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June

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June

Digital Citizenship | A student’s perspective

Posted on June 21, 2012 by DK

Michael Boddy, Facilitator of Town & Country ICTPD Cluster Palmerston North got the above young people to tackle the big question of 'what does being a positive digital citizen mean?'.

We would like our students to become successful digital citizens who have an authentic voice in the community.

Each school chose two year five students to become ‘Student Leaders’. These students meet throughout the year to collaborate with each other on the following topics:

  • How to be a positive digital citizen – this is our current topic.
  • Creating Digital Citizenship resources to be used by classes.
  • How to use digital tools creatively in the classroom.
  • How to teach and support other students to become independent eLearners.

Take the time to check out their Student Leader's wiki and their ICTPD Cluster wiki for more background and illustrations of work.

Have you seen other students / schools do the same? How are you approaching this area? Please share examples which you have come across, facilitating yourself or if you have a comment—all are welcome below.

Related post: Digital learning inquiry students’ video submission

 

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Cyber Security Awareness Week: 11-15 June

Posted on June 15, 2012 by Douglas Harré

Netsafe Security Central

This week Amy Adams, Minister for Communications and Informations Technology, along with NetSafe kicked off New Zealand’s first Cyber Security Awareness Week. Cyber security is a major issue nationally and internationally, and poor cyber security practices cost New Zealanders around $625 million in 2011 (Norton Cyber Crime 2011 report).

To coincide with the launch, NetSafe have created a website that addresses cyber security issues in a very user-friendly way. The site has some helpful suggestions for how to keep you and your computer safe, visit the new web site.

In a recent New Zealand survey only 2% of users knew about turning on Auto Update for their computer, and less than 50% knew if their antivirus software was up to date. At the launch of the Cyber Security Awareness Week there was a demonstration of how to easily hack someone’s Facebook account using a wireless sniffer that is easily available for download on the Internet (hence the need to have suitable wireless security in place). This is incredibly concerning.

Now is a great time to consider how you keep yourself, your students and your teachers’ cyber secure. Remember the following 4 key things you can do that actually address the majority of cyber security issues faced by users:

  1. Update everything – make sure all software is up to date, including your anti virus
  2. Backup your files – regularly copy your files and ensure they are stored in different locations
  3. Secure your wireless network – use a strong password and long passphrase for your router
  4. Use strong passwords – include a mix of lower case and upper case letters, symbols and numbers and try to use a minimum of 15 characters

What are you doing to ensure your school and students are cyber secure?

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CORE 10 Trends: Virtual Learning

Posted on June 6, 2012 by Karen Spencer

“Education is a fundamental human right and essential for the exercise of all other human rights” (UNESCO, Education)

Something exciting is happening in the world of learning. Experiences that were restricted to a timeslot on a timetable, to four walls of a classroom or lecture hall, or simply too expensive to achieve, can now happen more easily, more regularly, and more flexibly. It won’t have escaped your notice that the world of virtual learning is on the rise. Like all paradigm shifts, it brings challenges and steep curves, but the learning opportunities for us all, even for whole geographical areas previously cut off from such opportunities, should make us all sit up, take notice and start planning.

What is virtual learning?

If you are accessing learning experiences, courses, resources and activities, asynchronously or in real-time, using online technologies, then you are learning virtually. It ranges from formalized, academic online courses for qualifications, to informal education for your own interest. Increasingly, the lines are blurring between formal and informal, academic courses and open resources. Here’s a glimpse of the global picture:

  • the prestigious MIT now offers free, open courseware
  • the Khan Academy provides thousands of tutorials for anyone to access
  • virtual learning is increasingly complementing school-based classes (Edutopia)
  • Massive Online Open Courses, or MOOCs, offer free education to anyone with web access
  • the exponential rise of virtual schooling, particularly in the US, as described in this report from the Centre for Public Education.
  • Hole in the Wall and One Laptop Per Child projects begin to extend virtual learning in the developing world.

…while, here in New Zealand and Australia, we have:

  • the Ministry’s Virtual Learning Network that brokers courses for schools to extend the range of learning areas on offer.
  • the VLN Groups and other blended online communities offering informal professional learning
  • the Technology Outlook: Australian Tertiary Education Report 2012-2012 that identifies personalised and adaptive learning environments and Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) as trends to watch.
  • Virtual field trips with LEARNZ

What is clear is that virtual learning now provides access to education for many who, in the past, would have been too isolated, too deprived, or too disenfranchised to benefit.

What’s driving the rise in virtual learning?

There are several, largely technological, drivers behind the rise of virtual learning:

  • the access to ‘web 2.0’, easily-manipulated, user-driven software, that allows anyone to create, share, create and consume content;
  • increased access to online technologies through cheaper tools, such as mobile phones
  • wider access to broadband, and improved connectivity

In addition, the economic downturn, and an increasing demand for personalised, flexible experiences, are also credited as spurring on the demand for virtual learning.

So, what’s the impact?

Schools and colleges are embracing the educational benefits of having shared, online learning environments:

  • resource sharing, as we saw with the GCSN after the Christchurch earthquake
  • flexible ways to manage discussions and knowledge creation at a distance – WikiEducator is a good example of this, as used by Albany Senior High School.
  • the ability to curate, reflect on, archive and personalise one’s learning journey; check out Ewan McIntosh’s CORE Edtalks video on e-portfolios

And, increasingly, motivated learners are seizing the opportunities offered by social media to build personal learning networks, share different perspectives, and open the doors to their classrooms.

What should I be thinking about?

With increased flexibility, demand for personalised learning, and improved access, we might now ask ourselves how we can:

  • blend online and face-to-face learning activities so our learners can personalise their own pathways?
  • be knowledge creators but also knowledge curators, aggregating and leveraging existing digital resources?
  • develop what we know about online education so we can design effective learning?

Dig deeper?

  • For rich videos on virtual and online learning, check out CORE Education’s EDTalks
  • Grab some virtual learning for yourself with CORE Education’s online courses.
  • Share my Del.ici.ous stack of resources on virtual learning.

What are your views?

 

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