What is needed to be a Digital Citizen?

Ah! Its Saturday night, I’m sitting back, with an Iced Tea, watching Silverchair and Powderfinger on the Telly. I pick up my Laptop and open Vienna to catch up with my blog-roll. After reading Will Richardson’s blog “the kids are alright” I was lead to read Alec Couros’ “Understanding Digital Citizenship.” Hmm. Alec really starts the thought processes going, and Will has some very good additions too.

Below are the ongoing thoughts that I’ve had after mulling on this for a little while. It starts off as the comment I made to Alec’s article, then continues on from there.

This is a very important subject, and one that we as educators need to look good and hard at. I will be posting some thoughts to this on my blog, once I have digested what you’ve said and the thoughts that spawn from this (herewith). There’s so much that can be said, but in the end, we want our students to learn the appropriate way to use the Internet. The way that keeps them safe, aware, informed. The Internet is a great tool, Web 2.0 allows interaction like never before, and hey, not all of it is bad! How do we as Educators use this when the current trend is to stick a filter in front of it so that it can’t be seen, and therefore doesn’t exist in what we teach? I know some teachers that are banging their heads against brick walls trying to get to use some of these fantastic new tools. It’s my dream that we can work out a compromise on this. I’d like to know the answer to this problem. But alas, will there ever be a definitive one?

As the Internet, and the new technologies grow, I bet these sorts of problems will too. But in saying that, ignoring them doesn’t help either. We have a wish list of things that we would like to be able to do with our students in 2008, and how we are going to do some of them seem like a “far away” thing. What reaction would you get when you ask for a class set of Mobile Phones so you can teach the students to twitter? In reality most of the students (if not all) will have them already, but they are not meant to have them at school so we cant encourage that!

What are your thoughts on this? Do we draw a line, put in a filter, or do we open up the world?

What happens to the Old School?

I’ve been playing with some great new tools today thanks to my friend Graham. Things like PopFly and Microsoft Robot Studio. These are some cool little tools.

Microsoft Robotics Studio brings the programming of Robots into a realistic 3D world. Add to that the Soccer or Sumo Tournament that can be downloaded and I’m sure that our Students will have great time with it.

PopFly is still in Beta, and once released I think it will be a very handy teaching tool. I also think that once LG gets it onto her Tablet she will see the opportunities that it holds within. I can see her Year 9 IST class producing some pretty impressive content. Used with Visual Studio, which we have under the Schools Agreement, and this little beauty can be used to cover a myriad of the outcomes I’m sure.

The sad thing will be what happens to the “Old School” tools. This really is a time where new technologies are being used in a variety of Educational Projects. Teachers really do have to keep up or they will find themselves being left behind. We are already seeing ways in which Students are showing their Teachers a thing or two, so ICT in Educaton is surely a bi-directional learning experience.

Of course the sad part of this is that I have just created a lot more work for my team in this already too busy Roll-Out for 2008. It will be worth it when I see what our Students will create.

Roll on 2008.

It is finished!

Well several things finished today……..

• Our School Term. Today was the last day for our Students, and as always it was sad to see the farewells between friends. Some of these friendships had built up over many years, these could be anything up to 12 – 14 if they went through PreSchool together.
• All Staff on deck. Tomorrow is our last official Staff Day for Teaching staff, and likewise we will see some staff move on too.
• My last lot of Study. I have just finished my last assignment in a “far too spread out timewise” Distance Education course.

It’s funny how I have watched teachers that have had to push and push for some of their students to hand in work on time, if at all in some cases. It always brings to me a chuckle, as i think “I couldn’t do that (be patient that is),” or , “why don’t you just get it over and done with and hand your assignment in.”

With almost uncanny clarity I was reminded by a small voice inside “don’t you have an assignment to finish Andrew?” Well yes, but it was meant to be in 2 1/2 years ago, I cant do it now.

Ah but I was challenged, not only by my inner-self, but by those around me. I sent off a quick email to my tutor, sort of a “hey I jut found my old assignment and thought i should finish it, but thought i better get the OK form you first” type of message.

He very quickly replied, “Great, but its got to be in by 14th December, as we cant mark that course after this year.” Say what now? 2 weeks! I had 2 weeks!

Well I am happy that I can now say “it is finished!”

Time to get stuck into the College Network and Infrastructure so that it is all on-line by start of Term 1 2008. This is our biggest Roll-Out ever and we are going to have to hit the ground on Monday running at full pelt. I just know next year is going to be a “big one.” I have lots of ideas, and I’m sure that I will be prodded with many more as the year goes on.

This time next year we’ll sit back and see what the outcomes were. I know I’m excited.

So, for 2008

The time has come to look to 2008 and what we would like to achieve. We have already done the Hardware Audit and know what we are purchasing for 2008. We will end up with 220 Desktops, 56 School owned Laptops, and probably 50 -100 students with laptops. I cant see any changes to the current filtering protocols, and I would like for us to do some “trials” with a group of students. I sent the following to twisted for her to dwell upon.Ok, so I’ve been thinking (which has often proved to be very dangerous) and if you want to present at ELH 2008 on “TFT” we could approach it in the following way.

1. Create a wish list of what you’d like to be able to use (blog’s, twitter, etc.) and what you’d like to achieve with them.
2. I will then investigate and create (as best we can) these for you to use.
   • This may be hosted locally or remotely depending on how we go.
   • This may need a certain class/classes to be set up with different filtering options (I’ll explain how we can do this at some stage) which may need a submission to the powers that be and parental acceptance etc.
3. Teach to your hearts content using these new options and glean (isn’t that a silly word) as much info on the pro’s and con’s of what you’ve found in doing this.
4. We then do 2 presentations, to both teachers and techs, about what we wanted to achieve and how we achieved it by being united in what we wanted to do.

Just my early thoughts…… Lets see what we can do with this. If we can get LG with 2 classes in the same area we could use the original methods with 1 and the new and improved with the other. Though using this as a comparison may not be suitable depending on where they are to start with, but you’d get to see how students respond to the newer approach.Let me know what you think about this? Are there any issues I’m not covering here. Cheers,TFT.

This is IT

Well tomorrow is the first discussion at the committee level about our “filtering.” I’m sure that it will be a “vigorous” discussion from some sides, but at least its a start.

I read a great post by Alex Miller on another blocked site? feeling stifled? what can you do? and it was great to read the comments and see the support that is being built up around the globe on this topic.

Lets hope we can inject some of that enthusiasm into our upcoming discussions. Stay tuned, more on this to follow I’m sure.

Filtering – How much, and what?

I finally got around to posting a comment to a post by Adrian Greig on the Expanding Learning Horizons and SchoolTech 2007 group on facebook and thought I’d share my thoughts here as well. I’m not sure of the general availability of this post so I’ll repeat some of it here.

Adrian asked the following:

Web filtering on the internet…there are risks but great benefits?
What is the best solution/answer. Completely open? Filter heavily? Or some balance?
Who should choose?
How to decide what gets filtered?
My state system has major filtering in place much to the great ire of many teachers as they want to use Youtube, etc.
How much do you filter?
How do you deal with problems?

This is an issue that I have been thinking a lot about lately. I am being made increasingly aware of the frustration caused to teachers when the lesson they have planned won’t work because of blocked sites.

My response to Adrian was:

I work for a Multi-Campus Independent K-12 College on the NSW Hunter Coast as the Sys Admin for one of those campuses. We have implemented a central filtering appliance at our ISP so that all of our Campuses (5) go through the same filter. Any requests to have a site unblocked have to go through our Main Campus.

I have seen first hand the struggle our teachers have with this, and I too have my hands tied as I can’t assist them.

Since ELH, Lisa-Gaye and I have discussed filtering and if it is too heavy. As stated earlier we have a “duty of care” to our students, but does that mean “filter anything and everything that may pose a real or implied threat” or does it mean “filter as much of the nasty’s that you can, but leave the middle grey areas open and teach about the dangers”? I have seen our senior students give up on using the Internet for research as, in their words, “we cant get to anything so why bother trying”

It’s interesting that when searching I have found documents put out by the Education Departments in Vic, Tas, and SA all to do with the “duty of care” as it applies to the Internet, but nothing from NSW where we are based.

I’d like to do some research… pick a couple of classes (get parental permission), reduce the filtering, monitor their use (for pastoral care follow up as required), and see how their work standard, and attitude improve. Could be interesting I think.

What do you think about the whole filtering issue? I’d like some feedback on this to take to our ICT Committee when we try and push for change.

Talking Heads

Just a quick update. We have started discussions with our Heads of Schools, and all is starting to look well. It appears that a few of us are on the same page, some even further ahead than I thought. 2008 is rapidly approaching and we are needing to move fast with this one. I am meeting with our Head of Middle School and our ICT Learning Co-ordinator – K-12 (lgw) next week. Lets see what we can push for next year. 2009 looks like it will be a year of great change. That is if we cant push it all through before then.

Fade to Grey

So, where do we begin? There were 7 of us at ELH2007 last week, and for most of us, there were huge plans, big dreams and the biggest of visions of what we would like to do. The worst thing would be to loose all of this.

This week I hope to get together with those of our Executive that attended. Our HOJS, HOSS, and ICT Learning Co-Ordinator K-12, and have a look at what they each want to do. I can see a brainstorming session coming on. The biggest issue will be timeframe. Obviously this is not going to happen overnight, but we need to start planning to make it happen. In the meantime the Teachers that were there have come away with great ideas and new ways to do things.

We will also need to look at Policy. What is currently in place is very restrictive. The sad part is that I wrote it. The happy part is that I’m open to change it. This I believe will be the first step. I can now see that the uses of ICT in Education are not something that can be controlled by Black and White Policy. We need to get to the point where we are flexible. At some point in time, some of that policy will need to fade to grey.

Catalyst

Was searching around tonight and came across dswaters’ post on I didn’t start the fire, and also robynjay’s post on Firewalls of the mind. Congratulations to whoever brought you all together.

I am from the “Tech” side, and used to think along the lines of “Filter to protect (both our students and our network).” After a couple of years working along side a colleague (Teacher) I now look at this in very different ways. In usual fashion we locked horns and butted heads. The never ending “I want to be able to teach” vs. “I want to keep my network safe,” but then we started talking. We shared our desires to see our students educated. To be excited about their world, and the never-ending opportunities that the digital age is opening up.

We need to allow our Teachers and our Learners to search the world. There definitely needs to be a dialogue between the both parties. We can try and block for moral protection, but that doesn’t teach our students about living in their digital world.

I have just returned from the Expanding Learning Horizons conference, held in Lorne in Victoria. It is a huge event aimed at Teachers and Educators, Visionaries, and also Technicians and IT Managers. In saying that, we shared a few keynote presentations, then the two groups split into their own streams.

I was so inspired that I only attended the educators’ streams. I am really starting to get my head around the truth that teachers need to be able to teach, and learners need to have access.

You may notice that this is basically the reply I left to robynjay’s post; this was one of the catalysts for my Teacher Friendly Tech blog.

Welcome to Teacher Friendly Tech.

The title for my Blog came from a comment made to me by a collegeue at the recent Expanding Learning Horizons conference in Lorne, VIC. Unlike previous years, this time I steered clear of the “Techo” sessions and remained with our Teachers, following them as they explored the way’s in which ICT should be integrated in today’s learning.

The biggest thing that I have taken from this conference is the need to allow learning to happen. For too long the focus has been on filtering, monitoring, and restricting access to unsavoury content. In doing so we have stopped our users from learning in their real world.

Over the coming weeks I will endeavour to unravel all that I have learned at this conference, and how we need to put it in to practice, and what this will entail on both sides of the technology fence. Please join me in discussing these things, I welcome input from both Teachers & Educators, Visionaries, and Technical guru’s as well. There’s a lot that I need to learn as well. So lets see where this take us, and where we can take our students.