Ontario Teachers – you need to run to your BitstripsforSchools account! Just in time for the Canadian Federal Elections, the Bitstrips for Schools team have put together a couple of template to let students create a comic letting candidates state their case!
and
The second strip, in particular, is of interest. The four major party candidates are very nicely done.
Read more about this at the BitstripsforSchools blog.
It was earlier this month that the Ontario College of Teachers released an advisory entitled "Advisory on the Use of Electronic Communication and Social Media" accompanied by a YouTube video that delved into some of the issues. The main stream media was all over it immediately with headlines like:
The media just couldn’t get these stories out quickly enough. While the advisory was full of good advice, the reports elected to focus on things that might go wrong. I had more than one person who felt their profession marginalized by the news reports. As I blogged at the time, this didn’t come out of the blue. Technology conferences like the Educational Computing Organization of Ontario’s annual event and the Ontario Teachers’ Federation’s Teaching and Learning in the 21st Century have very actively been working with members to get the best use of the available technologies.
In fact, with the exception of preparing and writing standardized tests, teachers are encouraged and supported in their efforts to differentiate instruction for students and to use the best possible tools available. For many teachers, research, writing, publishing, problem solving, critical thinking, editing, and so much more can be enhanced with the appropriate use of technology in safe ways. Unfortunately, these types of things didn’t make the report.
Today, the Educational Computing Organization of Ontario issued a press release of its own. "ECOO Encourages Responsible Use of Social Media". This release doesn’t talk about the "other side" of the story. It explains, just like the OCT advisory, that social media can be used very powerfully. In the news release, ECOO’s president, Bill MacKenzie speaks on behalf of his organization:
ECOO believes that students need help learning how to navigate, evaluate, and effectively use technologies safely and appropriately. “Not all students are ‘digital natives’ with the innate ability to navigate these new technologies effortlessly,” says MacKenzie. “Our teachers have a responsibility to lead by example, demonstrating and teaching the appropriate use of technology and social media.”
So, I went about looking for media coverage of the ECOO News Release. I couldn’t find a thing as of the time of this writing. If anyone does find reference to it, please let me know in the comments below.
Fortunately, the Ontario Curriculum does include Media Literacy as a topic. What a great comparison of what makes it to the media and what doesn’t. Fortunately, we do have paper.li for web publishing. It may end up there.
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Tags: OCT, ECOO, OTF, Social Media, Teaching
The AP-Viacom Survey of Youth on Education
http://backofawebpage.tumblr.com/
Ever wondered what the back of a webpage looks like?
What’s on the back of a web page
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Visualize music from all genres.
ManyBooks.net – Ad-free eBooks for your iPad, smartphone, or eBook reader
Browse through the most popular titles, recommendations, or recent reviews from our visitors. Perhaps you’ll find something interesting in the special collections. There are more than 29,000 eBooks available here and they’re all free!
TweetTrader.net strives to be the most innovative forum for stock microblogs. It is still in the early stages of development
Buy and Sell shares in your friends and family, and meet new people in your town or who like the same things as you!
Bob’s activity database – BobsDB.com
Bob’s Activity Database – The most comprehensive collection of past time, recreational activities including sports, games, hobbies, interests, exercises, amusements and much more.
50 social media stats (from Commentz)
50 social media stats
Vote Net – Canadian Elections – Vote for a free internet
I’m running for Prime Minister to help engage Canadians in a vision for an open digital future
Block apps, mute users, and filter tags on Twitter.
Five Reasons Why Twitter Will Kill Tweet
Interesting take. I wonder if anti-trust will pop in as competitors get bought up.
What Monty Python Taught Me About the Software Industry
Does the computer industry seem just a little too strange? Never fear: Monty Python encapsulated several nuggets of wisdom years ago that summarize exactly what is behind the sometimes-tawdry behavior.
CUE’s iPad in Education Workshop
Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.
doug --- off the record 