"The findings also reveal a split in perception between teens and parents: Only 23% of parents whose children have cellphones think they are using them at school; 65% of students say they do."I suspect my parents don't know the half of what I got up to at school and I'm sure that I am equally in the dark about my own children's activities at school. New technology but an old problem?
series was released this week. New Moon will have girls squeaking with delight in cinemas up and down the country. It seemed appropriate therefore to post this trailer which also involves squeaking:"...to reduce the effect of this “Digital Divide” by working with schools, parents and other stakeholders to ensure that all children have access to the learning resources that technology can make available, when and where they need them, both at home and at school."They have three core principles:
E Learning - Computer from School Website on Vimeo.
There is also a School Affiliation aspect to their work to help schools provide personal ICT access for their pupils.World Science Festival 2009: Bobby McFerrin Demonstrates the Power of the Pentatonic Scale from World Science Festival on Vimeo.
How cool is that? ...And I love the "scientific" question asked at the end of the video. :-)"In Denmark, the government has taken the bold step of allowing pupils full access to the internet during their final school year exams."Now that's eAssessment! For some time pupils in Denmark have been able to choose whether to handwrite answers or type them on a computer. I suppose it could be argued that this is just a logical extension. The article says that on the morning of the exam, the students are helped to set up "their laptops". It is not clear whether they are the student's own laptops or if it just means the laptops they will use. The opportunity to use your own machine, with the software etc. set up just the way you like it would be an interesting.
I think I've seen a photo project with people holding hand written notices in front of their faces. Anyone know what I'm talking about?It didn't exactly draw a flurry of responses, so I reposted a short time later. One response came from gbrown057 who suggested the Bob Dylan sequence from Don't Look Back. This was good, but not what I was looking for. I in turn referred him to the Dylan message generator where you can add your own messages to Bob's boards. Both digitalmaverick and pkkelly half remembered something too but essentially, I drew a blank with Twitter on Friday night.
I am well pleased but, as the saying goes, pride comes before a fall. Today's Fun On Friday site is therefore perfect. It will cut me down to size and stop my head becoming too inflated: Despair Inc.'s Demotivators. Just what I need.Since August 2005, We Feel Fine has been harvesting human feelings from a large number of weblogs. Every few minutes, the system searches the world's newly posted blog entries for occurrences of the phrases "I feel" and "I am feeling". When it finds such a phrase, it records the full sentence, up to the period, and identifies the "feeling" expressed in that sentence (e.g. sad, happy, depressed, etc.)...
The result is a database of several million human feelings, increasing by 15,000 - 20,000 new feelings per day. Using a series of playful interfaces, the feelings can be searched and sorted across a number of demographic slices, offering responses to specific questions...
If you haven't done so already, go to the We Feel Fine site, open it, and explore!
Fascinating and mesmerising... but is it art? I think probably yes. What do you think?
Finally, some reading. For more details on mobile gaming, see TeachMeet08@SLF: Mobile Games and for advice on how to build a good personal learning network on Twitter, see Nine great reasons why teachers should use Twitter and Seven Ways to Find Teachers on Twitter.Say hello to a group of BEd student teachers and tell them an interesting educational website. #BEd4The first response came in a minute after I posted this message with @katiebarrowman recommending Glow. In the space of half an hour, we got twenty responses. While these responses were coming in, I got the students to sign up for Delicious. By the time they were set up with Delicious, they had a whole pile of recommendations from Twitter to save to Delicious. Brilliant!
Our Digital World including programming as an exploration of formal defined languages, digital communications, computer systems and hardware, and the implications of Computing and ICT in society.Programming is about problem solving and the control of computers using a formally defined language. I would therefore take a very broad definition of programming which would allow the study of application software to take place under this umbrella. By including applications in the programming topic we would hopefully avoid the danger of merely learning button pushing skills and be able to focus instead on computer applications as powerful problem solving tools.
"Much of the criticism levelled at virtual learning environments / learning management systems relates to the control of the environment by the institution rather than the learner. The individual student has minimal ability to upload their own content or to set up collaborative tools unless this has been pre-ordained by the institution..."I immediately thought of Strathclyde's VLE (currently Blackboard/WebCT) and of Glow.
"Glow will soon support user blogs and wikis, allowing pupils and classes to create web pages and online diaries to showcase their work to other schools across Scotland. Promoting individualised learning and collaboration, this will be the first time Scotland has had access to a national education blog and wiki service."I'm not sure about the last bit of that quote but making it easier to get pupil generated content on Glow sounds promising. Of course, Local Authorities can opt out of bits of Glow, so it will be interesting to see how many adopt these new tools and what encouragement or obstacles will help or hinder pupil use.
It then occurred to me that you didn't need to draw letter shapes. So here is MuirDoodle - half drawn by me and half by Daughter Number 3:
As you can see, we made some of them a bit too big and they got decapitated. but it was good fun coming up with doodles and I think we'll have another go tomorrow.I've already responded to all the comments but how would you answer these concerns?
- do you not think mobie phones used in the class distract pupils from learning ?
- phones maybe a useful piece of kit but as proven wit happy slappin it is a dangerous piece of kit
- is this not open to abuse such as 'sir your a pure knob'?
- the porn comment is why we switch off phones
{Note: Concerns about accessing pornography were raised verbally as well as in at least one other message. Given the recent court case, should we add taking inappropriate pictures to this comment? - DM}- What about child protection stuff? Are pupils and parents happy for photos and videos to be taken on phones in class and posted online?
You read it here first so no stealing my idea. Go and generate your own!An ancient puzzle at the heart of Paris.
A ruthless cult determined to protect it.
A white-knuckled race to uncover the Boy Scouts of America's darkest secret.
The Hidden Cipher
When renowned Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon is summoned to the Eiffel Tower to analyze a mysterious ancient script—drawn on a calling card next to the mangled body of the head docent—he discovers evidence of the unthinkable: the resurgence of the ancient cult of the Baalifori, a secret branch of the Boy Scouts of America that has surfaced from the shadows to carry out its legendary vendetta against its mortal enemy, the Vatican.
Langdon's worst fears are confirmed when a messenger from the Baalifori appears at the Arch of Triumph to deliver a deadly ultimatum: Deposit $1 billion in the Boy Scouts of America's off-shore bank accounts or the exclusive clothier of the Swiss Guards will be bankrupted. With the deadline fast approaching, Langdon joins forces with the lithe and enigmatic daughter of the murdered docent in a desperate bid to crack the code that will reveal the cult's secret plan.
Embarking on a frantic hunt, Langdon and his companion follow a 500-year-old trail through Paris's most venerable statues and exalted churches, pursued by a Romanian assassin the cult has sent to thwart them. What they discover threatens to expose a conspiracy that goes all the way back to Davy Crockett and the very founding of the Boy Scouts of America.
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