Using a blog and staying safe

Year 9 students; we need to update our internet policy to specifically include blog use.

What would you include in a new policy? What is OK - or not OK - to post in a blog?

The Revisioning Process

We have been engaged in a re-visioning process for all of this year and plan to continue through 2008/9. The Bayfield High School community is mapping a path from where we are now to where we expect to be as a school in 10 years. The task has been divided into 6 areas and shared among the teachers, administrators, students and parents.

We have defined these areas of interest to be;

1. using technology for quality teaching and learning
2. feedback and communication
3. balance in life
4. professional development
5. student centred learning
6. student centred caring environment

The first major milestone is for each of our 6 groups to present a rational and means to make 1 change to the school environment. I'm a member of the "using technology..." group. Our recommendation; to provide a ceiling mounted data projector in each teaching space over the next 2/3 years. We currently have 18 teaching spaces with projectors but will need another 20 or so projectors to fulfill our goal.

I had an idea that the 18 projectors were a useful step but many of the teachers disagreed. For them the issue was they could not be certain they would be working in the same classroom from year to year - if they were to develop an electronically based resource for their classes could they be certain they would be using these resources the following year. Rather than continue to spread hardware around the school there was an arguement for completely equiping one or more subject areas so the teachers had some certainty the hardware would be available to them.

The MOE has done a great job of negotiating a price, with a range of suppliers, for data projectors but they still seem to cost about $4000 installed. The cost is roughly split 3 ways - the projector, the wiring of data and power, and curtains.

What we will use these tools for is still under discussion. There is a tension between using a new tool to do old things more efficiently and using a new tool to do new things. Either way, the prerequisite is the data projector.

Year 9 Student Blogs

Well, that was an exciting hour - my 25 year 9 students (13-14 years old) have just created a blogger identity and some have managed their first post. I look forward to sharing a link (student permitting) to some of these new blogs.

When we we got to the bit about setting up our profiles on blogger I suggested the kids add their full name, address, phone number and a picture! This provoked a storm of debate until someone commented "he's just being sarcastic". We decided first name, city and some interests were OK to post - or should I say they decided. It's great they have such a strong sense of online security issues.

Over the past few classes (I see them once a week) we have been learning about Adobe Dreamweaver. All the usual stuff for and introductory course - text, image and link formatting... The students were interested but not hugely engaged. We didn't discuss this lack of engagement but I suspect they knew the Dreamweaver task was a task going nowhere, that it would have no practical application in their lives.

I still think there's a place for the teaching of web design - we have a 2 year course here for seniors where we teach .css, html, Coldfusion and MySQL - after all, who's going to make the Blogger applications of the future?

I asked the students about their use of various social networking sites; interestingly only 1/3 have Bebo, MySpace, Facebook or whatever. I plan to survey some other classes and year levels as 1/3 use is not what I've read with regard to teenager use of social networking sites.

The kids were hugely engaged with the process of setting up a Blogger account. They saw how they could own the site, how what they wrote was immediately available to all, how people (friends) could comment.

Next lesson - some further posts, sharing of blog URLs, comments on their friends blogs followed by a blog aggregator. From my perspective, working with excited kids, rather than compliant kids, is very cool.

Open Night

Kiwi high schools have this wonderful ritual, around the middle of the school year, called "Open Night". Once a year we throw open our doors to prospective students and their families. Our goal is to show these prospects what a wonderful school we are and to compel them to enroll for the following year. The size of each school roll is a big deal as each school is nationally funded and more kids mean more $ in our budget.

So what has this got to do with IT use in education? Well, a few nights ago at our open night I decided to talk to the new parents about our intranet/LMS and how we use this to facilitate dialogue between students, teachers and parents. No more missed homework, lost resources, misssing newletters - it is all there on the intranet (mostly password protected sorry) - team approach to learning and communicating. Heads were nodding - it was all good.

Then I made a comment to the effect that, at our school, we want to operate like a primary school (elementary school in the US). We want to use our intranet to maintain and develop the close and involved relationships parents have previously enjoyed with primary school teachers. The ability to drop into the classroom and be involved with their kids' learning while no longer as easy as it once was in a physical sense would still possible in an electronic/virtual sense.

Parents were hugely excited by this idea. Many of them spoke of the disconnection they feel with their kids in a high school environment and a desire to continue to be a part of their kids education.

The parents are keen, the kids have always been digital natives - so who else do we have to sell this mode of learning to? There hangs a question.

Who is teaching who?

I've read many posts containing something of the following.

• We are preparing children for a future we can not describe
• We are preparing children, who as a generation, are enjoying a rich information experience outside-the-classroom.
• We are preparing children within a new and dynamic information environment with new qualities that seem ready made for teaching and learning.

The above quote is from David Warlick at 2centsworth. I agree - however I do feel some frustration when helping to create a future educational environment when we all seem attached to our existing mode of teaching. Maybe we don't have to do stuff with regard to teaching - maybe, as David says, it's as simple as recognising;

“They’re learning by teaching themselves. And isn’t that the best thing we could be doing to make them ready for an unpredictable future — to teach themselves?”

- and our job is to create an learning environment where these self directed learning behaviours can occur. In a high school the students move from class to class each hour and within each hour they 'learn' content discrete to that of the previous hour. We the teachers decide what they will learn. Starting to sound like a dis-connection with self directed idea??