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Do you need a social media detox

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Cyber-Safety: What can you and your school do?

Brett Lee is fast becoming a leading expert on Cyber-safety and what young people need to be aware of while navigating social media sites.
His unique experience in the cyber-crime unit enables him to share with teachers and parents some of the dangers facing students today and some of the simple precautions they can take.

Back in February he was the keynote speaker at Learning@Schools conference in Rotorua. View his keynote address below.

Things to do:
Use Brett's keynote to provoke staff meeting discussion this term.
Book Brett to visit your staff and parents
Subscribe to Edtalks
Subscribe to Brett’s newsletter
Join the Software for Learning discussion about Facebook

Dr James Hansen - Tour

"Human-made climate change:

a scientific, moral and legal issue"

Dr James Hansen

Head of Nasa's Goddard Science Institute

Given the inevitible CO2 impact that would follow were the current focus on coal and oil exploitation to go ahead as a panacea for our nation's financial challenges, Hansen's visit is an opportunity for the local climate change/global warming conversation to have a champion of excellent scientific credentials who has been asked to explain the risks to several White House incumbents.

Much a Do about Nothing on Facebook

Shakespeare is hitting Facebook from today (26th April- 4pm) beginning in a matter of hours. You can be a part of Shakespeare's classic comedy as they present it in real time over three days.

Connect with the characters on this page to see the play happen LIVE in your own Facebook news feed.

Click the "Like Us!" image to the right and, on the next page, click the "like" buttons next to the character images to be a part of the upcoming performance!

Make sure to "like" them all to get the full theater-going experience.

Enjoy, I know I will.

ps. Thanks to Claire Amos, Director of e-learning, for pointing us toward this great project.

Stopping the bullying

When Casey Heynes’ video when viral the issue of Bullying hit the headlines. But even with video evidence it appears that the issue as to ‘who started it’ comes down to:
He started it, I’m the victim NO! He started, I’m a victim, too.
Many have an opinion with Facebook support for Casey passing 211,000 ‘likes’.
But to ‘LIKE’ seems a misnomer. Nobody likes the fact that Casey was getting bullied in the first place. Nobody likes that it came down to this. Nobody likes the circumstances, social-pressure or head-space Richard was in to make him think it was ok. But EVERYBODY likes the fact that ‘the bullied stood up for himself’.

Bullying has been going on long before school ever existed. Some might even argue that it's Darwinian. But that is not to say that we shouldn’t try to address the problem.
Beginning anti-bullying programmes in primary school are a positive step.
Having those values reinforced through intermediate and into high school is a further step in the right direction.

Bullying can be prevented if students, parents, teachers, and school administrators are proactive. Strategies to prevent or stop bullying include: raising awareness about bullying, improving student-to-student relations, getting involved to stop intimidation, developing clear rules against bully¬ing behavior, and supporting and protecting victims of bullying. One of the most powerful messages teachers can send students is to always model respectful interactions through their actions, tone of voice, words and non verbal gestures.

The hardest thing in the world for the bullied to do is tell someone that it is happening. Schools and parents need not only promote positive relationships between students but also provide an enviroment that is supportive and open. Only with strong positive messages and a caring environment where bullying is taken seriously and dealt with will a school or other environment become 'bully-free'. Far too often teachers and senior managment prefer the perception that 'bullying doesn't happen here' rather than working actively towards it actually becoming the case.

Useful Links:
Resources on TKI website

How can we combat bullying at school (pdf, 4 pages)

What Parents Can Do About It (pdf, 340KB)

What to do if you are being bullied- video

Safety Online: Are we making a difference?

Brett Lee, Closing Keynote for Learning at Schools conference says “Yes, we are.”

No longer will you see children jumping around on the backseat of the car but sitting, buckled up. The reason being is that if ‘dad’ were to have an accident then you could be seriously injured or killed. The other reason being that it is the law that everyone wear their seatbelt and ‘dad’ could get into a lot of trouble if you’re caught by police without a seatbelt on.

Two very good reasons; and so it is with Internet safety. Brett believes that students simply need the reasons spelt out.

From Brett’s keynote he identified that:

we can never under estimate the power of the screen in young people’s lives
the technology will change over time but our protective practises, responsibilities and beliefs should remain
we as teachers and parents only line of defence for our kids against the World-Wild Web.
we can instil quality online behaviours in our children
we must always believe we are making a difference to how our students interact socially within the internet.

Brett also identified the need for students to aware of the issue of cyber-bullying he share the video below and talked about the reality of the screen for young people.Interacting in an online space and/or through text messaging allows our students to create in minds a construct of reality that is not accurate but merely a projection of what others desire us to perceive.

Upper Coomera State College

Caught In The Crowd | Myspace Video

Useful Links:

Brett’s keynote on Learning at School blog

Netsafe’s myLGP

Cyber-safety discussion
Cyber-safety page on Educating the Dragon

Cyber Safety in school

Everyone needs to take responsibility for cybersafety of children. Parents, teachers, everyone.

There is a responsibility a Board of Trustees has to “maintain a safe physical and emotional environment, a responsibility to consult with the community.” This includes the cybersafety of staff, students and parents on the school grounds.

Facebooking IS a primary school problem.

Young students using Facebook is deeply concerning .
Should primary school teachers be engaged in the Facebook for students discussion. Despite the age restriction being 13 year olds it seems from this article that many Year 5/6 students also have a FB account or something similar.
There are reasons for the age restriction around who can have a facebook account and even in the FB terms and conditions refers to breaches being met with frozen accounts. Yet students continue to gain access with or without parental consent.
But then underage students get to see R16 and R18 movies, get access to porn, cigarettes and drugs, so where is the difference? As posted earlier, these vices continue to be an issue to every generation and parental vigilance is paramount in establishing the boundaries of appropriate and inappropriate material.

Will ‘Educating the parents’ be the answer? How do we address this issue as a community? Surely we are singularly responsible for our own child’s limits and boundaries but how can we be sure that their ‘mate’ in school shares those core values and has those same limits and restrictions. Every generation of parent has, and will continue to, hear the mantra “It’s not fair, Johnny’s parents let HIM!”
Useful links:
Discussion on: Facebook in Education.
Blog post on Facebook in Education.

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