Online Smarts and Online awareness are issues very close to my heart. I have recently found the following video that includes some very interesting statistics about student and parent awareness of online use and applications. These statistics fit very closely with a report recently released about Children's online use titled "Risks and safety for Australian children on the internet" compiled from the AU kids Online Survey (pdf Link).

The report is an interesting one in that it tells a compelling story about the way our children are using the internet and online resources and the what we as parents think about that use. Although the survey is only taken from 400 students I would tend to agree with the percentages published.

This year I would have talked or worked with around 4500 students from grade Perp/Kinder to Year 12 and I always ask questions about online/mobile usage and application. What was reported fits with what I have experienced first hand with students and teachers. For those interested this survey of Australian children is based on the developments and research conducted in Europe with more information available on the EU Kids Online Website.

Back to the video one of the reasons I like this clip is that it presents information and responses to questions that teachers and parents can use with students to start discussions. It is also a great way for students to ask questions of their own online behaviour and that of their friends. This video helps develop awareness of the challenges we all face when going online, the perceptions we have and assumptions we all make about what our children do. The thing I like most about this video is that it states what I have always believed and presented - 'Now is the time to talk to your kids" and if this clip helps start that process then that is simple perfect.

 

 

Links from the video clip:

• Family Online Safety Institute: http://www.fosi.org/
• Family Online Safety Contract: http://goo.gl/URJuv (shortened link to pdf file)
• Social Networking sites and our lives: http://goo.gl/rHy4T
• Recommendations on Safety Initiatives: http://goo.gl/fxEkF (shortened link to pdf file)
• Teen, Kindness and Cruelty on Social Network Sites: http://goo.gl/vUem0
• The State of K-12 Cyberethics, Cybersafety and Cybersecurity Curriculum in the US: http://goo.gl/JIaRF (shortened link to pdf file)
• High-Wire Act: Cyber-safety and the Young: http://www.aph.gov.au/house/committee/jscc/report.htm
• Who Needs Parental Controls?: http://www.fosi.org/research/900-who-needs-parental-controls.html
• Social Networking, Age and Privacy: http://goo.gl/ee0Vv (shortened link to pdf file)
• Who Bullies and Who is Bullied Online?: http://goo.gl/trp04 (shortened link to pdf file)
• Uk Children's media literacy: http://goo.gl/p3jm2

 

If you are after more links and resources please visit and join my Diigo group "Online Smarts".

 

Today I was lucky enough to attend and provide sponsorship for the first TeachMeet in Melbourne, Victoria. The TeachMeet idea developed originally in the UK to provide organised yet informal style of meeting/catch up for teachers to discuss and talk about technology in education (See wikipedia TeachMeet entry).

The Melbourne event was held at Pascoe Vale Primary School and was extremely well attended. It was great to see so many people there and to catch up with some old friends, new friends and twitter friends. The day had a number of quick presentations to wet people's appetites, unfortunately the technology Gods were against us on the day as we were unable to hear from Henrietta Miller who helped get the TeachMeet Sydney events up and running.

It was great to hear the different short presentations - Jess McCulloch did a great job presenting here talk as a poem (very well done), I talked about the WEE project with SLAV. Linda Amos talked about her app development work without any knowledge about programming, Nathan Jones covered QR Codes, Mitch Hughes discussed Literacy Frameworks, Kylie Taig talked about and demonstrated Augmented Reality, Margo Edgar talked about collaborative spaces (i.e. Ultranet) and Richard Olsen finished off the formal part of the event discussing his latest writing work "How do we change the conversation from tools to pedagogy?".

All in all a good day - the program and links for the presenters can be found here.

The twitter back channel was going great guns and for those that missed it on the day you can see all the tweets via Topsy here.

I also streamed the sessions on the day using uStream, again the Tech Gods seem to conspire against me with some technology tools not wanting to play with me. I have downloaded the stream feeds and cleaned up the audio to enable better quality. The stream feeds can know be found on Vimeo.

 

Thanks to all those that organised, attended and participated online. I look forward to the next event.

 

It is 10 years since the events in America that changed the world. I can still clearly remember the evening I was working as the Executive Officer for ICTEV (formerly CEGV) and that evening I had completed some work on Databases for the association. I was about to go to bed and decided to check the TV just in case I was missing something - I didn't miss anything. I flicked across the channels and on had a breaking news story of a plane crashing into one of the World Trade Centre buildings and there was discussion around what type of plane it could have been, then without any warning a second plane quickly loomed into the camera view and with then hit the second building; the rest we all know about.

 

Given it is ten years since this event it happened to be pure coincidence that I have been reading (well listening too) the book "I'm Feeling Lucky: The Confessions of Google Employee Number 59" and today I have come across the part of the book that looks at Google's reaction t 9/11. It is interesting to hear some of the decisions and reactions to how the news was handled through Google. This chapter in the book made me think about the way technology has changed over the last 10 years and how our behavior has changed in times of crisis and need.

 

For me the idea of capturing our thoughts and reflections of these events through technology is an amazing capability where we can capture first hand our own personal story and events that have an impact on our lives. To me this is a fundamental skill that we should all learn and use and with it the responsibility of being custodians of these stories; for these stories help to teach, inspire and lead.

 

What stories would you want to capture, what stories have you missed out on capturing.

 

In remembrance.

 

I do a podcast called the Ed Tech Crew with a great mate Darrel 'The ICT Guy' Branson and recently we have the opportunity to interview the Internationally acclaimed author Dan Pink (of 'Drive' and 'A Whole New Mind').

It was a great conversation around motivation, education, technology and much more - enjoy.

Episode 171

It is always great to get feedback as it can help with making your service and support better or just to give you a lift.

Recently I have been running a large number of Online Safety sessions and in the past week I was sent the following from one of the teachers at a school I was running presentations at:

"Hi guys,

<Person> here, I attended the Cyber Safety session tonight.

I felt compelled to email the school and particularly <school contact> to thank her for what I considered to be the most worth-while thing I have done for my children this year.

As much as I consider myself to be fairly internet savvy and had already set ground rules for my girls when it comes to the internet, I took away from the session so much more than I could have imagined.

The session was as terrifying as it was informative.

If I had one criticism of the session it would be that attendance by parents of year 3-6 wasn’t compulsory.

I am so glad it was compulsory for the kids.

It reaffirms for me the wonderful home/school relationship we have with <school name> and I beg you to offer this session every year.

Kindest Regards"

I just wanted to say thank you to both the parent for the feedback and to the school.

Not much more to say really.