Seminar on New Media Literacies conducteed by Dr Sangeet 5 March 2013

Here are some pointers gotten from the segmen

(1) Is preventive measure enough to keep children safe?

• An example on the accessibility of a site that is biased in its view (hosted by : Stormfront) http://www.martinlutherking.org/
• The point is, the site is blocked in schools, however kids are able to access it back at home.
• The key pointer here is, "Blocking" is not a foolproof way... but education is far more important, education to teach students how to assess if information is reliable and valid (i.e. digital literacy)

(2) Facebook

• Some suggested "banning" Facebook. Where the issue exactly lies? 
• The platform itself? or the action/ behaviour of the human beings?Sometimes, it could be due to peer pressure in the social network. Now, think about it, "peer pressure" exists even when in face-to-face social network, too!

 (3) UK: anti-bullying week in November 

• What impression do we have here

(4) eSecurity

• This is catching more and more attention of the public and the education sector.

(5) Understanding the psych of today's youth...
xilentflex:



Question:
Do we, as adults, have the relevant advice to young people, to engage the young people?

(6) The internet is a self-regulating environment

(7) Other notes:

• Convergence of Serivces
• Anytime, anywhere connections
• Open & Transparent
• Collaborative network and tools

(8) Terms of Services

• Instead of going through the pages of "Terms of Service", get students to know what's the purpose of "Terms of Service".
• Can cite the "Instagram" example to discuss about "Instagram" change of Terms of Service.
• http://www.theverge.com/2013/2/6/3951050/tracking-terms-of-service-changes-to-catch-the-next-instagram

(9) Net Smart - Cyberculture expect: Howard Rheingold
http://rheingold.com/

• Mindful use of digital media means - thinking about what we are doing, cultivating an ongoing inner inquiry into how we want to spend out time
• 5 fundamental digital literacies:
• Attention - how we can use to focus on the tiny relevant portion of the incoming tsunami of information
• Participation - quality of participation that empowers the best of hte bloggers, netizens, tweeters, and other online community participants
• Collaboration - how successful online collaborative enterprises contribute new knowledge to the world in new ways
• Critical consumption of information (or "crap detection")
• Network smarts - lesson on network and network building

Leadership Qualities from

These qualities are a good reminder to stand by - sometimes we forget, sometimes when encountered prolonged challenges, we tend to drift away from them.

In actual fact, it's not just for those in the leadership position, but it's also applicable to everyone, any human being who strives hard to improve oneself personally and professionally.

Source: http://www.cmoe.com/blog/infographic-leadership-qualities.htm




CMOE

Online Resources: Do you take wholesale?

To be in touch with the technology use beyond my "well", I subscribe to several online Ed-Tech communities, magazines & newsletters, of course, there are plenty such resources that are free. Sometimes it can be quite overwhelming, but once in a while, I do come across pretty useful and interesting ones that can be brought back to classrooms. I guess, it's a matter of whether I have enough time to go through them regularly. Ok, the beauty of the entire process is, all these come via email, and without fail, will be delivered to my mailbox. Haha... some may regard these emails as spams! Well, I do, sometimes, when I could not cope with the many emails on hand... especially when there many 'frogs' to deal with.

On the other hand, we have to exercise our own discretion and judgement, to assess the reliability and validity of resources. It's just like, we often 'preach' to students that not all information available online are reliable because anyone can just post any information and share it with others. I think the basic rule is to remember, whatever presented up there are presented from the writer's perspective and could be a result of one's experiences:

• There could be those with ill-intent to weave up inaccurate information to mislead others
• There are also ignorant ones who unknowing put up incorrect (or partially incorrect) information. 
• There are also those who are trying their best and unknown to them, due to their lack the knowledge of a complete picture and therefore mislead readers.
• etc, etc....

One thing that a responsible digital citizenship does would be assess before 'spreading' the words and application. Important! This is important, because many a time, because of convenience, we click the share or send button before having process the information thoroughly. So, "well thought through" is something less common nowadays, especially when it comes to describing our online activities and behavior.

In fact, this morning came across the following:
Learning Never Stops: Graphing Stories - Using videos to apply math concepts
which leads to this website filled with videos put up by an educator in the school:
http://www.graphingstories.com/
It's a commendable effort.

It's a good collection of video clips that we can use for lessons, especially linking the usefulness of graphing to chart data (hence allowing observations). It even comes with the a 'graph' (embedded in the video clip) that guides students in the graphing. A useful resource.

On the other hand, as I mentioned, resources have to be examined closely... and sometimes there are 'blind spots' (when the intent of doing is not articulated, I supposed).

For instance, the first clip on "Time". What can we plot? See what's embedded in the clip.
Here's a snapshoot... My first reaction is... something is not right about the axes... Or any other thoughts to enlighten my ignorance?

Of course, we don't write-off resources straightaway when there are info that we don't agree on. Resources are 'dead' but it's really up to the user who can tweak it so that it can serve some useful purpose, too....

Look at the clip on "Weight of Stack", there is certainly something that we can bring back to classroom... It's not just about seeing a linear graph by plotting number of cups against the weight... which definitely (should by right) show a linear relationship. If we were to track the weight of the cup using 'continuous' line graph (instead of discrete data). In fact, it lands itself nicely with the topic of force - air resistance, too! Guess what's in my mind :)