Be careful what you LIKE

Just 'liked' MacDonalds so you could get that cheeseburger voucher? Now all your friends know it as well. Check your Facebook settings regularly, both the privacy and the account settings. There are quite a few settings under 'account' which have everything to do with your privacy - just check the elements on the left hand side of your screen. One of them is Facebook Ads. If you click on this, check your so-called social ads. If you don't want all your friends to know that you like Tchibo, Sony or MacDonalds, then set it to 'no one'. Often companies and organisations ask you to like them so you get some free deal, or unlimited access to their website resources. After you've liked them, your likes will be integrated in ads which can be shown on your friends' walls - unless you change your settings. Here is a screen grab from my own settings:

 

 

MAKE A POWERFUL POINT

Conferences... what use are these archaic events in this digital day and age where we can find all the information we want at the tip of out fingers? This question has been asked by both speakers and conference visitors in the past years, and usually the outcome was mixed. We've heard most of the input all before, we spend too much on entrance fees, overprized accomodation and bad food, get jetlagged and dramatically increase our carbon footprint.Yet, we are human beings in need of personal contact; we like a drink and a bit of lame gossip, so we keep attending conferences. O yes - and if you're lucky you get inspired. You listen to the likes of Michael Wesch and Sugata Mitra and know that learning has forever been transformed by technology - whether learners and teachers realise it or not - embrace it or not. They are the gems, those rare and wonderful speakers that make you increase your carbon footprint year after year. Certainly, more presenters have a good story to tell, but most spam their own message by putting up a slideshow with one million words and zero visual input. We are not only living in exponential times (as Michael Wesch puts it), we are living in visual times, and we require visual input, like it or not.... Creating powerful slides is not rocket science anyway; below is some visual support which may be useful when you find yourself going to the next conference. Go ahead, make your point: http://www.slideshare.net/Shelearner/make-a-point-presentation-annemieke-akkermans

13-year olds want to learn about Internet Safety

As media coach and teacher I also teach 7th graders at an international school in Berlin. A first questionnaire among ca. one hundred 12- and 13-year olds places Internet Safety as their number one concern, whereas this has not been part of the official curriculum so far.

The results of the September 2011 questionnaire:


• 99% have one or more computers at home

• 95% have Internet access, 5% doesn’t know.

• 40% use the pc daily, 25% use the pc only in weekends, 35% use the pc ‘sometimes’

• Ca. 10% of parents do not use computers. These children all have their own computers.


Asked what the 7th graders wanted to learn most of all, this is the top 3:

o Internet Safety (cookies, spam, viruses, digital identity)

o Typing skills (mostly for speed)

o Video editing



The 7th graders picked up basic digital skills from:

o A parent (36%)

o Older sibling (16%)

o Self (12%)

o Other family member (8%)

o School/ IT-course: 4%

o Without skills: 24%


First conclusions: More than half of all 7th graders have learned their basic digital skills from parents and siblings. The few students who mention school as the place where they learned digital skills, attended international schools abroad, such as Singapore and Australia. Only 4% mention 'school' as the place where they learned their digital skills. Internet Safety has so far not been included in the school curriculum, yet this is what most of the 7th graders mention as their nr. 1 priority. They wish to learn about cookies and spam, how to protect themselves against viruses, how to create and protect their digital identity and how to handle cybermobbing

Mobiles in School

"Children should not have mobile phones, it is unnecessary and ridiculous." One teacher's opinion. Another one agrees that mobile phones can be taken to school, but should only be used outside of school hours. A third teacher uses his smartphone to send homework to his students, and expects the students to collaborate online, and the finished assignments to be sent to his Facebook account.

Most educational institutions do not know how to deal with mobile phones. Many schools adhere to the switch-off-during-school hours-policy, but is this is a sustainable strategy in the ever-increasing mobile future? Dutch research shows that the use of mobiles and smart phones reduces students’ concentration and endangers school safety. Mobile phones, often kitted out with a camera, are sometimes used for harassing pupils and teachers. Nasty videos appear on the web, and people are badmouthed on websites and social networks. Schools are often not aware of the negative, nor of the positive effects of mobile use. This is why each school requires strict and clear rules on the use of mobile phones, and media use in general. The report also urges teachers to look at their own online behaviour, such as on Facebook and Twitter.  More can be found on the Dutch website of the Nationale Academie voor Media en Maatschappij.

What's Your Story? Grand Prize Winner

Cool little video. international video contest that empowers youth to be leaders in educating others about being safe online. As long as half of all parents and teachers are themselves uncomfortable online, who should teach their kids and students about online safety? Gen X and Gen Y should be learning together.

BANKSY

My son loves him; Banksy, formerly known as street artist. His art (formerly known as vandalism) sells at Sotheby's for several hundred thousand pounds a piece, and can be seen at renowned art galleries the world over.





Yesterday we watched a documentary about Banksy, 'Exit Through the Gift Shop'- which in the end turned out to be more about the guy who had managed to capture the elusive Banksy on film, Thierry Guetta. More of a clever businessman than an artist, Thierry later tries his hand at street art himself, using the techniques (and themes) he picked up from Banky and other street artists he has followed for years, mixing it with clever marketing (using social and regular media) and becoming an overnight commercial success.

I have admired Banksy's work ever since 2008. Years earlier I worked for the Weather Channel and was based in Newman Street, W1, London. Across the street from out building was an old post office, and a huge blind ugly wall, kitted out with the standard CCTV cameras which are omnipresent in London, and at the time cause for a lot of debate as to whether CCTV - big Brother watching - was a good or a bad thing. Reality soaps have long since taken the sting out of CCTV cameras in the street.... Anyway - one day in 2008 this ugly wall was decorated with a piece of graffiti - or rather 'street art'. The latest stunt by Banksy, pulled right under the eyes of the cameras....  I loved it, and so did the press.

Banksy's comment: "He broke all the rules - although we're not supposed to have any rules...". In the end, the film has been finished by Banksy himself, when he realised Guetta was only capable of recording, not of cutting a movie. A very interesting documentary, although the B-film - a short video purely about Banksy, contains the real gems for Banksy fans. Pictures, interviews and great quotes such as from the critic who initially felt Banksy's work was just "an entertaining bit of rubbish", or how the purpose of art is "to get up the noses of the establishment". One artist who was very critical about Banksy's use of stencils ("real street artists were ready to beat him up for using such gay techniques"), concluded that every single street artist was a real artist, and that Banksy "just got a fucking headstart on us". Well, yes - isn't that the difference between the real stars and the legion of following nobodies: a head start? Below are some more great Banksy originals...

   

Cool Tool

Another cool tool; WeTransfer. An increasing amount of providers offers the use of their server space to store and transfer large files. I just received a large photo file via WeTransfer. One click, and hundreds of pictures or manuscripts are transferred via the cloud. WeTransfer is a free platform in transferring large digital files up to 2Gb per transfer, such as presentations, photos, videos, music, documents and more. Free, of course. Added bonus: no registration required. They are no samaritans, WeTransfer makes money by selling advertising space, and they also have a commercial service (WeTransferChannel). In the meantime we reap the benefits of another cool free online tool.

The Google Dictator

As other strong brands, Google likes to play around with its logo. It started with inconspicuous adjustments, mostly on the two OO's. You can tell that marketing research showed that the Google clientele (i.e. just about everybody) must have appreciated this, because the Google art department has gone berserk. Great was 'the 50th anniverary of Yuri Gagarin's first trip into space' last week. It even inspired a fun art lesson that day. Looking at the Google Logo overview , the Gagarin Google logo seems to have disappeared - too many US complaints? The 200th anniversary of Robert Bunsen (Europeans go; who?! The guy who invented the Bunsen burner, which is used in labs) inspired another beautiful Google logo, very subtle... see?




Today I open Google with mixed feelings. It is the 122th anniversary of Charlie Chaplin's birth (122??), but as today's Google logo celebrates the brilliant film maker with a reference to 'The Great Dictator', with the actual logo showing nothing but gothic nazi font and a play on the hitler moustache - today's logo reminds me more of Hitler than of the brilliant Chaplin. Or is it just me...?!

TGIF on Facebook

What do you do on a Friday evening? Visit your friends? Yes - according to research by Buddy Media Friday evening is the time when most people visit their friends, and do a bit of shopping - on Facebook that is. Commercial Facebook use is up by 18% on Friday evening. During normal work hours commercial messages via Twitter and Facebook receive less attention. I wonder why this is news actually - it seems a no-brainer. Especially when your supervisor is one of your virtual 'friends', you should be careful not to use social media during work hours. Big Brother may be watching you, and use it against you. And she would be right to do so as well, at least according to a study by IT research company Nucleus Research, which shows that companies that allow users to access Facebook in the workplace lose an average of 1.5% in total employee productivity. The survey of 237 employees also showed that 77% of workers who have a Facebook account use it during work hours. Interestingly enough some studies show the opposite to be true. A University of Melbourne study shows that as many as 9% workers who indulge in such (Facebook or Twitter) activity have better productivity than those who don’t. The study involved 300 workers and 70% of those engaged in workplace Internet leisure browsing. It’s author, Brent Coker stated: Short and unobtrusive breaks, such as a quick surf of the Internet, enables the mind to rest itself, leading to a higher total net concentration for a days’ work, and as a result, increased productivity. So a bit of couch potato surfing on Facebook is the new smoke break, which is great news for the non-smokers among us.

Real horror and virtual shooting games

Yesterday 24-year old Tristan van der Vlis, armed with a machine gun, entered a crowded shopping mall and started shooting. Six people died during the ten minute killing spree, dozens wounded. Looking at the way he prepared himself and the time he took (ten minutes of non-stop shooting!), one can assume that he was out to hit as many targets as possible - and perhaps it's a miracle that he did not make more casualties. As a member of a shooting club, he must have known that he was technically capable of doing this. At the same time he must have possessed the EQ of a fridge, shutting himself off like this. Did he hate people? Was he bullied in school? Did his relationship fail? Did he lose his job? Was he insane? What should happen for someone to go this far?

Of course this is speculation; it would not surprise me if this madman turns out to have been a game fanatic. The latest shooting games are truly shocking. On a discussion forum, I came across a macabre demo of 'Modern Warfare 2: Terrorist Mission'. You are supposed to identify with the main shooter, because you see everything through his eyes - you are shooting the machine gun; hell, you ARE the shooter. The virtual world looks entirely realistic, it is like watching Mission Impossible. At the CIA headquarters you get your briefing. The message is obvious: you are a GOOD guy, out to get the world's biggest terrorist, called Makarov - yes, a Russian, what else. You have to do whatever it takes - in the end it will benefit the world at large. You soon find out what that means: as an infiltrator, you enter a crowded airport, filled with innocent civilians. As part of Makarov's team, you start shooting up the entire airport. You see people falling down, hear screams, you step over bodies in large pools of blood. You continue to shoot and kill everything that moves. In the ten minute killing spree (!) hundreds of casualties are made. The guys get into a get-away van, you want to do the same thing. Then the cynical end: Makarov turns and shoots you as well, square in the head. Once the Russians will discover a dead CIA agent, it will most likely escalate into full-scale war, reasons the coldblooded terrorist. Your vision is blurred by blood, as the terrorists escape. Game Over. You're dead.

This game for XBox 360 can purchased by anyone, anywhere. It is sold for instance by Wehkamp.nl, one of the largest postorder companies in the Netherlands, its clientele usually known for its love of floral prints. Of course also Amazon stocks this succesfull game in large numbers, explaining how to raise your score: "This can be done by leveling up, but another important way is through "kill streaks," the number of enemies eliminated in succession. These are available beginning with three kills and include the ability to call for supply drops, predator missile strikes, helicopter gunships and many more..... The game also features help to players experiencing "death streaks," multiple consecutive deaths in multiplayer matches" (http://www.amazon.com/Call-Duty-Modern-Warfare-Xbox-360/dp/B00269QLI8). Not surprising perhaps, that Amazon fails to mention that "players will be called upon to kill hundreds of innocent civilians in bloody massacres".

'Modern Warfare' may not be connected to yesterday's killings at all, but plenty of massacres have been linked to violent computer games, so let's not be surprised if this killer turns out to have been a gamer as well. The ultra-realistic 3D quality of shooting games blur the boundaries between the real and the virtual, where shooting up a real shopping mall is only a button click away for the mentally disturbed.

Cyberbullying (2)

Berlin schools wake up to the phenomenon of bullying via the Internet - cyberbullying, or as it is called in German: "Cybermobbing". The media became alerted because of a case of severe agression, spilling over from the web to the street, when one 17-year old boy couldn't stand the vicious virtual attacks on his girlfriend anymore. He had read these vitriolic comments on http://www.isharegossip.com/, a sick but successful commercial venture, inviting schoolkids to share their nastiest gossip on their website and advertising that this is 100% anonymous. The web in general, and websites such as these in particular, have taken the filthy gossip on the school bathroom door to a different level. Where the author of the note on the bathroom door ran the risk of being caught, this website allows children to spit out their venom for all to see, from the seclusion of their bedroom. In that same secluded bedroom, the cyberbullying victims read what others have shared about them. Some kids let it all out. Comments such as "sie ist die grösste schlampe, jeder junge kennt diese hure" ("she is the biggest tramp, every guy knowns this whore") and "wir sollten die drecks türken endlich abschieben" ("it is time we deport these filthy Turks") are harsh and shocking to anyone with a sane mind, but must be extremely hurting when aimed at specific classmates, whose names are mentioned in such messages. Even though these messages contain slander, racism and even incite violence, this gossip site can't be banned. The company who owns isharegossip.com was founded in New Sealand, and the site's actual host is based in Sweden, protected by the Pirate Party. This party is, among other things, looking to strengthen privacy rights on the Internet. The case of isharegossip.co, shows that the Web, next to being an endless source of information, has the potential to be dangerous and damaging. Strengthening privacy rights might be positive in the case of Wikileaks, but can be counterproductive when it serves to protect pedofiles and immoral sales people.

Improved legislation is one thing to fight this, training teachers and students, and making them aware of the dangers and effects of cyberbullying is another. Schools need to open up, and not act as if the Internet and their students' behaviour on the digital highway is none of their business. Teachers and school management need to enter the dialogue, both in the classroom, during assemblies, in smaller groups, as well as online, hosting online chats about the problems children are having with gossip sites or other kinds of cuberbullying. Why should schools not use Facebook for this kind of dialogue, thereby creating a closed and safe discussion platform that is familiar territory for the kids. Also 'spamming' such gossip websites with chunks of unrelated information, and overcrowding them with sensible comments may take away the fun of posting more gossip, as well as remind the kids that adults read these sites as well. I came across an entire Wikipedia entry on Karl Marx in between the other comments. Interesting choice of reading material - although intended to bore visitors off the site, no doubt. The latest battle against www.isharegossip.com seems to be successfull: Upon opening the website tonight, I saw this message:

"Mobbt das Mobbing! "Achtung! iShareGossip bringt die Posts auf die Seite Hauptmeldung, die am meisten bei "Gefällt ... " angeklickt und kommentiert wurden. Also: Mobbing-Posts NICHT anklicken, nicht kommentieren, sondern ignorieren. Anti-Mobbing-Post sooft wie möglich bei "Gefällt ..." (egal ob ... mir oder mir nicht) anklicken und kommentieren".

Basically it is using the website's own design against itself: the most often 'liked' comments get moved to the homepage, so the more people click that they 'like' an anti-bullying message, the higher the chance that it gets moved to the opening page. 414 people 'liked' the above message, so that this now welcomes the visitors to this site. I like it!

Free Resources for Teachers

The web is full of them, but thanks to the Guardian (still my favourite newspaper, 10 years after leaving the UK) many useful, practical, fun, interesting and interactive teaching resources have now been collected. The Guardian is opening up its resources website http://teachers.guardian.co.uk/teacher-network, to give teachers free access to 70,000 pages of lesson plans and interactive teaching materials. Dig in! :-)

Social Media and Generation Y: report

Social Media and Generation Y: report

Second School Forum

Last December, at Online Educa Berlin 2010, nearly two hundred teachers and head teachers defied the cold and snow on December 1st to gather at the second School Forum and hear about rich learning environments.

The forum opened with a presentation by Duane Sider, Learning Director of Rosetta Stone, on ‘Digital Natives: How they Learn and How we Teach’. Russell Stannard, principal lecturer at Warwick University in England and instigator of www.teachertrainingvideos.com, found that teachers are often willing to use new technologies but do not know where to start. Young learners are generally more comfortable with web tools and other technologies than most experienced teachers. Highly anticipated was the presentation of Sugata Mitra, the Indian professor of ‘Hole in the Wall’ fame. The inspirational professor spoke about just how well children can learn independently, when in groups and when motivated. Sugata’s most recent project involves experiments with what he calls the Granny Cloud: two hundred British grandmothers who have, for the last two years, offered children instructional support over the Skype communication system. According to the professor, a ‘motivational granny’ is all children need to learn effectively within a Self Organised Learning
Environment (SOLE).

Besides the presentations, a wide range of interactive demonstrations revealed useful and exciting tools, projects and resources for teaching. A small group of primary school children effortlessly used an interactive whiteboard to demonstrate their e-twinning platform. Other demonstrations showed virtual experiments and online games, learning management systems, personal learning networks, interactive language software and educational platforms. The teachers programmed robots and tried out different learning tools, both open source and proprietary. The forum concluded with a lively discussion between the presenters and the audience, showing once more the need for rich learning environments in which teachers motivate and facilitate, and learners collaborate and share.

Visual learning

This morning I read in a Digital Newsletter for German educators ('Der Lehrerfreund') that they now have a section on hands-on examples of technical processes in our everyday environment. Such as 'how does frost create cracks in the asphalt', or 'what happens exactly when you burn sugar'? Great! I thought. German education is discovering the advantages of visual learning, and how digital technology can be used to bring the outside world into the classroom. Filled with anticipation I opened the links, only to find the piece on frost and cracks involving a lot of text and a few graphics which repeated what was said in the written text. If you'd print it, you would have a regular book, as German students have known it since Gutenberg printed his bible. Although it might have been hard to video capture the process of cracks occurring in asphalt because of frost, it should be a piece of cake to do this for the process of burning sugar. My hopes up again, I opened that link, expecting to find some YouTube link showing me tantalising close ups of melting, bubbling and caramelising sugar on a flame. But alas, the Lehrerfreund Techie limits himself to a mere picture:
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I'm not saying that a graphic is not informative; but why use the Internet and digital technology to explain something you can also find in a regular science book?

Digital technology offers an extended educational value ; it makes learning visual and interactive. There is a sweet video for instance, about a kid who is burning sugar, filmed by his friend. The visual quality of 'the sugar mellting experiment' is not great and while you watch, you keep hoping the kids will not burn down the house in their enthusiasm as aspiring scientists, but the amateur experiment clearly shows you what happens to the sugar. The kids also comment on the smell and mention how it burns ("See, now it starts to burn, and that's black"). We see the sugar melting and caramelising, turning black, but no flame appears. Luckily, the kids turn off the stove afterwards.

This amateur video might actually be a classical learning moment for primary school kids; ask your students to come up with a definition of burning. If you define burning as something catching fire, it seems that sugar needs more than just heat; a catalyst needs to be added to the sugar, as our technical Lehrerfreund has tried to explain to us. What would that look like?

A ten-second search on YouTube yields the following video:

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It is a German video, from www.netexperimente.de As with any proper German product it is solid, devoid of any sense of humour, and to the point. It starts off with a professional version of what the kids in the kitchen did. There is a bunsen burner, a beautiful cone of sugar (how did they do that?!) and a steady camera. You can imagine the scientist behind the camera, wearing safety goggles and holding his or her breath, as not to disturb the experiment in any way. At first the sugar doesn't catch flame, although it bubbles and turns black; same result as the kids in the kitchen. The follow-up experiment shows the sugar cone covered in ash, which after prolonged burning does catch fire. The video has been sped up for the sake of the impatient YouTube generation - in a matter of a few minutes the white sugarcone turns into a smouldering, flaming towering inferno. Well, not exactly an inferno perhaps; but it does catch fire at some point, because of the ash. Conclusion: sugar needs a catalyst (ash) to burn.

The comments on the video are interesting as well; some students talk of the experiments they did, others comment on it. One doesn't understand the purpose of it, the other one wonders why it didn't catch fire better; one student suggest that perhaps too much ash was used in the experiment. Smart kid. By the way, this was the only German comment; perhaps the smart kid found the solution in his science book...

Cyberbullying

I am 12 and on Facebook. I am not supposed to be there, because I am under 13, the legally required FB age. But they make it so easy to lie, so I'm here, with my entire class and all the other parallel classes. I have not 'friended' any kids I don't like, only the ones that seem nice. And cool. It's very important to be cool on FB. It's like another hallway in school, where kids can bump in to you, and check you out. Only, it is much easier to check you out. And call you names. Someone tagged a pretty dumb picture of me the other day. So that picture showed up on my wall. Including the comments. 1. Hey dude, you look soooo lame! 2. Aren't you the most popular kid in school, wahaha!! 3. Dumb f*ck!! 4. Gawd you're ugly XD..... And so on. One comment followed another. I deleted the picture from my wall, but the writing continued, as I heard from kids in school. It seemed the most popular pastime. And I can't do anything about it....

An excerpt from an online diary. The case seems innocent enough; some remarks on a picture. But the willfull and repeated harm inflicted through the use of computers, cell phones and other electronic devices is nothing less than cyberbullying. Why do kids do it? Because they can. Bullies, both in the classroom and in cyberspace, need attention themselves and have only learned to get it the nasty way. If parents are not aware of their children, then the teachers have to be all the more so. A teachers's job in the 21st century has to include digital awareness, in all its aspects. Knowing what social networks are, and how kids communicate. As much as the classroom has been extended into hyperspace, so has the school hallway. And both parents and teachers need to keep their eyes wide open. Discuss cyberbullying in the classroom. Ask the students to write an essay about the topic, and see what happens. If there are problems, try to tackle them through role-play and discussion groups with mediators.

The above diary excerpt is fictious, but could be written by kids any time. The Cyberbullying Research Center informs students that cyberbullying is when someone “repeatedly makes fun of another person online or repeatedly picks on another person through email or text message or when someone posts something online about another person that they don’t like.” Using this definition, about 20% of the over 4,400 randomly‐selected 11‐18 year‐old students in 2010 indicated they had been a victim at some point in their life.