Text Innovation

This is a text innovation based on Lucy's Bay, by Gary Crew.

Students must take inspiration from the personification that Crew uses in his writing to create their own sentences.

Happily Blogging

Emily's Blog - this is a blog from a student in Year 3. I really love this blog! This student appears  very comfortable blogging - she has used her blog to post about her own personal interests, as well as using it for creative writing. She has written a 'Choose Your Own Adventure' story, where she writes an episode and others can comment on it, choosing what will happen to the character in the next episode. This student did this of her own accord, and is a fantastic example of how students can become engaged and excited about blogging.

The Blog Dogs - This is the class that Emily (of Emily's Blog) is in. It is a great example of a class blog. It is easily accessible for parents (homework, parent information, blogging guidelines, etc). It has links to many resources, including blogs from other schools (both in and out of Australia), educational games, and embeddable resources that students can use in their own blogs. Mr Squires (the classroom teacher) also regularly posts videos and photos of class activities and school events.

Copywriting...

Can I copy material from the internet for research?

Under some circumstances you are permitted to copy content from the internet for research or study and that the copying is fair. Always check the page for any directions regarding the material that you want to copy.

What constitutes research and fair use?

The Oxford Dictionary defines research as "the systematic investigation into and study of materials and sources in order to establish facts and reach new conclusions"

The Australian Copyright Council outlines five factors by which to determine whether your use is 'fair'.
They are: the purpose and character of the dealing, the nature of the work; the possibility of obtaining the work within a reasonable time at an ordinary commercial price; the effect of dealing on the potential market for, or value of the work; in a case where only part of the work is copied, the amount and substantiality of the part copied in relation to the whole work.

Can students (university or school) use music in videos that they make?

As a general rule, you must seek permission from the copyright owner to use any music or recording in a video.

Three Interesting Ideas/Activities

I found some interesting ideas and activities in the readings this week. Here are a few that stood out for me.

 - Upload homework to the server (Barone, 2008): Mr Todd uploaded the class homework onto the server so that it is available to all students. I think uploading the class homework to a server that the students have constant access to is a great idea! Provided that students are  comfortable with using it, it is a great way to ensure that they have up to date and accurate information regarding their homework.

- Personal Interest Blogs (Pericles, 2008): At Belmore South some of the students have their own personal interest blogs (e.g. Everything Football). I think this is a great way to get students engaged and interacting with blogs. They can open up conversations and discussions within the class, as well as allowing the students to demonstrate their own interests and passions.

- Connect to other schools and students around the world (Pericles, 2008): Students at Belmore South have created a wiki page to share with a school in Scotaland that was studying Australia. The idea that a class in Australia can connect and share ideas online with a class in Scotland is fantastic. Students can demonstrate their own knowledge and can share it with other students on the opposite side of the world. The content can be edited and added to, creating a safe environment where students can show their own knowledge.

Podomatic

Podomatic Site

Podomatic is a site that allows you to create and share your own podcasts. The site can initially be somewhat overwhelming, there are so many different sections on the main page. However, once over this initial shock, the site is organised very logically. It has a very clear layout and is easy to navigate, with several different criteria by which you can find podcasts (region, genre, etc) as well as having them ranked by popularity and which users have the most followers. Podomatic is user friendly and easy to navigate around.

The Tree Octopus

This video provides a brief insight into the hazards of not being a critical internet user, and the importance of being discerning when searching for information on the internet.

Some elements that must always be considered when evaluating the reliability of a site include: who is the intended audience? Who owns/benefits from the information posted? Who are the interested parties? The .org and .edu tags do not necessarily guarantee a trustworthy site, these can be purchased and may not be reliable.

Teachers must have more support in new literacies, they need to develop their own skills in being critical internet users before they can effective educate their students. There also needs to be a way to assess students on their reading and writing on the internet. There also needs to be increased professional support for teachers in ICTs. In Finland, teachers have 5 paid weeks leave a year to learn about ICTs and the integration of them into the classroom.

In order for teachers to be effective and critical internet users they must spend more time using the technology.

Definition of New Literacies

Since the development of Web 2.0 (post 2004 internet, (Knobel, 2006), an interactive and sharing online environment), new literacies have become increasingly important. New literacies are the skills required in order to participate in Web 2.0, and are based on two main components. Firstly, the increasing involvement of digital electronic devices such as computers and digital cameras into daily life. And secondly, the changing attitude and approach to literacy regarding these new technologies (Knobel, 2006).

Th involvement of digital electronic devices in everyday life has resulted in a whole new range of literacy skills that are required in order to access these devices. Some of the new literacies that we use everyday include blogs, wikis, podcasts, etc. People can use new literacies to create their own audio, video, photographs, etc. and share these online. (Callow, 2008).

The changing attitude towards new literacies involves the concept that the world is changing from what it was before. This is predominantly due to an increase in the use of digital technologies. Web 2.0 has a focus on collective and shared intelligences, such as Wikipedia (Knobel, 2006).

In order to be able to interact in Web 2.0, people must to develop basic skills in these new literacies.