16 things kids should know about social networking

Useful list from Deb Ng on the Kommein site of tips about social networking.  No harm for some adults to review them either.  I remain astonished at what people choose to share, and how trusting some are.

OK, so you and I can read this.  And then what?  Why not find several ways to share it?  Email to students, put on your school/library website with other resources on online safety, make a few points into a library poster (that you don't display forever, because then it becomes invisible...).  This is as much a wakeup call to me, to use all this stuff I am finding as much as possible.

Cheers

Ruth

A dozen ways to teach ethical and safe technology use

Read this excellent blog post from Doug Johnson's Blue Skunk blog.

http://doug-johnson.squarespace.com/blue-skunk-blog/2010/12/26/a-dozen-ways-to-teach-ethical-and-safe-technology-use.html

Cheers

Ruth

Library Day in the Life, Round 6, Tuesday

During the summer holidays (and with an iPhone handy) I've been in the habit of checking my Twitter stream each morning and emailing interesting tweets for later investigation on my laptop (bigger screen...).

So, as a snapshot of what I found this morning that I thought might be useful to my work as a teacher librarian - for me, or my colleagues, or the kids - here's what I emailed for future investigation.  It's a lucky dip depending on what others are tweeting and retweeting, and filtered by the people I follow (my Twitter @ruth_skerricks is my professional Twitter stream, where I follow people tweeting about education, technology, libraries, books...).  The motivational quotes are ideas for the senior study skills program I'm working on, some of the other links may or may not be useful, but it's all a great professional development resource.  I can't access Twitter at work (social networking sites are generally blocked) so if I email myself the links I can investigate them and if they prove useful/relevant to others, email them on to colleagues.

NY Public Library (@nypl)
25/01/11 9:49 AM
From our Tumblr: "We can’t behave like people in novels, though, can we?" http://bit.ly/fq6jmK

Josh Stumpenhorst (@stumpteacher)
25/01/11 9:49 AM
My video tutorial page: http://bit.ly/f5RUbv  #edchat #edtech
 
Fiona Jones (@fionareadersrr)
25/01/11 9:37 AM
RT @Infoventurer: Kathryn Greenhill Daily http://bit.ly/emzftW  ▸ stories today @curtinuni @camcd @fionareadersrr @libsmatter @jeanburgess

Motivational Quotes (@motivatquotes)
25/01/11 9:27 AM
Our attitude towards others determines their attitude towards us. ~ E. Nightingale http://bit.ly/9fOwbe

Shannon Miller (@shannonmmiller)
24/01/11 10:20 PM
RT @pgreensoup Quizlet Flashcards Now Embeddable http://bit.ly/g8TtzG  #vanmeter

Buffy Hamilton (@buffyjhamilton)
24/01/11 10:22 PM
Seth's Blog: Three ways to help people get things done: http://is.gd/kUvITS

Shannon Miller (@shannonmmiller)
24/01/11 10:23 PM
Joliprint ...Print friendly & PDF your blogs and websites http://ow.ly/3IXN0

Glenda Morris (@jasmont1)
24/01/11 10:42 PM
“@glendagregory: Top 10 sites for Creating Digital Magazines and Newspapers by David Kapuler (cont) http://tl.gd/8bq4vj 

Guardian Books (@GuardianBooks)
24/01/11 11:15 PM
Here's a primer on tonight's TS Eliot Prize, with poems from all the contenders http://bit.ly/hjrI2R  #books

Will Richardson (@willrich45)
24/01/11 11:31 PM
Reading: A project on the future of education http://bit.ly/eIJYXc  Interesting vision

Josh Stumpenhorst (@stumpteacher)
24/01/11 11:46 PM
Watching and discussing this with my team today: TED talk about engaging boys in EDU http://bit.ly/gFBJ6S  #edchat

Judy O'Connell (@heyjudeonline)
24/01/11 11:58 PM
The simplybooks Daily is out! http://bit.ly/9VRDYi  ▸ Top stories today by @booksin140 @sydneyunipress @thereadingzone @readingtub

Josh Stumpenhorst (@stumpteacher)
25/01/11 12:08 AM
What is innovation? Be innovative this week! http://bit.ly/gmI1lm  #edchat #ntchat

Publishers Weekly (@PublishersWkly)
25/01/11 12:06 AM
Our First Year With Amazon Kindle as an Independent Publisher http://bit.ly/g7rTzU

Publishers Weekly (@PublishersWkly)
25/01/11 12:16 AM
From FutureBook: what book publishers can learn from the gaming world. http://bit.ly/dS9SP6

Phillippa Cleaves (@pipcleaves)
25/01/11 7:26 AM
Imagine if our own students made a social network like these :-) RT @ITJil: 20 Social Networks for Lifelong Learners http://bit.ly/bC6zZZ
 
Judy O'Connell (@heyjudeonline)
25/01/11 8:27 AM
A New Culture of Learning: some thoughts. http://amplify.com/u/anj49

Tehani Wessely (@editormum75)
25/01/11 7:59 AM
The Shaun Tan cover art of Australis Imaginarium is eligible for nomination to the Chronos Awards! http://bit.ly/dZIx8o

Motivational Quotes (@motivatquotes)
25/01/11 7:44 AM
You cannot change the circumstances, the seasons, or the wind, but you can change yourself. ~ Jim Rohn

tripwire magazine (@tripwiremag)
25/01/11 5:21 AM
40+ Fresh and Amazing Free Fonts to Download http://su.pr/5Dljb3

Phillippa Cleaves (@pipcleaves)
25/01/11 7:52 AM
RT @RoshOR: “@willrich45:"A Tilt in Thought" from a principal. http://bit.ly/dFjThC Good stuff.” lets stop whining and just get on with it. 
 
Bobbi Newman (@librarianbyday)
25/01/11 8:53 AM
Top Ten Links 2.3 – All About Ebooks
Librarian by Day http://bit.ly/eA7Pqk

Cheers

Ruth

The past may come back to bite you...

There's a sign on the window by my office door that points out that I'm not young enough to know everything (kids read it sometimes, and go, well, of course...)...and yet sometimes you see the bulletproof young heading towards disaster - or at least, problems - assuming they're teflon-coated, when you know they aren't.  Internet privacy's one of those problems.

In The Web Means the End of Forgetting, (NY Times) Jeffrey Rosen discusses how publication of information about individuals can influence present circumstances, future prospects, eliminate opportunities.

We’ve known for years that the Web allows for unprecedented voyeurism, exhibitionism and inadvertent indiscretion, but we are only beginning to understand the costs of an age in which so much of what we say, and of what others say about us, goes into our permanent — and public — digital files. The fact that the Internet never seems to forget is threatening, at an almost existential level, our ability to control our identities; to preserve the option of reinventing ourselves and starting anew; to overcome our checkered pasts.

Worth reading.  One to share with colleagues, students and children.

Cheers

Ruth

PS. if the lemon tree in your garden is utterly ignored except when you can pick fruit from it, does that benign neglect qualify it for 'organic' status?  If so, today's lemon cupcakes with chocolate icing had organic lemon zest in them... Hurrah for a cupcake Monday!

Facebook privacy options

While going through our DER laptop student responsibilities with Year 9 last Friday, I touched on social networking and privacy.  At present, they can't access social networking on their DER laptops at home or at school, but this may change in the future; and right now, they certainly are using social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook.

Facebook Privacy: a bewildering tangle of options is a New York Times article with a detailed graphic illustrating just how many privacy options there are - and where - in Facebook.  On the one hand, it's complex enough to make lots of people (including students) toss up their hands and run in the other direction.  On the other hand, if you do, then the choice is letting far more information than you may wish or realise become public.

One to share with students and staff.

Added later, from Twitter:

• Will Richardson: Teach. Facebook. Now
• Are your Facebook privacy settings doing their job? Here are two tools and a slideshow to help you: http://bit.ly/cfbvDH  

Cheers

Ruth

Libraries and librarians as sponsors of literacy

An excellent slideshow presentation from Buffy J. Hamilton.

Libraries and Librarians As Sponsors of Literacy

View more presentations from Buffy Hamilton.

Plenty of food for thought, for teachers as well as teacher librarians.  Found via Twitter.

Cheers

Ruth

Internet safety: Teaching about the web includes the troublesome parts

There's some discussion of this going on around the traps internet safety, cyberbullying, the dangers of the social networking online.

Teaching about the web includes the troublesome parts by Stephanie Clifford in the New York Times

Common Sense’s classes, based on research by Howard Gardner, a Harvard psychology and education professor, are grouped into topics he calls “ethical fault lines”: identity (how do you present yourself online?); privacy (the world can see everything you write); ownership (plagiarism, reproducing creative work); credibility (legitimate sources of information); and community (interacting with others).

Here's a link to the (coming soon) curriuculum documents - there is a preview of the privacy unit. 

Edited by Howard Gardiner: Young people, ethics and the new digital media (link to a free pdf).

 Cyberbullying report from the ABC's 7.30 Report:

In a recent study one in four teenage students said they'd been bullied in the previous few weeks. A conference in Melbourne starting later this week will examine why schools aren't able to properly tackle the problem, and whether bullying itself should be made a crime.

This report spends time on teacher unfamiliarity with social media, and teachers' lack of training, as being part of the reason for the problem.

I am not abrogating the role schools and teachers can play in educating to reduce/eliminate cyberbullying, but surely it's not down to schools alone to solve this (if indeed it can be entirely eliminated/solved)?

I've done a short presentation on cybersafety at the Year 11 Crossroads program these last few years, so it will be good to incorporate material from these resources.

Cheers

Ruth

Safer Internet Day 2010: 9 February

Logo source, which has more information

This is an international cybersafety event, with the theme of 'think before you post'.  It's organised by InSafe, and international organisation for internet safety, and supported in Australia by ACMA.

The link above has more info, including a poster to print, tips for kids and teens, and this YouTube video:

Why not compile a quick email to send out to students/parents/staff?

Cheers

Ruth

The 3 settings every Facebook user should check now

From the New York Times, The 3 Settings Every Facebook User Should Check Now - based on recent changes to Facebook and their impact on privacy/personal information.

Read all about them here.

It's one of the challenges of the internet, the balance in social networking between sharing and privacy, and many students, I find, are less careful than they ought to be about personal information.  I'll be sharing this link with our staff and our students.

Cheers

Ruth

Willing to be disturbed: Will Richardson on the conversation we need to have and the culture we need to develop

Brilliant blog entry from Will Richardson on the way forward for teaching and learning in the technological present and technological future.  I can't catch the whole thing in a single quote, but here's a section that resonated with me right now:

There is a great deal of “tinkering on the edges” when it comes to technology, districts that hope that if they incrementally add enough technology into the mix that somehow that equals change. I can’t tell you how many schools I’ve seen that have a whiteboard in every room yet have absolutely nothing different happening from a curriculum perspective. Old wine, new bottles.


That fundamental redefinition is hard. It takes an awareness on the part of leaders that the world is indeed changing and that current assessment regimes and requirements are becoming less and less relevant to the learning goals of the organization. It takes a vision to imagine what the change might look like, not to paint it with hard lines but to at least have the basic brushstrokes down. It takes a culture that celebrates learning not just among students but among teachers and front office personnel and administrators alike, what Phillip Schlechty calls a “learning organization.” It takes leadership that while admitting its own discomfort and uncertainty with these shifts is prescient and humble enough to know that the only way to deal with those uncertainties is to meet them full on and to support the messiness that will no doubt occur as the organization works through them. It takes time, years of time, maybe decades to effect these types of changes. It takes money and infrastructure. And I think, most importantly, it takes a plan that’s developed collaboratively with every constituency at the table, one that is constantly worked and reworked and adjusted in the process, but one that makes that long-term investment time well spent instead of time spinning wheels. And it takes more, even, than that.



Read it in full here.

ADDED LATER: and then read this entry from Camilla Elliot's blog, Edubeacon: The Innovation is the Network.

One of the greatest challenges expressed in discussions on change management in schools is the ‘getting it to happen’; the changing of old systems for new ones are more suited to today’s students and society. This podcast addresses the adoption of innovation and successful adoption of new methods within schools.

Go to the blog entry for details on the podcast (Andrew Hargardon on Innovation and Networking)

Cheers

Ruth

Privacy, Facebook and student naivety

Presenting a session on Internet Security Issues at our school's Crossroads program recently, I remarked to the Year 11 students that if my dad had done something extremely foolish when he was a teenager, it might, maybe have made it to radio and newspapers.  If I had done ditto, you can add television to the mix.  Still large corp. media outlets, though, not necessarily aware of or able to capture an individual life easily or quickly. 

Now, if they do something extremely foolish, it can land on YouTube via a mobile/cell phone, or on Twitter, within seconds.  Such is the changed world they need to take account of.  Their foolishness can be far more readily found by potential employers doing a bit of googling than would have been possible ten, twenty, more years ago.

A recent NY Times article discusses the change Facebook has made, so that ALL status messages are now by default, PUBLIC - ie available for anyone to see - unless the Facebook user actively chooses otherwise.  Default is public.  Private requires action.  Previously, the default setting has been 'private'.

How many students will make the change?  Or care?  How many should?  More than will.  I find students interestingly (expectedly?) naive about such things, far more trusting than they should be.  It's part of being young and bulletproof, maybe.  I regularly discuss internet privacy issues with students informally, as well as on the more formal occasions such as offered by the Crossroads program.  The school system in which I work has, at present, blocked social networking sites such as Facebook so they aren't available when logging in at school, but students are certainly using these outside school hours - and I know that there are schools/systems where social networking sites are used in educational contexts.

How aware will students be that something they don't mean to be public may have legal implications?  Unintended and possibly serious consequences?  A whole scale of possibilities, from the agonies of social embarrassment to active/passive cyber-bullying to legal action for libel?

Given that the new social media are new to parents and teachers, the responsibility for understanding the implications of this - and conveying wise advice - is shared by home and school.  But do parents and teachers understand and convey?  And, if they don't, how bitter might be the lessons some of our kids learn from unexpected experience?

Cheers

Ruth

Social networking and the bushfire disaster

The impact of social networking - in reporting, keeping in touch, trying to discover the safety of loved ones - was evident in the dreadful bushfire disaster in Victoria over the last couple of days.  Read more in a Sydney Morning Herald article here.

"Social media rush as Victorian bushfires rage" by Asher Moses.

Donations can be made by phone or online through links provided here on the Australian Red Cross site: http://tinyurl.com/redxvicfirefund

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Social networking and privacy online

In a useful article from Nick Galvin of the Sydney Morning Herald, entitled, The kiss and tell of social networks, possibly the most apt and thought-provoking observation is the one at the end of this quote:

Among many younger net users there is now an assumption that everything should be shared and a casualness about what was once thought of as personal information that makes many older people shudder.


"I don't know what it is like to live your entire life publicly online," says social media expert Jeffrey Veen. "But there are kids today who are figuring it out."

Veen has been at the heart of the internet revolution all his working life. Among other things, he has been a key designer behind hugely successful social media applications such as Flickr and the blogging service TypePad.

He says attitudes to privacy and information sharing are easily defined by the generation you belong to.

"There is a generational divide that is as strong today as the divide that existed between kids and their parents over music in the 1950s," says Veen, visiting Sydney last week for an industry conference, Web Directions South.

"People older than 25 years think of everything they do on their computer as being private unless they share it, where people younger than that think of everything they do on a computer as public unless they choose to make it private. This is a fundamental difference."

(my highlighting)

The article points out some of the traps of this thinking - eg. the use of social networking/googling by employers to assess prospective employees, which can be a plus or minus, depending on what they discover.

Social networking - how many of these do you know?

Upon finding a very interesting article about storytelling - about which I'll post shortly - I was also fascinated by the list it supplied of ways in which to share this via social networking.  Myself, being neither whizz nor Luddite, but somewhere on the continuum in between, I expected to recognise some - but there were certainly a number new to me.  I posted about the list on Barack Obama's website a couple of weeks ago: well, here's another list to test you (from the choices provided by Scientific American):

• Facebook
• del.icio.us
• Technorati
• Yahoo Bookmarks
• MySpace
• Google Bookmarks
• Newsvine
• Mixx
• Yahoo! My Web
• Propeller
• FriendFeed
• Windows Live
• Reddit
• Digg (32)
• StumbleUpon
• Xanga
• Blinklist
• Furl
• ma.gnolia
• Mister Wong
• N4G
• Blogmarks
• Faves
• Current
• Simpy
• Slashdot
• Meneame
• Yigg
• Oknotizie.alice.it
• Fresqui
• Diigo
• Care2
• Funp
• Kirtsy
• Hugg
• Sphinn

So, how many did you recognise?  And how many would our students recognise?

The fact that these are options offered by an established publication such as Scientific American also gives this list some authority as another snapshot of significant social networking sites.

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