Social Media/Control

To read the full text and background material click here: http://www.theage.com.au/technology/quit-facebook-or-be-expelled-school-says-20120516-1yqp0.html

Appearing this week in The Age was an interesting piece on Facebook. The issue at the heart of the discussion is cyber-bullying. It’s not something that we haven’t already heard a lot about. I know that there are very strong feelings about it in general, what is the school responsibility, what is the parent’s responsibility and what is the child’s responsibility? It is a far more complicated problem than most people realise. That’s why no clear answer has been given and society in general moving ahead.

Today's Meet

Join Today's Meet and let us use it as a easy way to exchange ideas. I have created a meeting room called SEprincipals. Go to http:// todaysmeet.com/SEprincipals. Add your name and start exchanging ideas. I have opened the room for a year. Have a go!

Teaching students "how to search" :google

More on the issue raised at our conference that children in our schools do not know the ins and outs of how to search on the net efficiently. I came across this great resource for teaching Google. Complete with lesson plans! Just click the image to go to the site.

Are your teachers utilising web 2 tools?

Some yes some no ... we could all use a little help. Here is a resources to pass on to them. It's not posted here as being a "best of", just one of many places, but a start ...

• Web 2.0 for the Classroom Teacher An Internet Hotlist on Web 2.0created by Sue Summerford

An online class ...

I'm toying with the idea of creating an online class. I could possibly use some of the social networking tools to create this. Twitter, Wiki, Facebook, perhaps there are others. This might be a cross level class from say year 4-6. As a first experiment I'm thinking that rather than an instructional online class, this might be a discussion type class, but I'm not sure, as this posting contains my first thoughts on the matter. I'm interested in getting the thoughts of our massive reader base. All nine people :).
Perhaps this class might travel across some our schools and include the senior body of more than one school. We could incorporate skype in this as well. Is anyone interested in partnering or joining this venture? Post your comments below or shoot me off an email or twitter.

• email: mday@skormond.catholic.edu.au
• twitter: @mavenshare 

Wikis in the classroom ...

From the blog of: Free Technology for Teachers

5 Ways You Can Use Wikis

Today I had the privilege to participate in Discovery's Beyond the Textbook forum. One of my take-aways from the day's conversation is that most of the technologies that we want to use to make textbooks interactive and meaningful for students already exist, we just need to organize and utilize them in a way that makes sense for teachers and students. I've combined that take-away with a recent request from a reader to delineate some ways that teachers can use Wikispaces to create this list of ideas for using wikis in classrooms. Please feel free to add your suggestions, with links if possible, in the comments below (please note, I'll be on planes for the next 18 hours so there will be a delay between your comment submission and its appearance on the blog).

Changing Education ...

Students as Teachers

While on conference in Sydney last week I came across a new tool which can be used by students and teachers as well as the leadership of the school. In any learning community there is a constant flow of new and interesting tools to use on the net and on our devices that enhance our learning and help increase engagement. Staying up to date is often the hardest thing. One of my useful strategies is to use Youtube to teach me about new products and programs. There are always plenty of how to's and tutorials to view. This is because there are so many mavens out there that are happy to share their learnings. But wouldn't it be better if we could easily make our own how to's and videos? Easily and for FREE. Then perhaps you need Jing.

How many Twitter Accounts do you need

I was asked today, how many Twitter accounts are needed. Do we use one for personal and one for school, or do we have one account and use it for both?
Unfortunately, this isn't a simple one to answer. There are a few impacting issues and one needs to be clear on the goal and purpose of the account before this can be answered.

Adding contact details

Hi folks, Christine has pointed out to me that my video on adding contact details does not work because when users (authors) log in they don't see all the options I see as the blog creator. Not something I had realised as I'm new to this blog. Sorry about that. Here is the explanation and solution.