PTC 02

Make memories and share stories

Sonya Van Schaijik Citizenship, Cultural Awareness, PTC 02, PTC 09 , , ,

Last year I shared our story of using the HOT seat forum with our staff at a staff meeting.

Just before the term 3 holidays, I presented at Edugnite Leadership and shared our story with Auckland teachers of using a HOT seat forum on Superclubsplus.
Then our story was shared via TKI on the snapshot for learning.
Soon after that I re-shared our story globally of using Global HOT seats with TeachMeetINT where I was one of 24 educators from 16 countries sharing using Adobe connect.
Now my next step is to increase that circle to a greater audience by resharing this story via my blog and then using twitter to broadcast to an even greater audience.
Where to next, I plan to continue sharing our story when I travel to European countries as part of a TEACHNZ sabbatical in 2013. I plan to make links with other Global educators of primary school children.
Before Ulearn. I attended Pasi Sahlsberg’s session for school leaders. He spoke about the Finnish Education System and why he thought they are placed top in the world for education. He shared his views on equity in education. He shared his ideas about GERM. I made connections with Pasi on twitter so was excited to hear him speak face to face and to hear his stories about his home country. One key connection I made to his story was the importance of first language for accademic success. Here you can download an article I co-authored regarding the importance of first language.
The day before Ulearn12, I attended #GAFENZ. This was the Google apps for education New Zealand Summit. Here I heard educators share their stories on using Google for learning. I made connections with educators who used Google Hangouts but do not think we will be using that with our primary school children. However there is nothing stopping us as teachers using it to share our stories with each other.
At ULEARN 2012, each of the plenaries shared a photo from their school days and shared memories of teachers who influenced them.
Therefore as part of this blog I have located my photo taken in 1972 or 40 years ago. I was a pupil at St Mary’s Savalalo in Apia Western Samoa. My teacher was Miss Laulu. I was one of 42 pupils in standard 2. This was my last year before we shifted to New Zealand. I have that story here on my wiki. I have been in New Zealand now for just over 40 years yet I still call Samoa home. I am nostalgic when I think of Samoa. Which pupil is me? Surely you can guess? Yes I was as fluent in Samoan as I am now. My story on my wiki was the closing plenary presentation for Fagasa in 2002. Yes I shared my story in Samoan. 

Ulearn12 provided me with opportunities to making connections to some of the stories I heard. Most people will share connections from the plenaries. You can read all about the plenaries messages here in the shared Google docs.
However for me, the highlights included making connections with the 2013 efellows and introducing them to the coreefellows wikispace. In addition when I attend Ulearn I try and attend any Pasifika or Maori teachers sessions. This year this included Janelle Riki, Moana Timoko, Anaru White, and Togi Lemanu who shared blended elearning for Māori and Pasifika Students. They spoke about the importance of pedagogy. I especially made connections with Moana as she spoke about BROfessionalism. I also listened to Togi share his story about Pasifika Learners and the blended model that he used.
I was also privileged to listen to some stunning teachers share their learning.
These included Mary Rahiti and Tania Lako from Sutton Park speaking about Flashing Flipcharts.
I sat in on Tupou Kolo’ofa’i sharing how she uses an active board when teaching the arts.
Other stories included @arti_choke aka Pam Hook sharing about SOLOtaxonomy. 
I would have liked to hear more about the ROW and other global projects. 
I also would have liked to have heard Simon Evans Software for Learning presentation where he shared about our Skoodle Project.
I attended the launch of the Digital Citizenship project launched at the National Library. Already I have begun contributing to this collaborative project.
What ULEARN did for me was to remind me of others and to continue mentoring our teachers in the use of the tools with learning. I am conscious of the space between the nodes concept or as Moana called it BROfessionalism. I also wish to mentor a group of students as they prepare for a Global sharing. From Ulearn I have made contact with other New Zealand Global educators who have been part of collaborative work between countries and primary school children.
My aim is to coordinate a TeachMeet session here in New Zealand using Google hang-outs.

One word I took away from Ulearn was Ubiquitous computing. This is like the Internet of Things. This is machines that fit the human environment instead of forcing humans to enter theirs. 

The message that I take back for my school is ‘its no longer enough to do powerful work if no one sees it.’ Therefore create content to share your stories with other educators.

So where are your stories?

How young is too young to have an email?

Sonya Van Schaijik PTC 02 ,

(Cross posted on myportfolio.)

In New Zealand 18 years old is the ages to enter into a legal contract

Here you can read the legal age in New Zealand for a variety of activities.http://www.newzealandatoz.com/index.php/page/display/653/

Youth is classed as 14- 18 and parents can sign a legal contract on their behalf.  But what happens if the children are younger?

http://galesburgcusd205.schools.officelive.com/Documents/6%20Guidelines%20for%20Safe%20Use%20of%20Internet%20Resources.pdfI have been reading around the legalities for nearly a year. The above document highlights the importance of monitoring all online activity when children are involved.

I have been using Superclubsplus with children for 18 months now and am continuously astounded at the amount of activity taking place. I like Superclubsplus because as an educator I like knowing that I am not alone in monitoring my children online. Someone else is there too and the system monitoring activity is continuously evolving and adapting with our online users.

In New Zealand the secondary schools are advised to have robust systems in place when using the internet for teaching and learning.

http://www.educationalleaders.govt.nz/Problem-solving/Education-and-the-law/Governance/Schools-and-the-Internet

WebsafetyNZ writes about the morals of children under 13 lying to use social media tools. Yet we teach children not to share too much personal information about themselves.

http://blog.websafety.co.nz/2011/02/underage-facebook-users.html

From ACMA Australia, this clip has a section regarding cyberbullying and also has data about Social Media under age users. The numbers are challenging in that we underestimate what under 13 year olds do online with or without parental permission.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHj0gKGYzfY&feature=youtu.be

http://www.inspiration.com/blog/2011/02/web-safety-comes-first-when-teaching-media-literacy/

I use this statement as a framework for working with teachers and children. Web safety comes first when using the internet for teaching and learning.

USA has COPPA for under 13 year olds. COPPA stands for ‘The Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act.’ Read all about what that means when working with children online.

In New Zealand – we do not yet have anything like COPPA  in place.

Until this changes then New Zealand follows the legal binding contract between 2 parties or a signed parental agreement for youth. 14-18.

Under 14- the area is still grey.

Hence how can it stand up in court if anything goes wrong?

One statement I continually make is just because we can – does it mean we should? I read with interest the changes that have taken place even in Googles Terms of Agreement regarding Google APPS for Education. This agreement is outside their Terms of Agreement with the general public. Therfore schools would be signing a separate agreement with google, and their parents signing a separate agreement allowing their children to use the APPS available for education.

Those of us teaching in the under 13 age group when do you think is a good age for children to have their own email account and how much freedom do you think they should have? That is a question I still cannot answer. Our children have a locked down email on SCP. It is so locked down that they are not allowed to use it to contact parents as most parents have not been police vetted. They can only use it in a walled environment to communicate with children or teachers from their own schools.

Finally, we continuously focus on what we do with our children. But how many of us are in schools where all teachers know what google docs and apps are and even more exciting – how many of them use docs and apps for teaching and learning? How many schools run teacher cybersafety training alongside their other professional learning?

Reflecting using SOLO taxonomy, my thinking is still at multistructural as my learning in this area is still new and most of what I have is a list of websites as I have been reading around the subject of children and the internet. I am just starting to make links with other educators in my ideas.

I welcome any comments and any further information that other educators have on the subject about teachers and children using the internet for teaching and learning.