Recently I presented DNA: Personalising the Curriculum at the WHAT IF? Embracing complexity through curriculum conference which has reinvigorated my belief that we need to make some profoundly important changes to our approach to educating young people about their “personal data”. I asked the question: what if school empowered students to understand & use personal data? Students should be well-educated about […]
Google has launched a new service which purports to allow users to control their online information. Their new About me page lists information such as work history, contact details, educational background, web presence, places you have lived, gender and birthday. The page allows users to edit and delete information that they don’t want people to be able […]
Dapto High School is moving to BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) for Y7-12 in 2015. In this year of transition we have learnt much from the experience of trialling BYOD in 2014 with Year 9. This post is part of a workshop for deputy principals at our annual conference, earlier in the year, that explored […]
What percentage of students in Australian schools are explicitly taught digital citizenship skills? There are plenty of government sponsored projects that provide resources but how many kids are truly learning at school how to succeed in an online world? How many teachers have the skills to teach them? I do not know. There’s no data. […]
How do we best educate children to be thoughtful about their online security in these rapidly changing times? The challenge of staying up-to-date, when technological innovation gallops at breakneck speed and new tools are available daily, is a major challenge for most of us. However, it is not just an understanding of technology that is […]
What is it to be a good digital citizen? How do schools effectively manage their online reputation and assist students to be safe? How does a school balance freedom of speech with the rights of others to not be bullied or have their reputations unfairly impugned? What is the law and how does it relate to the ‘community […]
The digital footprints being created for my family, or more to the point of this post, being created by me for my children, gives rise to some reflection about the future of family history in our societies. Family history has been revolutionised by the internet. Ask anyone who did research prior to the 1990s about […]
For the first time in 20 years I do not have English classes to teach. The principal has requested that I am ‘off the timetable’ and work with all students on digital citizenship and creating a Personal Learning Environment (PLE) or, if you prefer, Personal Learning Network (PLN). This is another small step towards creating […]