Archive for July, 2008
Tech’n'Teach: Fodey.com
July 18, 2008Target: The new digital divide
July 11, 2008
I’m finally making my way through a report that’s been sitting on my desk for months, Bridging the Digital Divide: Creating opportunities for marginalised young people to get connected, available from VicHealth. What’s interesting about the report is that its findings in terms of ICT usage by marginalised young people largely support those of reports into other demographics. That is to say, marginalised young people (p. 2):
- Are confident in their ICT skills
- Use Instant Messaging, email and social networking services to communicate, and to maintain and build relationships
- Create profiles on social networking sites such as Bebo and Hi5
- Are aware of the potential dangers online and have ways of dealing with unwanted contact
Furthermore, in a finding that surprised the reports’ authors, the study showed that ICT plays a larger role in the lives of marginalised young people than previously thought. This surprise reflects a common assumption that I frequently come across when talking to both school and university teachers: that is, that ‘a good number’ of students have poor access to technology, or that a similar number are still on dial-up. Here are some results for the marginalised demographic:
- 97% of participants in the study had access to the Internet: 44% at home, 30% in a library, 18% at school and 10% each from an Internet cafe or at work (p. 19).
- 49% had broadband access, and 13% were on dial-up. 5% used wireless (p. 19).
- Over half of participants accessed the Internet at least a few times a week (p. 40)
- The young people involved in the study felt they had ICT skills of a high standard (p. 40)
This study reflects what Green and Hannon point out in Their Space: Education for a Digital Generation, that is tbat the new digital divide is more about access to knowledge, than it is about access to hardware (p. 17, pp 59-60). It’s knowing how to use these emerging technologies to best effect (in work and school and life) that’s going to be important from now on.
Lifeline: 7 things you should know about …
July 11, 2008
If you’re having trouble keeping up with what Second Life, Google Apps, Skype and Ning might actually be, let alone how they could be relevant to education, then you really should take a look at Educause’s 7 things you should know about … series.
7 things you should know about … provides hit-and-run information sheets about emerging Web 2.0 technologies and their implications for teaching and learning. So, if you don’t know what Twitter is, or if you’ve never investigated Skype, visit Educause to learn about how these things work, the upsides and downsides of emerging technologies, and where it’s all going.
Target: Factors predicting unwanted online contact
July 10, 2008
What are the factors most likely to lead to unwanted contact on the Internet? Well, according to data presented by Amanda Lenhart, a senior research specialist at the Pew Internet and American Life Project, it’s posting a photo online.
Speaking as part of an online safety panel at the 2008 National Educational Computing Conference in San Antonio, Lenhart outlined the factors most likely to predict contact from someone you don’t know:
- Posting a photo online.
- Having a profile online.
- Being female.
- Using the Internet to flirt.
Lenhart pointed out that the ‘being female’ finding may be due to differences between how boys and girls interpret scary contact — but that was inconclusive. Interestingly, Lenhart stated that no other factors significantly predicted contact: displaying your first name and last name, naming your school, naming your city … none of these things appreciably increased the chance of unsolicited contact. Lenhart pointed out the risks in these areas were way more likely to be to reputation than to gaining the attention of Internet predators.
Anastasia Goodstein, author of Totally Wired, was also part of the panel and she similarly had some balanced, informative comments to make on the whole cybersafety issue. You can view a video article on the panel’s discussion via the E-School News website.
Opinion: Barriers to teaching online
July 9, 2008
Me mates at education.au have released a report on Educators and ICT usage and one of the most interesting things it points to are the barriers that educators report to thier teaching and learning with online technology (p. 33). Here are the main hindrances they’ve identified, plus my reasons for why all of these, excepting the final barrier, should not be barriers at all:
- 41%: Poor infrastructure, bandwidth, equipment reliablity, accessiblity of logins, permissions. Discounting the bandwith issue, the ‘poor infrastructure’ barrier can be largely blamed on unwieldy and user-unfriendly Learning Management Systems (BlackBoard, MyClasses, WebCT …) that school and some university administrations insist teachers use. Logins, permissions, reliablity, blah blah blah, aren’t an issue with most online applications that can be turned to an educational use.
- 40%: Blocking/filtering of internet content. See above, with an especial emphasis on ‘administration’ — namely, the reluctance and/or unimaginativeness on the part of ‘admin’ to come up with policies and guidelines that manage risk.
- 21%: Limited access to computers or internet connection. Will Ruddy’s digital education revolution sort this one out? There’s no excuse for its not doing so.
- 20%: Limited confidence or expertise in the use of compter technologies. See above and above and above. Teachers need PD in this stuff and it needs to be paid for, but, really, the main reason they’re spooked is that they’ve only ever had experience with dead-awful LMSs and they subsequently don’t know how easy the Web could be if only they were allowed to use it.
- 12%: Lack of relevant resources on on the internet. You could say that there’s not much you can do about this one … except why not create such resources yourself?
What a dire set of results! But as a South Aussie, and as someone who passionately believes in the value education, not firewalls, I’m pleased to say that South Australian educators were most likely to name blocking of internet content as a barrier to teaching and learning online, at a respectable 67%.
Come on, education leaders! Start being a bit creative and pro-active on these issues! Decide where your priorities need to be with online teaching and learning and develop policies to manage risk. Employ people who know this stuff from an educational point of view and who can teach the teachers and who can defreakify things for them. Get yourself educated on online technologies and their use in education. Students, parents and teachers are relying on you to be across the issues and to start finding solutions that will work in the ‘real world’ of the Web.
Opinion: Why kids don’t tell us about cyberbullying
July 9, 2008
Young people have probably always been reluctant to tell their parents or teachers that they’re being bullied, and it’s no different with cyberbullying. But one of the most telling reasons that kids are giving these days for not reporting cyberbullying is that young people don’t think parents and teachers understand the types of social networking or other web/mobile services they use (see the Digizen report on young people and social networking services, pdf, 1.2 MB, p. 16).
And in many cases, they’d be right. Frequently, I find that the non-Net Generation people I know and speak to have little idea about how young people socialise on the Net, let alone how online social software actually works from a user’s point of view. Parents and teachers often feel intimidated by the amount and variety of stuff that’s out there in cyberspace, but that’s no excuse for not getting properly informed about the Web and mobile-based services that their kids are into, especially when the health of our young people is at risk.
Lifeline: Teaching students to manage their sites
July 9, 2008
There are typically two approaches taken to managing online risks for younger internet users: the first is to install firewalls, filters or spyware on your computer or network that block certain sites, and the other is to educate kids about how to keep personal information private, about how to deal with cyberbullying, and about how to act appropriately (and legally!) online. But there is a third thing we could be doing more effectively, and that is to teach kids to manage the sites they use.
Most social networking sites come with different privacy settings and also support ways of controlling personal information. But in order to teach a student how to manage their profiles and accounts on social networking sites, teachers themselves need to have an understanding of how permissions and settings work on these sites. Here are some things social networking services often allow you to do to manage your site and your profile:
- Decide who can view your profile: everyone or just ‘friends’?
- Block certain users
- Restrict who can share your photos
- Filter out spam using CAPTCHAs or a similar ‘are you human’ images or text
- Choose who sends you friends requests, notifications, mobile alerts or invitations
- Approve comments before they are posted on your profile page
- Control the data your social networking site shares with third-party sites
- Control who can see your contact information
Students should also be taught to understand a site’s Terms of Use and its Privacy Policy. Terms of Use are often legalistic in tone, but Privacy Policies are usually written in simpler language. Taking control over who can access your information is a good place to start when managing your profile on a social networking site.
Target: Social networking barriers and risks
July 8, 2008As a companion to my previous post, here are some of Digizen’s barriers and risks to harnessing social networking in education.
- Educators’ confidence and experience. As Digizen point out, teachers’ professional development is not always keeping up with new technologies, especially those adopted by younger people (p. 22).
- Negative views of social networking (p. 22). To this, I would add ‘uninformed’ views of social networking.
- Blocking and filtering of Internet sites, which makes it hard for teachers to use the net for educational purposes (p. 22).
- Digital media literacy policy. Although the Digizen report is UK-based, there are similar patterns here in Australia, as mthe teaching of media literacy varies from school to school. Digizen points in particular to the need for a nation-wide agenda for teaching principles of good online citizenship, technology use, social participationcopyright, and data management (p. 23).
- Lack of risk evaluation and management tools that can be applied to social networking and other Internet services (p. 23).
- Misunderstanding the nature of the social networking environment, wherein students think their online profiles and information is not publicly available when, in fact, it might be (p. 23).
The main thing here, IMHO, is that educators get educated themselves about the risks of social networking services. But before we can assess the risks, we educators need to actually know what social networking is. In my experience of working with teachers across sectors, there is a lot of confusion about what a MySpace or Facebook or Flickr or whatever site is. The best way to find out is to jump into those spaces and play around. Once we’ve done that, we’re in a much better position to form a balanced opinion on how these things work and what the risks and benefits are. Me, I’m an anthropologist by training and there’s nothing like a good bit of old-fashioned fieldwork, even if your field site is a Web site!
The full Digizen report on young people and social networking services is also available for download (pdf, 1.2 MB).
Target: Benefits and opportunities for social networking
July 8, 2008Digizen.org is a terrific Childnet International website promoting good digital citizenship for young people. The site focuses on social networking and cyberbullying and has produced some excellent, balanced materials on both topics that educators and parents will find accessible and no-nonsense. In fact, if you want a primer on what social networking is, Digizen give a very clear overview on their What are social networking services? page. Or you can just go and visit some social networking sites yourself and do some fieldwork …
Digizen has released a research report on young people and social networking services and one section, in particular, outlines the benefits and opportunities of social networking for learners. According to Digizen, social networking (p. 14):
- Helps young people develop a voice and build trust: it’s good for cultivating debating, discussion and personal skills.
- Encourages content creation, management and distribution, which supports creativity and encourages discussion about content ownership, data mangement and licensing options.
- Teachs collaboration, teamwork, listening and compromising skills by encouraging users to work, think, and act together.
- Promotes exploration and discovery by helping young people develop and deepen their interests as well as finding like-minded individuals with the same interests.
- Builds independence and resilience as young people learn to manage risk, judge and evaluate situations and deal with potential hostility online.
- Fosters real-world skills such as being able to adapt quickly to new technologies, as well as building literacy, interpretive and contextualisation skills.
The same report also points to the opportunities that social networking provides for education (pp 15-16):
- Developing of e-portfolios
- Enhancing literacy and communication skills
- Collaboration and group work
- Learning about data protection and copyright issues
- Learning about self-representation and presentation
- Learning about e-safety
- Producing public showcases for work, events or organisations
- Forming communities of practice
- Organising and scheduling work (time mangement)
- Being where the learners are
It’s obvious that social networking provides a huge opening for learning in the online world … but, like everything, it comes with risks that need to be manged. I’ll describe those risks as identified by Digizen in my next post, but, for now, if you want to check out how teachers have been using social networking in class, visit the report’s ideas and examples page for some inspiration — or let me know your own experiences with social networking and education.
The full report is also available for download (pdf, 1.2 MB).
EdCom: Commercialisation and the university
July 2, 2008
Lawyer Priya Subramaniam, who also tutors in Law at Flinders University, is my guest on EdCom this month. In this episode, Priya describes her experiences as both a student and a teacher, and identifies some of the changes that she’s noticed over the past 15 years or so in the Academy. Priya also discusses her thoughts on the increasing pressures that are placed on academics to meet bureaucratic — rather than intellectual — targets, and tells us why she’s chosen a career in law over a career in the Academy.
For more information, keep listening to EdCom and visit www.meganpoore.com.
File size: 14.9 MB
Running time: 18.40
