Computers in Classrooms Mid-April 2009 Edition
ISSN 1470-552403 April 2009
Practical advice for colleagues who use, teach, lead or manage information and communication technology (ICT) in schools.
This newsletter is © 2009 Terry Freedman. Contributors own the copyright of their own articles.
Home Page: http://www.ictineducation.org Updated virtually daily.
Email: terry@ictineducation.org
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Hi Subscriber
I hope you enjoy this issue of Computers in Classrooms. As a subscriber, you get to listen to a discussion about social networking and digital citizenship we had with a high school student in the USA over Skype before it’s posted publicly. Also, you get to be first in line to ask her questions about digital citizenship and suchlike. All is explained below.
Also in this issue, Neil Howie, a teacher in Vienna, reviews the recent World Maths Day, and I discuss the issue of cyberbullying in the light of recent experience. Finally, we round off this issue with a rather fishy story about a spreadsheet!
This should have been a quick briefing before the publication of the social networking issue. However, that issue has been slightly delayed because of some upsetting family business, and the fact that two subscribers have come forward very recently offering to contribute something. Although I already have plenty to put in that issue, the proposals – a paper about assessment for learning through social networking, and an interview with a lad of about 15 – seemed too interesting to pass up.
On the subject of interviews, we interviewed an English school student today, and that should soon be available as both a video and a podcast. In it, Edith discusses what she feels teachers ought to be teaching as far as ICT is concerned.
But that’s for the future. In the meantime, enjoy reading this newsletter and listening to our discussion with Miller. And then, please pose some questions yourself for Miller to answer in an experimental column called Ask Miller! More on that below.
Best wishes
Terry Freedman
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In this issue…
Special Preview: Talking to Miller: A teen’s view of digital citizenship and social networking
How to deal with cyberbullying
World Maths Day 2009 at Danube International School, Vienna
Information about this newsletter and its editor
News and views
Prize draw
Just to remind you that the Game Creators has made available three games-creation programs: Dark Basic Professional, FPS Creator, and 3DGamecreator. Site licences for these will be given away in a prize draw of subscribers to this newsletter. Please note that the competition is open to UK subscribers only. The draw takes place on 1st May at 12:00 noon GMT. More details in the next issue of Computers in Classrooms.
Net Generation Educational Project
The awards ceremony for the winners of this project, organised by Vicki Davis and Julie Lindsay, will take place on the 20th April 2009. For further information visit the Awards page and scroll down to read the press releases.
Changes to the ICT in Education Website: Your Opinion Needed
We’re preparing to have the ICT in Education website redesigned, and would very much appreciate your views. Please take a few minutes to answer a very brief questionnaire. Please click on the link to the survey.
Please don’t be offended if we don’t get in touch with you!
Special preview: Talking to Miller: A teen’s view of digital citizenship and social networking
Miller being interviewed
Elaine and I had the pleasure of chatting to Miller, a 15 year-old girl living in the USA. It is really refreshing to listen to someone who is so level-headed when it comes to issues such as cyberbullying. It is also interesting to hear how blogging and other web 2.0 applications helped Miller to find her writer's voice within, and to deal with some difficult situations.
This podcast isn’t due for release until next week, but it’s available to Computers in Classrooms subscribers now!
There is a lot in this interview: how her class handled a setback created inadvertently by Google, how their teacher laid down the rules and gave tuition on internet safety right up front, how their other teachers are learning from Miller and her classmates, and a lot more.
The stories I mentioned in which Facebook was involved are here:
Facebook and suicide prevention
Facebook and bankruptcy prevention
Her teacher, Vicki Davis, made the following comments on the recording:
Actually, the middle schoolers aren't using Jott; they are using cell phones in English. They are using Jott to proofread papers. We just use it for 9th grade (Year 9) but they just started charging so we had to discontinue it. That was pretty recent so Miller may not know it. I actually just cancelled my Jott account but they were using it like crazy in the fall. Miller doesn't use the features requiring premium Jott.
I actually do not like Jonas brothers chat rooms, etc. That is a place for a lot of predators -- Woogi world is better than Club Penguin. But Miller and I differ on our opinion on that one.
On the issue of over-familiarity between students and their teachers, Vicki said it wasn't an issue in her school because it's a small community in which many people know each other anyway.
Miller mentioned PowerSchool. Click the link to find out more.
The recording lasts just over 25 minutes. Click the link to listen to it or download it.
Acknowledgements
Thanks to Vicki Davis for her help and support in setting up this interview, and to Miller for her time.
The music after the introduction and at the end is Simple Soulman by The Groovebusters, which is under a Creative Commons licence. Hear the band at:
http://www.garageband.com/song?|pe1|S8LTM0LdsaSkYFexYGE
Disclaimer
Miller's views do not represent the views of her school, her teacher, nor any other organization which she belongs to, but are solely her own views and opinions.
Special preview: Ask Miller!
Miller will be running a column called Ask Miller! for a few weeks. If you would like to ask her a question, please click on the link to the survey.
The Ask Miller! column will appear every Wednesday for around 6 weeks, until the 19th May. Do let us know what you think of this experiment, and how you made use of Miller's answers.
Miller has also written a fantastic article for the Computers in Classrooms newsletter, which will be available from here in due course.
Over to you?
If you or your pupils would like to contribute to the ICT in Education website or Computers in Classrooms newsletter (or both), there are lots of ways you and they can do so. Get in touch!
How to deal with cyberbullying
There's a lot of advice about on the subject of how to deal with cyberbullying, and from what I've seen it all falls into one of the following categories:
- How to prevent its happening by 'educating' people in digital citizenship.
- How to nip it in the bud through technological means, such as with software that looks for keywords or patterns.
- How to help the victim deal with it when it happens.
Personally, I think there is more that schools can do to shore up potential victims so that if and when the unthinkable happens they have strong inner resources to draw on. The notes which follow have been written in the light of my own (recent) experience -- not as a teacher, but as a victim of cyberbullying. Yes: it can happen to anybody. And unlike the other usual assumption, as embodied in a recent Guardian report, it can just as easily be adults bullying other adults as kids victimising adults or vice versa.
Is ‘cyberbullying’ a helpful term?
To understand this, you have to bear in mind that the term cyberbullying is, really, a convenient euphemism. Bullying is bullying, and periodicals, such as the Times Educational Supplement, and the internet, are rife with horror stories of managers bullying their staff, of staff bullying their managers (somewhat rarer, it has to be said) and workers bullying co-workers. Giving this behaviour a new label, such as ‘cyberbullying’, not only serves to diminish its importance but also to conveniently pave the way for its being seen as an educational technology problem rather than a school-wide problem, and even a society-wide problem.
The only merit in using a term like 'cyberbullying', in my opinion, is that it draws attention to the fact that, because it takes place online, its perpetrators can hide behind a cloak of anonymity. In that sense it is possibly different from, and worse than, bullying in the physical world. But to be honest, this is splitting hairs: it's like saying one form of toothache is worse than other, ie it is a statement which is of absolutely no use to the person suffering.
The situation in which this happened to me was that a few weeks ago I was invited to become an online forum host, as the organisation was looking for someone who had a good understanding of educational ICT (information and communications technology).
I started on a Monday. The following Friday, I resigned. Having spent a week putting up with insults, abuse and unprofessionalism from anonymous people, I decided that this was a just a drain on my spiritual energy. In my daily life, I choose to spend time and have dealings only with those people whose company enriches me. I happen to think that life is too short, and too precious, to waste time and energy dealing with people whose sole delight appears to be the denigration of others. Hence my resignation. But what exactly happened?
Well, I don't want to go into detail because I should imagine that the people concerned will derive some degree of perverse pleasure from seeing their particular insult described. In any case, most of the behaviour I was subjected to was not abusive in itself, but low-level stuff which, taken individually, looks completely innocuous. This is, in fact, exactly the same as the sort of bullying behaviour that goes on in workplaces, such as being derided, insulted, ignored or sidelined. And because it is all so trivial, the person who is being subjected to it thinks that they must be imagining it, or making a mountain out of a molehill. It also makes it hard to complain. In this instance, the moderator, who was very supportive, encouraged me to report specific abuse; but in a sense, there was nothing to report.
That's how bullies thrive, or at least one of the ways: they conduct themselves in such a way that it is always possible for them to argue that they didn't do anything wrong, or that it was light-hearted banter which someone has taken the wrong way. But as far as I was concerned, what was at stake was not so much my feelings, but my reputation. After all, if you didn't know me, and you were to read page after page of derision directed against me, you could be forgiven for thinking that there is no smoke without fire. In fact, after just two days, I received an email from a friend of mine urging me to withdraw from this activity before my reputation was irrevocably damaged.
Shock, horror!
What I found particularly shocking was four things. Firstly, the fact that this sort of behaviour was engaged in by people who call themselves professionals. To take just one example, one of the participants in the forum said, "I suppose what we're doing here is cyberbullying, but I haven't stopped laughing for two days." Just think: this is the person to whom some poor child will turn when being cyberbullied. Is he really the right person for the job?
Secondly, it really takes very little time for self-doubt to start creeping in. If you care about what you do, you want to do it to the best of your ability, so when people whom you assume (at least to start with) are qualified professionals start to say you’re useless, a part of you wonders if it’s not actually true. Fortunately, I have sufficient inner resources and objective evidence to be able to overcome such feelings quite quickly.
Thirdly, I was quite taken aback by the ferocity of the invective hurled at me. In fact, it is true to say that not one objection to anything I said was in the form of a statement that could be argued with on an intellectual level. It was completely personal, so I chose to not respond.
I mentioned earlier that bullies thrive because they are often clever enough to disguise their conduct as normal. But another thing which helps them is the fact that other people tend not to get involved. And that was the fourth thing which shocked me: only two comments were made which disapproved of certain people’s behaviour, and only one person privately emailed me. Edmund Burke said, ‘The only thing necessary for the triumph [of evil] is for good men to do nothing.’ He was right.
In the forum I’ve been talking about, nearly all of the unprofessional conduct was the work of three, possibly four people. Apparently, one of them has been warned several times that his behaviour is unacceptable. Why? Why does an adult need to be warned at all? When people do things I think are unacceptable on any forum within my control, I don’t warn them. First I will delete their contribution and then, if they persist, I delete or block them. Why engage in a discussion about it?
What is your view on this? Am I right, or am I too harsh?
Practical steps to take in school
Based on my experience, I think the following steps should be taken in schools to help (potential) victims of cyberbullying.
- Ensure that in school online environments, people’s actual identity can be easily seen.
- Make cyberbullying a school issue rather than solely an educational technology issue.
- Try to ensure that pupils realise that being cyberbullied is nothing to be ashamed of (which is why don't mind writing and publishing this article). It is not a reflection on them, but on the bullies.
- In citizenship and other lessons, explore case studies showing what can happen to victims of (cyber)bullying.
- Make sure that everyone knows what bullying actually looks like. The Bully Online website has excellent descriptions of the tactics that bullies use.
- Set up systems that enable people to report bullying on their friends’ behalf…
- …And make it clear that doing so is the right thing to do, and not to feel bad about divided loyalties. Difficult to achieve, I agree, but worth striving towards I think. The plain fact is that bullying thrives on secrecy. Bullies hate having their behaviour called out.
- Ensure that every pupil achieves things of which they can be proud, to help them counteract any feelings of worthlessness they may experience because of the bullying. I am talking about genuine achievement, not giving someone a good grade to make them feel good about themselves. That’s just a con, and the kids know it! There must be something that even the most challenged pupil can do, and under Every Child Matters (or perhaps your country’s equivalent), the school is obliged to find out what it is. How else can the school ensure that every child makes a positive contribution and achieves well?
- Finally, I personally favour a zero, or very close to zero, tolerance approach. For example, why shouldn’t the very first instance of cyberbullying result in a letter home to parents and a note on the pupil’s school record?
Related articles:
- Teachers warned about cyberbullying
- What effect does bullying have on young people?
- Cyberbullying: Supporting School Staff (UK government publication)
Related articles by Zemanta
- Private member's bill targets cyberbullying (cbc.ca)
- One in seven teachers are victims of cyber bullying by pupils (telegraph.co.uk)
- Do PLN's breed Dissatisfaction? (coolcatteacher.blogspot.com)
I’d be interested in your views on how cyberbullying should be tackled.
World Maths Day 2009 at Danube International School, Vienna
Reviewed by Neil Howie
Lunchtime Tuesday 3 March and the stampede to use the computers within our only computer room began. Students from our Early Years Unit (UK Reception) up to Grade 9 (UK Year 10) without laptops wanted to start as the clock struck 12, and so I had to enforce riot control to ensure things went smoothly. Teachers in the classes after lunch had been told that if it was convenient for them they should allow students to take part in this competition; with most doing so. By the end of school, and only 3 hours after the competition started we had an average of over 1000 questions being answered correctly by each of our students. I even had to give up the PC attached to the whiteboard, and also my personal laptop to let two more increase their scores!
World Maths Day had really started, and was an amazing success at my school in the heart of Vienna. When one receives comments from the Elementary Principal that there was an "amazing buzz around the school" for example, or can see how impressed the Deputy Mayor of Vienna, Grete Laska, (who happened to be visiting) and see students so actively engaged in testing their arithmetic, then one knows something good is happening in school.
Whilst completing basic arithmetic questions against students throughout the world, it was also good to see the ability of students to work with the computer to their advantage. Most students worked out (even after being advised of such by me) that it was easier to use the numeric keypad on a standard keyboard. In discussions afterwards whilst they preferred to use their own laptops, their best scores were on the PC with a keypad; this led to a discussion with a couple of classes on who benefits most from this extra part to a keyboard and wasn't it a good idea of the original designers to put it there! Students also worked out that if they could time their connections to the World Maths Day server they had a good chance of playing against each other. This led to a lot of "drei, zwei, eins". Students could understand and appreciate how connections are made to a server, and also why when there were 35,000 concurrent users they didn't get to play against each other as much as when there were only 3,500 - this will be a great starter to the topic of bandwidth when I cover this with some classes later.
To allow this to happen so successfully the Network Manager had installed an additional ten wireless access points around the school during the half-term (thereby giving us a ratio of around one access point per class) and we had upped our bandwidth to a 16 Mbits line. The only issue we forgot about was the lease time for IP addresses as we had at one point more connections than were available in the range, and so had to ensure unused machines were switched off (until the wireless network was given its own range). I had been inundated with students all morning asking me to set up their laptops to the school wireless network.
Finally, some simple figures to demonstrate how successful this event was:
- 204 Countries represented.
- 12,647 Cities/Towns participated.
- 38,058 Schools participated.
- 1,952,879 Students participated.
- 452,681,681 Questions correctly answered.
and all in a 48 hour period, and it was all free.
I for one look forward to seeing my students enthusiastically doing arithmetic using ICT next year when I'm teaching back in Belgrade and would recommend this event to all. Look out for World Maths Day 2010, around 3 March!
Neil Howie is Head of IT Studies at the Danube International School, Vienna, Austria. He has taught ICT for over ten years in the UK, Nigeria, Serbia and Austria, and is currently Faculty Head of Creative Arts at Danube International School, Vienna.
Fish
A short story by Terry Freedman.
Background info: A few weeks ago I attended a creative writing course. One of the exercises we were given was to write a short story in 100 words or less, with the title ‘Fish’. This is the result.
I'd often seen her around the office. “Deirdre. Accounts.” ,said a colleague once when he caught me glancing at her. That helped a lot. I knew that the people in that section were sticklers for accuracy.
I spent two weeks creating the most beautiful, elegant, efficient spreadsheet for personal budgeting ever seen. It had sections for anything you could think of. And it was incapable of making a mistake. I emailed it to her.
We're married now. Just goes to show: anyone can fish if they have the right bait!
Think you can do better? Go on then – or set this as an exercise for your students. Ask them to write a story about a particular application or technology in 100 words or less. Then why not send me one or two for consideration for this newsletter?
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