Jan 11 2008
8C & 8D computer classes should have emailed me by the end of this week to let me know the subject and topic of your new powerpoint project. Remember to use the BIG 6 organizer to help guide your research and don’t forget to take detailed notes for your bibliography. I have not set a due date yet. Enjoy the weekend!
Dec 11 2007
Now that you are more familliar with Microsoft Word, it is time to challenge you. For assignment 2, you are to develop a newsletter that includes the following items:
a bulleted list 3 different articles & titles for each
one photograph 2 columns
one clipart item title of newsletter
borders around 2 items use of various text colorsYou may start working on this project as soon as you have completed and handed in assignment 1. The due date for assignment 2 is December 21st.
Dec 11 2007
Our assignment this week is to produce a one page document which includes the use of a bulleted list. Maybe you want to write a letter to a company explaining the difficulty you are having with their product, or to your friends explaining a camping trip and listing what they need to bring. The content is up to you, just remember that I will also be marking this assignment in Language Arts. Spelling, grammar and paragraph structure always counts! Send this assignment via email to me by Friday, December 14th.
Nov 29 2007
“I think for most people, school is still seen as the (THE?) place where kids go to learn. I know that’s the way it was for me. Yeah, there was a lot of informal learning that took place on the playground, on Main Street, in the back of cars, etc. But the “real” learning, the important stuff happened at school. It was the center of learning in my life, though I never called it that, per se. But I know that’s how my mom saw it. You went to school to learn because that’s where the knowledge was. And if the teachers at the school were good, they helped you understand why that knowledge was important. And that “vision” worked pretty well for a lot of years. It was pretty easy and consistent.
Problem now is, it’s not working any longer. School isn’t the only place where the knowledge is. Knowledge is everywhere. You don’t have to go to school to get it. And now, because knowledge isn’t stuck to a time and a place any longer, knowledge is contextual. It’s not one size fits all. The whole idea that 30 kids in a classroom need to learn the same stuff at the same pace at the same time just makes no sense any longer. In this environment, we can’t keep thinking of schools as the center of knowledge and learning. Instead, we have to start thinking of schools as a part of a much richer tapestry of an individual’s learning and education. ”
By Will Richardson on The Shifts
Nov 20 2007
Our new project is all about being safe when using the internet. What can early years, middle years, senior years, and adults do to insure their safety when using the internet? We will be working in our groups to determine what kind of information we can find, if it is useful and how we can better communicate these messages to our various target groups.
Nov 19 2007
This morning on Canada AM, there was a segment on Cyber Safety. The website they were discussing is www.cybertip.ca. What do you know about being safe on the internet? Research cyber safety during class today and post informative sites here. When you post a link, make sure that you have copied the URL address correctly! Add a little information about the site, such as the title and what you thought was good about it.
We will making a list of sites and critiquing the information found there.
Nov 13 2007
This week we have been working on getting our ePEARL portfolios up and running for parent teacher conferences on Thurday & Friday. The link for ePEARL can now be found on our school website. Remember, you can work on projects from the “workspace” as well as upload new information from home, the library or any computer that has internet service. I encourage you to share your work with your family at home and have them comment in “parent mode.”
Oct 31 2007
This blog post is from David Warlick at 2 cents worth.
Pew Internet: Parent and Teen Internet Use:
Parents today are less likely to say that the internet has been a good thing for their children than they were in 2004. However, this does not mean there was a corresponding increase in the amount of parents who think the internet has been harmful to their children. Instead, the biggest increase has been in the amount of parents who do not think the internet has had an effect on their children one way or the other. Fully, 87% of parents of teenagers are online — at least 17% more than average adults.
The study indicates that parents are paying a lot of attention to their children’s media consumption.
Parents check up on and regulate their teens’ media use, not just in terms of the internet, but with television and video games as well. However, those rules lean slightly more towards the content of the media rather than the time spent with the media device.
Alexandra Rankin Macgill, the author of the report, suggests that “The fact that the biggest increase has been in the number of parents who think the internet has no effect on their children suggests that parents are beginning to have a more nuanced view of the internet.“ She continues, “It is a grey technology that can be helpful or harmful depending on how you use it.“ This is from the PEW Press Release for the study.
I wonder, though, — and this is just me wondering — if maybe the opposite might be true. That in 2004, we felt that we understood the Internet as a rich source of content. Some was good and some was bad, but it was a place to go to find answers. Today, however, our children seem to be spending more time interacting in their social networks, and, in my opinion, discovering and even inventing new ways to learn through those interactions. But we don’t understand this.
What do you think?
How do you use technology ? Is it safe ?
How much time do you spend using technology in a given day/week? Is it too much ?
Does the internet have an effect on you ? How ?
Do your parents know how to use technology ? Are they aware of what you are doing on the computer, cell phone, email, my space, facebook, etc. ?
What are the parent’s roles ?
Are schools using technology effectively ?
Oct 31 2007
As you know, I am going to be away on Friday of this week. Your assignment is to check out voicethread and compare/contrast this program with windows movie maker. You can create a chart or a list and email it to me by the end of class.
What are your opinions of the movies you saw on voicethread? Is this a program worth looking into? List your favorite movies you watched and why they were so good. Were there some that you didn’t like? Why weren’t they good? How could the author have improved their project?
