Notes from Millie D

I don’t normally share stories about my home life but this one connects to my professional life and it got me thinking.

I would like to think that I’m a capable and caring parent.  I’m always looking out for the best interests when it comes to my children.  I sacrifice personal needs/wants at times for those of my children.  My wife and I feel like we’re instilling a strong sense of values and morals to carry them throughout their life.  Our oldest daughter seems to have a good head on her shoulders, a sense of personal responsibility, and knows the difference between right and wrong.  Sometimes you take things for granted because they’re still young and think they wouldn’t encounter dangerous situations before you could prepare them for it.  Tonight that changed for me as my oldest daughter (who is the primary grades) told me about how she gave her webkinz password to a friend so he would add something to her account.

She didn’t think it was a problem giving a classmate her password, dad on the other hand was going ballistic inside.  I calmly sat her down and we talked about private information versus public information and what is okay to share with friends and what is not and other things around being safe when one is on the Internet.  She quickly picked up my vibe and asked good questions, in between sobbing stretches (she is a sensitive one).  In the end we came to an understanding about being safe online but still have fun, change the password, and how to handle the questions she might get from her friend at school. I tried to use this as a learning experience for her but it also became a learning experience for me.

This has made me think about online safety through a new lens, not through my teacher’s lens but through my parent one.  Should basic online safety be taught in conjunction with personal safety (don’t talk to strangers, 911 in an emergency, etc.)?  If you want your child to be part of the global society then yes!  There are so many good resources out there to help those who might not know where to start.  Personally I would like to see resources available for parents at pediatrician offices right next to other parenting resources.  Unfortunately (as a society) we need to do this kind of work to protect the innocence of youth.

More and more social networking opportunities are being pushed down to children at younger ages like club penguin and webkinz.  Even Disney has gotten into the fray.  As more and more opportunities are being presented to children, the time to lay down the foundation of safety and security while online is necessary.  The lesson that I’ve learned is the very first time you create an online persona for your child, no matter the age or the type of exposure, your role as a parent should be to have the conversation about online safety and keep reminding your child about it as new things come down the pipeline.  This small act of prevention now can save you a lot when you child is older facing similar situations when the potential dangers are greater and more dangerous.

Something a friend of mine told me that I recalled after talking to my daughter, “It is better to make mistakes early on in life and learn from them than it is later on in life.”  This is so true in this case.  The same kind of mistake 10 years from now for my daughter might result in a bigger, messier situation for our family.  I’m just glad my daughter has the ability to learn from her mistakes.

Looking at the situation through the teacher’s lens I’ll be approaching this grade level a little differently.  I’ll start my online safety unit a little younger than I had done in the past to help keep our children safe but still find value and fun to their Internet experiences.

The best thing about the Internet, if you don’t like something you can always construct it. YouTube is a valuable tool but unfortunately not everything about it is appropriate for the education market. Started in January TeacherTube set out to be an online media property for Education Videos for everyone. The interface is very similar to YouTube (upload, tag, share, comment) plus you can flag a particular video if it is inappropriate.

I feel comfortable letting my teachers explore this tool. Now I’ve got one more vehicle to use in my teaching arsenal. Thank you. Can we start a flickr. Would it be name teackr?

Okay, this one gave me a good laugh.  Even though it is a little tongue and cheek it still makes a lot of sense.

Dad’s Household Computer Rules

* Do not break the law. I don’t have money for bail or fines.
* Do not invade others’ privacy (and I will respect yours).
* Do not give out ANY personal information about yourself or the family.
* Be truthful about who you say you are in online communications.
* Talk to me if anything about a website concerns or confuses you. I know that bad sites can be accessed accidentally.
* Don’t download and install software without my permission. I mean it.
* Be as smart, skeptical, and cautious online as you are elsewhere.
* Don’t do anything you wouldn’t do if I were watching you. I just might be.

If I were rewriting these today, I would add:

* Watch how much time you spend online. Too much and you’ll go blinky and possibly psycho.

Doug Johnson’s Blue Skunk Blog - Blue Skunk Blog - Dad’s Computer Rules

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NCTM: Curriculum Focal Points: Free Downloads

The last time NCTM took a stand about math curriculum, back in 1989, was a start of a math education revolution.  Now NCTM is at it again when it comes to math curriculum by applying the theory that less topics with greater coverage will mean more student retention of the material.  In the prekindergarten through eighth grade years each year is broken down into 3 main topics of math study/investigation.

Hopefully this model is adopted on a national level and NCLB takes a page from NCTM.  Teachers everywhere will rejoice and not stress/burn out on covering volumes of topics that might stick into long-term memory.

technorati tags:NCTM, NCLB, curriculum

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Dangerously Irrelevant: It’s the first day of school!

Somethings are best left to explain themselves.

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edublogs.org currently upgrading at incorporated subversion

I think the link speaks for itself.  Hopefully tomorrow we will have the flickr integration and other goodies to add to our blogs.  Thanks James!

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Podcasting - K12 Handhelds

   For those of you who got a taste of podcasting and want to find out more about it but don’t know where to begin may want to start here.  This website provides a nice overview of how teachers can use it.  Not surprising is a link to Bob’s Room 208 podcasts.

Best of luck to everyone in starting off their school year.

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Mathematical Musings: Safe Blogging

Thanks to Cool Cat for uncovering this gem.  If you are planning on introducing your children to the world of blogging then this site is one of those places you want to get some ideas and links before you go to implement blogging in your classroom.  Too bad I’m finding this resource so close to the start of the school year.

Here is another resource DOPA would probably block on school networks.

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home2

If you’ve been looking for a resource to give students and/or parents around Algebra then your search is over.  Algebasics has sixteen sections ranging from the basics all the way up to quadratics.  It provides examples and the process to solve it.  A flash video goes with each example to hlep those visual learners.

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Techcrunch » Blog Archive » Google’s Writely released; will another sector be squashed?

Today Writely is accepting new accounts today.  For those who don’t know Writely is a collaborative online word processing tool.  Writely’s interface is very similar to Word.  From there Writely does things that Micro$oft dreams about, collaborative writing.  The author can open the document up for others to provide input (much like a wiki).  The author can decide whether to accept the input or not.  Writely also allows users to store their work online (10 MB I think).  This is definitely a tool you want to check out.

The article also mentions other online Office tools (Google Spreadsheets, Thumbstacks, and Zoho Show) as well as Google Calendar.  If you use iCal check out Google Calendar you won’t be disappointed.  But the one piece that could be interesting if it is true would be Google Drive (an online storage space).  Everything points to an announcement in the near future.  Would this lead to the end of File Servers in schools?

The article also indicates a PowerPoint solution for Google.  If this is true and it follows the Writely and Spreadsheets collaborative nature this could be the killer app for technology in education to take off in the classroom. 

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