are consistently accurate and show care and attention to detail. It is easy for a third party to understand the shot and flow of the advertisement Comments and suggestions are always welcomed.

Project management is a topic that I teach in many of my classes. Whether its working as a member of a team or as an individual managing the project is a critical skill that the students need to develop. If the students are working as an individual, I get them to use the waterfall or cascade method of project management. This is the classical cycle of: Define the problem Design a solution Develop the solution Debrief When the students are working in groups a better approach is the agile project management method, where the tasks are clearly defined and of short duration, where there is regular feedback and updates. Explaining agile projects and the process to the students can be a little complex, but I have discovered a very good video resource that I use with them. When you look at the video you can also see how the core concepts of the Sprint - Defining the tasks and assigning the roles, the Daily stand up with its three core questions: What did you do yesterday What will you do today What are the obstacles or impediments preventing you progressing, and the project review can fit very nicely into every day project based learning. We know from John Hattie’s Meta-research in Visible Learning that feedback has a huge impact on on the learning of our students. Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJflDE6OaSc - Agile, an Introduction.

In this update there’s some excellent professional development and IT resources, stuff on QR codes and an interesting article or two from the BBC 1. Commoncraft video - Web Browsers - http://www.commoncraft.com/video/web-browsers This is another excellent product from the commoncraft show. This video looks at the basics and features of web browsers. A very useful tool for professional development and within IT courses. Consider becoming a member, its cost efficient and ethical. 2. Seven things you should know about projecting from mobile devices - http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ELI7082.pdf This is another useful perspective from Educause. We have all seen the amazing growth in mobile devices, the ability illustrated by iPhones having applications like "keynote" which allows you to present from your iPhone or for the really game, edit and create your presentation. This is a useful view. 3. QRstuff http://www.qrstuff.com/ have you played with QR (Quick response) Codes? Increasingly we are seeing these versatile codes appearing everywhere. So much more than a barcode they can send you emails, text messages and much more. QRstuff is an easy to use site that allows you to create and generate QR codes. try this link: 4. BBC Future - http://www.bbc.com/future This is an interesting series of articles and columns that I have recently discovered while browsing around on the BBC site. Today’s article is an interesting one - Is email evil? http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20120328-is-email-evil This is a site to book mark and visit often.

Here are a set of resources from Microsoft for working with Windows and MS office in the classroom. This is useful set of materials. accessibility in the classroom - http://www.microsoft.com/education/en-us/teachers/guides/Pages/Accessibility.aspx Mathematics 4.0 in the classroom _ http://www.microsoft.com/education/en-us/teachers/guides/Pages/Mathematics-guide.aspx - this includes a step by step guide, plus links to the download of the product as well Bing (Microsofts search engine) in the classroom  - http://www.microsoft.com/education/en-us/teachers/guides/Pages/bing.aspx Windows 7 in the classroom - http://www.microsoft.com/education/en-us/teachers/guides/Pages/windows-7.aspx this also has videos as well to help you out. One note in the classroom - http://www.microsoft.com/education/en-us/teachers/guides/Pages/one-note.aspx again with videos to support the professional development. Microsoft Office in the classroom - http://www.microsoft.com/education/en-us/teachers/guides/Pages/microsoft-office-system.aspx  - videos and other resources. Digital Storytelling in the classroom - http://www.microsoft.com/education/en-us/teachers/guides/Pages/digital_storytelling.aspx Free tools from Microsoft - http://www.microsoft.com/education/en-us/teachers/guides/Pages/free-tools.aspx - this is Autocollage, photo synth and Movie maker live Product How to’s - http://www.microsoft.com/education/en-us/teachers/how-to/Pages/index.aspx Microsoft Free Products - http://www.microsoft.com/education/en-us/teachers/Pages/free-products.aspx some interesting software here like the chemistry add in for word, the mathematics add in, flash cards, songsmith, Kodu game lab and more. Check out this as well - http://www.microsoft.com/education/en-us/faculty/Pages/free-software.aspx  Templates - http://www.microsoft.com/education/en-us/teachers/Pages/templates.aspx This is an interesting set of templates, some of which are quite useful. Critical thinking in the classroom - http://www.microsoft.com/education/en-us/teachers/guides/Pages/critical_thinking.aspx - This is an interesting one with set of lesson plans, students hand outs and teacher resources for: Searching Plagarism Citing web resources Validity and reliabilityt Civil Discourse Panoramas of the wonders of the world - http://www.panoramas.dk/7-wonders/  They call this the new wonders of the world but these are interesting and useful resources which give a 360 degree perspective on some of the fascinating places most of us will never visit. Check these out: Colosseum - http://www.panoramas.dk/7-wonders/colosseum.html The Great wall of China - http://www.panoramas.dk/7-wonders/great-wall.html Petra - http://www.panoramas.dk/fullscreen2/full24.html Taj Mahal - http://www.panoramas.dk/fullscreen/fullscreen23.html Machu Picchu in Peru - http://www.panoramas.dk/fullscreen6/f2-machu-picchu.html Christ the redeemer in Rio de Janeiro - http://www.panoramas.dk/fullscreen6/f40-rio-de-janeiro.html Chichen Itza in Mexico - http://www.panoramas.dk/7-wonders/Chichen-Itza.html There are more in the archive - http://www.panoramas.dk/archive.html For the more IT minded, they also have a useful page on how to make VR - http://www.panoramas.dk/panorama/index.html and also the software in both Windows and Mac flavors to produce panoramas - http://www.panoramas.dk/panorama/software.html

There have been two recent court events in the United Kingdom that reinforce the key underlying principles of digital citizenship: Middle School Digital Citizenship Senior School Digital Citizenship Looking after yourself Respect yourself & Protect yourself Looking after others Respect others & Protect others Looking after Property Respect Intellectual Property & Protect Intellectual Property Source: http://edorigami.wikispaces.com In the court case involving Cricketer Chris Cairns and the prosecution of the student who tweeted about stricken footballer Fabrice Muamba we see examples of people who did not consider that comments made in public mediums like Twitter can be libelous or illegal. In Cairn’s case, comments have seen him awarded a substantial amount of damages and costs and in the Tweets about the footballer, the young man has been jailed for 56 days. Source: http://taliamark.com/blog/images/Twitter-Logo.jpg We used to say "email in haste, repent at your leisure" this must now extend to these other mediums as well. We and our students must be considered and deliberate in what we say, whether this is via email, blog posts or instant communication mediums like twitter. At school, we ask the students to consider how they would feel if the comment they were making was said about them. To put themselves in the other persons shoes. And if the message isn’t suitable, appropriate or "nice" then don’t say it. The recent court activity is adding yet more imperative to this. This is Respect other and Looking after others. It also raises the issue of the digital footprint. That once something is said, it is un-erasable. Our digital footprints are permanent, and the comments we have made can be retrieved, taken out of context, interpreted in many different ways and served back to us. I don’t think that in either of the cases above there was any doubt about the meaning of their tweets, but they are un-erasable. Resources: http://edorigami.wikispaces.com/The+Digital+Citizen http://edorigami.wikispaces.com/Digital+Citizen+AUA Middle School Digital Citizenship.pdf acceptable use agreement 1.1.pdf

This is an interesting interactive article hosted on the BBC website. The article asks two pieces of information from you, the first is the country you are in and the second your pre-tax monthly wage. It then calculates your wage against your own countries average wage and the global average wage. Its fascinating The URL for this interactive is - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-17543356 Its also worth while visiting that master of statistics, Hans Rosling at gapminder -  http://www.gapminder.org. Check out the Wealth and Health of Countries - which relates well to the Global pay scale question. If you have a spare hour, I wold recommend that you check out the Joy of stats video, broadcast on the BBC and hosted on the Gapminder site. Comparing life expectancy and wage for Nepal and NZ. Interesting, you would have thought the gap would have been bigger.  

But I guess this is more than computers and computing, its actually all about ICT - information and communications technologies. Many of us may have seen the recent release from Google about a project they are working on called Project Glass. http://g.co/projectglass and perhaps you have looked up the video on youtube - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9c6W4CCU9M4 Aside from the privacy and security issues that the boys on Facebook (yes Andrew and David) mentioned, and these are real concerns too. This is a great project and it heralds what we can expect to see in the future. But this is not alone and its also worth looking at this offering from Corning the glass company - A day made of Glass - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Cf7IL_eZ38 The potential here is amazing and again we will be increasingly challenged by issues of privacy, security and anonymity. We are heading towards an incredibly information pervasive society, where connection is ubiquitous and constant. While in some ways I find this exciting, I also find it challenging. are we going to get to a point where there is no OFF switch. We already know that the OFF switch on most of our devices does not actually mean OFF it means standby, it means don’t display, it means hide and process in the background. The BBC has on their website a number of very interesting articles in a column called Future. These are some that also relate to the future of ICT: Voice Control - http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20120323-future-interaction-voice-control Touch screens - http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20120316-future-interaction-touch-screens Gesture control - http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20120221-future-of-interaction-gesture Brain Control - http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20120229-future-interaction-brain-control BBC Future - http://www.bbc.com/future Challenging, frightening or exciting, these are the heralds of the next stage in the development of ICT. We would be foolish to think we are going to be able to stop these developments (and I for one would not want to do that), but we must be aware of the risks as well as the advantages that these present.