What better way to build the conversation about integrating technology into the classroom, to share and to collaborate as an educational community than to ‘Tweet’ together on Twitter. We can acknowledge the great work of schools we enter and teachers we work with. We can follow thought leaders and professional practitioners in the field. We can post ideas and thoughts and assist you, our nation of teachers, to continually develop and grow as 21st Century educational professionals. 

So, don’t hesitate, check us out and join in the movement that is going to set our students, the next generation of Australians, apart!

Twiddla is a web based blank canvas. Just a white screen, that allows multiple users to brainstorm from their own machines while the results show up on everyone else’s screens, as long as they are logged into the session. There is no lag time. It all happens instantaneously! 

Its beauty is in its simplicity and accessibility: no plug-ins or downloads, no need to work around complex firewalls, no advanced scheduling. It’s available 24-7 and the only requirement is a computer with an Internet connection and a web browser. It’s browser-agnostic, user friendly, and probably more fun than you’re supposed to be having at work.

You can write, draw, and share movie files even schedules. Great for the classroom or even meetings that span interstate or internationally

One aspect that I like about Diigo is being able to join like minded groups and receive feeds about great sites that are relevant to people within the group. The EdTechTalk and Classroom 2.0 groups are great to be a part of. However, my favourite is the the OZ/NZ Educators group. It’s such a privalege to be able to share with and learn from the many excellent educators across Australia and New Zealand.

Our students are increasingly engaging with literacy online and there is great debate as to whether this enhances, diminishes or has no effect on the development of reading skills. Some argue that children and teenagers should read what interests them and that many reluctant readers would not engage in reading in their own time if it were not for the internet. This is a valid point but is reading online enough?

As a child, unlike my bookworm sister, I had no interest in reading but my mother persisted in great vain and I will forever be thankful for her efforts. Reading books opens up unfamiliar worlds and allows us to experience the lives and ideas of others. We in turn can engage in visualisation and further formulate our ideals and understandings, as we become immersed in the words on the page.

Engaging our students with reading online is imperative. Not only is this often the medium that they are choosing themselves, it is also provides a real-world context and offers an excellent source for engaging students in critical literacy. However, we must also continually encourage our students to read literature for pleasure and personal development.

The article ‘Literacy Debate: Online, R U Really Reading?’ is an excellent read. It presents a variety of arguments backed up with thorough research and causes us to think about where our students are heading in terms of their personal reading choices and how we need to approach this as educators.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/27/books/27reading.html?ex=1374897600&en=81a364206914f90a&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink

Young children are naturally responsive to sound and rhythm. Therefore, Early Childhood Education utilises music extensively and successfully, as it allows students to experiment with grammatical rules and rhythm patterns in songs and other written texts.

However, this response to music and the power of music in teaching Literacy is not limited to the early years. Many teachers attest to this and utilise music if possible.

I commenced my teaching in Early Childhood and my students and I sang and danced our way through a never ending assortment of resources. As soon as I entered middle and upper primary this changed as the resources diminished considerably. Whether this is a result of the assumption that beyond Early Childhood music is no longer an effective tool in teaching literacy, or that students beyond this age do not respond to music in the same way, or that there is not enough time/space in the curriculum, I am not sure. What I am sure of, though, is if it works for young children then, dependent on the approach taken, it will work with all students of all age groups. Furthermore, whilst there may not be as many resources available in the form of CDs and accompanying texts, technology provides the perfect tool for combining Literacy learning and music. Through technology music can be used to engage listening, speaking, writing and reading skills and can provide that meaningful avenue we are always seeking in the learning experiences we provide.

Take a look at these links to get you thinking about how you can use podcasting and movie making to enrich your literacy lessons.

Flocabulary is a brilliant resource from the US that teaches literacy to primary and secondary through rap. Although the resource itself is not free, the website allows you to explore the concepts and demonstrates the possibilities of using this popular music genre.

Flocabulary is a brilliant resource from the US that teaches literacy to primary and secondary through rap. Although the resource itself is not free, the website allows you to explore the concepts and demonstrates the possibilities of using this popular music genre.

http://www.flocabulary.com/

The following address links you to the MTV website where you can view videos about the many Harry Potter bands. Imagine how powerful it would be for our students to write and perform songs about their favourite books!

http://www.mtv.com/videos/news/155156/harry-and-the-potters-unload-with-the-weapon.jhtml#id=1561807

The Flight of the Concords is not only, according to the many fans that watch it, an awesome show, it also demonstrates how easily music can be used to communicate in everyday life. Poetry might be interesting to all students if they could present it in such a form!

http://www.conchords.co.nz/

Ever year thousands of Australian students graduate with the hope of entering the work force or college. It is widely accepted that these students dont only compete against each other, but in fact compete in a global market. China is often quoted as the next world super power, producing savy, english speaking graduates ready for jobs we have not even named yet. However statics released by the Chinese Ministry of Education, Xinhua, indicates one in three new Chinese college graduates are unable to find a job.

Xinhua said about two millions graduates or 32 per cent of the total of 6.11 million, were without work. The figure is the highest since the ministry started collecting data in 1996. The Chinese Government blames the ‘Credit Crunch’ however analysts also point the finger at a massive expansion of college enrollment in recent years: China enrolled 6 million new college students in 2008, up from 1.08 million in 1998. They also cite the education systems failure to produce graduates with the qualifications and skills that employers needs as well as unrealistically high job and salary expectations on the part of some college leavers. Either way the tide has turned and millions of Chinese graduates are without work. Having said that most countries are experiencing similar trends  just not on such a grand scale. It will be interesting to watch college enrollment numbers and graduate employment rates in Australia over the next few years. I’ll keep you posted.

World headlines would indicate MI6 intelligence has been compromised by Facebook. It depends however, if you would consider the style of swimmers that the future head of the intelligence agency wears a national secret?

The wife of Sir John Sawyers, the next head of MI6, put family details on Facebook and did not make her profile private. Lady Sawyers disclosed details such as the location of the London flat used by the couple, the whereabouts of their three children and of course holiday pictures of John in his trunks.

On a serious note, this information in the wrong hand could put her and her family’s lives at risk. However, in this day and age if other intelligence agencies cannot find out the whereabouts of Sawyers without the use of Facebook, then perhaps we should be taking the word intelligence out of the equation.

On the other hand this is a reminder to all those using social networking sites that every time you upload or download you are leaving a digital footprint While you may not be harbouring international secrets you are perhaps putting your self at risk of identity theft, credit card fraud or worse. If you haven’t already . . . go and lock your profile.

Although we are not fortunate enough to be able to join in his US based workshops, we are able to access his awesome videos. They can be used as demonstrations or they can be replicated for a lesson, particularly as most of the materials he uses are everyday objects. I know that I, and my former students, will forever be thankful that we discovered Steve Spangler!

Discover him too using the link below.

http://www.stevespanglerscience.com/video/

For centuries we have been facilitating our students to critically engage with multiliteracies and, for a long time, the availability of material has been relatively confined. As we enter a new chapter in education, where students are engaging with omnipresent texts and media, we face a new challenge; we now need to facilitate our students in being able to effectively and efficiently engage with the information they have available to them. When our students are searching, we need to teach them how to quickly navigate and locate useful websites.

So it makes sense that teachers are now engaging students in critical literacy and evaluation of the texts that are available to them on the internet

However, as teachers, we all know that the creation of new tasks, criteria sheets and rubrics is often time consuming and difficult, as we need to be clear about the outcomes.

The following links provide information on how to engage our students in the evaluation of blogs and provide an exemplar of a rubric that could be used.

If you are reading this and can share any similar resources or information that would be useful for teachers, it would be great if you could let us and all our readers know.

http://21cif.com/rkitp/assessment/v1n5/valenza1.5_blogeval.html
http://21cif.com/rkitp/assessment/v1n5/blog_evaluation_assessment_v1n5.html

Watch the following short talk from TED U, where Joachim de Posada demonstrates this experiment with children. Not only will it answer your inquisitive mind (that is, if you are not already clued up about the experiment!) and make you laugh until tears roll down your face, it will amaze you how simple and true the concept really is. Conducting the experiment with your class or, even better yet, conducting it and showing this clip will empower your students with a valuable metaphor for learning and life.

Joachim de Posada