Kentucky Center for School Safety

After my recent post on digital citizenship, I've been thinking about resources available to help CIOs get the message out. We do a great job of analyzing the problem and we all know that there are probably good resources out there, but who has time to find them? I can't find them all, but I'll help where I can. Thus, I thought I'd feature the web site for the Kentucky Center for School Safety.

KCSS is a partnership of several contract agencies: Eastern Kentucky University, the University of Kentucky, Murray State University and the Kentucky School Boards Association. They work to distribute relevant information to our school districts. I'm struck by the number of safe school issues that are technology-related. Cyberbullying, sexting and internet safety are all featured on the KCSS home page.

I can't do the site justice in a quick blog entry, but here are a few things worth noting:

* There is contact information to coordinate cyberbullying and internet safety training

* There's a whole section of useful handouts related to internet safety

* A wealth of statistics, information and handouts related to cyberbullying

* An interesting article by Jon Akers on school cell phone policy

This is just one site with quite a bit of information available to help us educate others on these important issues. Hope it helps!

Free science and math simulations

I ran across this site from the University of Colorado containing interactive simulations. It's difficult to find good examples of technology integration in some subjects and at some grade levels. This site provides some good simulations for physics, chemistry, biology and mathematics.

There are over 400 teacher contributions of lessons related to these simulations. Though you may not be able to attend their workshops, it appears that a good bit of the material used at these workshops is shared on their site. The workshop content I scanned went into some discussion on how best to use a particular simulation and how the proper introduction of a simulation can make significant differences in how it's used for learning.

This looks to be quite appealing for teachers in these particular content areas. As a general rule, we get pretty bothered when the kids are playing games on the computers instead of learning. Some of these simulations are so open-ended that they could be constructed as an effective learning "game".

Seriously, am I the only one that can't resist shooting a Buick out of a cannon?

Digital Citizenship

I feel like this is one of the most important concepts for today's K-12 CIOs, so I'll spend a minute on digital citizenship.

K-12 CIOs are placed in a unique situation as it concerns technology adoption. There is a flood of information and resources available, free of charge in many cases, that can be used to completely revolutionize the educational experience and engage young learners and teachers in ways never before thought possible. Any technology conference will feature these tools and resources and examples of their successful use. As technology leaders in an instructional environment, we have a responsibility to be knowledgeable about what's out there and look for ways to see these tools effectively integrated into instruction.

K-12 CIOs are also district administrators. Superintendents and other leaders assume that you and your office are keeping the district legal and "out of trouble" as it pertains to technology use. They assume that you're legally licensing products and that you have a service plan in place for failure of critical components. In addition, many assume that you're the resident guru on all things technology. If there's a new web resource available, it's probably assumed that you know all about it. In our own circle, we know that this isn't realistic. It isn't realistic to expect that you can block every sexually explicit web site and it isn't realistic that you're able to prevent all inappropriate behavior with technology throughout the district from a single cubicle or office. However, these are all assumptions that others often make.

So this is the dilemma. We don't feel like we're doing service to our teachers and students if we don't encourage the use of some wonderful technology tools. At the same time, we wonder if we're doing proper service to our administrators if we're not properly informing them of any risks the district may be incurring by the use of some of these same tools.

There's no easy answer, but teaching concepts like the nine elements of digital citizenship is a key component. The quick definition supplied on that page is that digital citizenship is "the norms of appropriate, responsible behavior with regards to technology use." I won't spell out the nine elements here, but they're in the link and well worth your time.

The next question might be "where can I get information that will help me educate users?" This same site has some good tools and resources. I really like the lesson plans and activities at the bottom of this page. Also, the ISTE publication of "Digital Citizenship in Schools" and other articles and books can be found here.

I suspect we'll all hear more about it and, as technology leaders, you'll be expected to lead the charge to educate others about appropriate use of technology.

Screenr

It seems that the most effective Web 2.0 tools are those that allow you to accomplish something quickly and easily. Twitter is a good example. At a most basic level, you blog in 140-character increments. Type and submit. No manual required.

Screenr definitely fits the 'ease of use' description. It is a quick and easy way to create screencasts. When I visited the site, I looked for an "about" section. Prominently featured on the site is a "one-minute tour". I watched the tour and, though I haven't tried to create a screencast yet, I feel like I could create one after watching that one-minute video.

I think screencasts could be very effective in the K-12 environment. Technology integration staff could create a library of "how-to" screencasts and direct teachers to them when faced with repetitive questions. Teachers could create screencasts for any number of reasons and show them to students as part of their lessons. Students could create screencasts as part of a "show and tell" to demonstrate knowledge on a particular subject.

I'm not saying all of this would happen immediately but, if it doesn't, it shouldn't be because there wasn't an easy way to do it. Give it a shot!

Silence, Patience and Privacy - Where Have You Gone?

In today's web world, there's no need to be silent and little tolerance for delay. Twitter asks "what are you doing" and Facebook asks "what's on your mind". I can use third-party apps to aggregate those and, in one post, update my Twitter feed, Facebook status and my blog. Anyone can have a voice, and it seems that more of us are trying to do just that. We can become the center of our own world and send/receive information immediately. It's one of the most powerful aspects of this "Web 2.0" world in which we live. As some are learning, it isn't without its perils.

Have you heard of Michael Beasley? He's a talented, young NBA player who, like many of his peers, created a Twitter feed for his fans. In August, he created quite a stir with a few of his updates. One said "feelin’ like it’s not worth livin!!!!!!! I’m done". He posted a Twitpic showing off a new tattoo that received acclaim for another reason.

Alice Hoffman is an author that used her Twitter feed to comment on a book reviewer's reaction to her novel. She later had to apologize for her comments.

Tiger Woods is known for many things. Maybe he has a Twitter feed - I don't know. He's been criticized for not being vocal enough about social issues, so there's certainly a segment of the population that wants him to comment on matters outside of golf. He's also (in)famous for his immediate responses to a bad golf shot and has received criticism on that as well. I don't need a Twitter feed to know what he's thinking about an errant drive... the cameras and microphones catch it all. To my knowledge, cameras and microphones haven't followed me on a golf course. There are a few occasions where I'm certainly glad that's the case.

Long story short, there are times when we all need to be silent, need to be patient and need to have privacy. This era of constant communication encourages us to be vocal, do it now, record all of it with pictures or video and be ready to blog and comment about any of it. Here's a question for you... When you get a text message, do you feel a need to respond immediately? Most people I've talked to indicate that they do. Kids certainly do, and it's a 24/7 experience for them. Is that text really that important? Most of the time, no.

As we strive to teach digital citizenship and proper technology behavior, CIOs will be asked to lead by example. My advice, as it was with email several years ago, would be to think before you post a Twitter update, Facebook status update, blog post, picture or video. We can post at lightning speed and judgments on those posts are being made just as quickly.

Closing with a few quotes:

“Sometimes one creates a dynamic impression by saying something, and sometimes one creates as significant an impression by remaining silent.” – Dalai Lama

"Tis better to be silent and be thought a fool, than to speak and remove all doubt." attributed to Abraham Lincoln

"When the eagles are silent, the parrots begin to jabber." – Winston Churchill

Plinky (and my efforts at asking 'why not' instead of 'why')

Cryptic title perhaps, but I do find myself often staring at web sites in amazement, wondering why such a site exists. I usually follow up by asking something like "...how in the world would anyone attempt to use this site educationally?" With this thought in mind, here's a brief word about Plinky.

Plinky. Even the name sounds a bit... well, strange. First, what is this site? I read where one site referred to it as a cure for "blogger's block". Each day, Plinky prompts visitors with a question or challenge and registered users can respond. On the day of this post, the question is "what celebrity do you look like" and "who do you wish you looked like." My first reaction, as is too often the case, was "who cares?!?!" At first glance, a skeptic like me might consider this to be nothing more than a time-wasting attempt to get self-centered people to share information that others care nothing about. I'm not 100% sure that this is not partially true, but I'll try to open my mind a bit.

My readers may not care that someone once told me I looked like John Stockton. However, if I were a student and needed a writing prompt, my teacher might well use today's question to get me to write. Many kids claim that they hate to write when, in fact, they may hate to write about a topic that doesn't interest them. Celebrity look-alikes may interest them. If you look at some of the recent daily prompts, you'll see prompts for students to describe their favorite teacher, asking if you think alien life will be discovered in your lifetime, and "what would you ask your great-great grandparents if you could chat with them today?"

If framed properly as part of a lesson or simply as part of a creative writing class, these could be used as excellent writing prompts. I'm sure you could come up with other great uses as well. I thought the site was worth a mention. Check it out and respond with the nicest place you've stayed, what you want to do on your next birthday, what you would have your personal chef cook you tonight, etc, etc, etc...

Vyew

That isn't a typo. Vyew (pronounced "view") is a tool that I ran across recently. I'm throwing together a very brief entry and wondering if others have tried it. It appears to be a FREE (or low cost for the fee-based versions) tool similar to WebEx. You could share a presentation, whiteboard with other users or even share your desktop. For administrators or trainers, this could be an extremely useful tool. My understanding is that it will provide you a phone number whereby you could connect up to 100 users via voice.

For K-12, I would say that you could put content online with annotations and it would be there for absent students to access later. I don't have much time at the moment to research this further, but this appears to be a really nice tool. I do see that it was named by PC World as one of their "25 best business software tools and web services." Could be worth a further look!

Wordle

I thought I'd take a minute to mention Wordle. What is it? You've probably seen them... it's an artistic jumble of words that appear in a block of text, with frequently-used words or concepts appearing in larger type. This is a wordle (that I created using their site) of the text of the Declaration of Independence:

Neat? I think so. I can be a bit pessimistic sometimes, so I immediately began asking "...but how would you USE this?!?!" I have been educated, as there are several uses that have been mentioned.

* Use it on your own writing or someone else's, simply to learn more about your writing style. Do you use certain words often? Perhaps TOO often?

* Paste in a news article or famous text - this would quickly give you an interpretation of the concepts presented in the text. You could ask students to then read the actual article or text. Does the Wordle accurately represent the concepts you took from the article? If so, how so? If not, what did you take from the article?

* Have all students write a few sentences to summarize a chapter of a book. Paste all of the responses into the Wordle and see if the appropriate concepts are highlighted in the Wordle representation of the students' writings.

Very interesting indeed. I took a couple of these ideas from this blog, which also features many other potential uses for Wordle.