#DLDay

Spotlight on Social Media Awareness, Coding for Digital Learning Days

/ Angelo Fernando / Leave a comment

Next week, we kick off a week of coding, and also a time to talk about the good, the bad and ugly about social media.

Coding is something that could be exciting for every age group – from simple problem-solving skills, to what-if scenarios. Students will log-into places such as Code.org, Khan Academy, Scratch, and Blockly.  I like how Scratch is positioned as a way to “Create stories, games, and animations.”

Two speakers will kick off the week:

Mel Adamaitis – Synapse Studios
“Why Coding Matters”

Dr. Stephanie Schull – Matter Mission
“The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of Social Media.”

 

While we are at it, here are some good resources:

 

Filters needed now, says Isura Silva!

/ Angelo Fernando / 1 Comment

My friend Isura Silva, writes about topics similar to what you find here. One of his recent posts touches on the death of attention, as a result of our proximity to screens. You should read his post to get his slant on it.

The issues we face as parents and teachers is not just screen addiction, but device distraction. Attention spans are in a serious free-fall. I flippantly wrote about this in an article on ‘FOMO’ (for LMD magazine). But it’s a lot more serious than this.

Which brings me back to Isura. He was on a UNICEF panel on Tuesday, discussing child safety online. The panel discussed the study just released, on how adolescents in Sri Lanka use the Internet. To give you a snapshot of it, the press release states that:

“While digital access exposes children to a wealth of benefits and opportunities, it can also unlock a host of risks including the misuse of their private information, access to harmful content, and cyberbullying …whilst children and adolescents are increasingly going online, they are doing so without adult oversight or supervision.”

Next week is Digital Learning Day across the world. Here at my school, I’m bringing in two speakers to address this dire need for digital literacy. Different cultures, different demographics, all feeling the same need.

Kids take to design as Digital Learning Month kicks off

/ Angelo Fernando / 1 Comment

sculptDon’t you wish you could have learned in elementary school what kids have access to now?

That was one of the comments of a designer from TimeFire VR, speaking of how excited she was to see 6th graders quickly learn how to use SculptGL. It is a powerful open source CAD program for 3D sculpting. (I created this in just 2 minutes, having no experience!)

Of course there is much  more work to be done and TimeFire showed us how we could to get there, with Blender, another open source application. This being Digital Learning Month, we will dlday1have time to get deeper into CAD and 3D sculpting. I’m planning to ask TimeFire to come back for an encore session soon.

I like to thank John Vise for making this happen. Specially to Jessica, Rainy, and Ariana for showing us the exciting software, and future career possibilities.

 

Yes, we can be tracked! What students learned at Digital Learning Month kickoff event

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Thank you, Fred von Graf for conducting a highly interactive session for our 5th grade students last afternoon. It was the kickoff to our Digital Learning Month in February.

dlday-tnTo a packed room of students and teachers, Fred asked them what social media platforms they use, and provided some cautionary stories of how to protect themselves from hackers, trolls and anyone with rudimentary search skills. He spoke of the dangerous side of oversharing, using same gamer handles and aliases across multiple platforms.

What I liked most about Fred’s presentation was that he avoided the geeky terms (no mention of Phishing or spoofing or doxxing), while explaining quite simply, how someone could find out sensitive and private information about you.

“Some people think of social media as a popularity contest,” said one student, commenting on a case of a someone grabbing information off people and posting it to his YouTube channel. Some spoke about how tagging children could reveal too much information about the family. Teachers shared their safe practices, such as not providing the location of when a picture was taken, or doing it after one leaves the location.

Overall, the room was brimming with insightful thoughts and suggestions, sparked by Fred’s topic, and style of presentation. He summed up, by bringing up oversharing, about seeking ‘Likes’ and the ‘addiction’ that could results from these self-gratifying practices. “You want that attention, and it becomes so easy to say ‘my privacy isn’t that important, let me put this out there’ ,” he said.

VR, 3D modeling, and social media to kick off Digital Learning Month

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Digital Learning Day is on Feb 23rd, but this year we are kicking off a whole month of digital learning at Salt River Elementary.

Tomorrow, our students will learn from designers and programmers what being digital means.

3D Sculpting & VR. Students will learn from designers and animators at TimeFire VR Inc what 3D mesh sculpting and painting on 3-D models involve. An exciting hands-on sessions using Blender, and SculptGL. They will also experience what these virtual worlds look like through VR goggles.

Do’s and Don’ts of Social Media. Students will learn from Web3Mavens how to ‘Think like a programmer’ and navigate the world embedded with –or rather overlaid by — social media, particularly Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram, Wikipedia and YouTube.

And there’s much more in store during February!

Adding new layers to Digital Learning Day 2017

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Once again I’m planning some activities around the upcoming Digital Learning Day.

dlday2017Having participated since 2013, the plan is to add more than just lessons and best practices.

I’ve invited some tech practitioners, and we may even consider a community event that addresses topics that parents lose sleep over: over sharing, cyber-bullying, and the correlation between screens and grades.

Plus, I am considering an essay competition on a social media topic, and getting some students to create their own podcasts.

Digital Learning Day is on Feb. 23rd.

Here is what we did for 2016 Digital Learning Day

Plans for more Collaboration at Digital Learning Day

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In a time when pre-teens have Instagram accounts, and tablets readers have become the 4th screen (after TV, laptops, and smart phones), digital learning takes on new meaning.

For next month’s Digital learning Day, I plan to introduce students to some tools and processes that would prepare them for college and careers.

  • Webinars
  • Podcasts
  • Book Trailers
  • Wikis
  • Content Aggregation

Building on last year’s #DLDAY activities, adding more collaboration this year, means showing students the opportunities of collaborating with even those outside the walls of a school. I am thinking of technology experts, and students in another school –even in another country!

Yes, most schools have walled gardens, for good reason. Occasionally we pierce these walls, and #DLDay is that time of year when we could try out new things.

Suggestions are welcome!

Some useful background here:

Digital Learning Day, tomorrow: An opportunity to teach and learn

/ Angelo Fernando / 1 Comment

Tomorrow is Digital Learning Day across America. For me it’s an interesting way to focus on the ever-changing landscape of education and knowledge tools; With schools upping the ante on the sciences, and adopting what’s known here in the U.S. as the Common Core Standards, it’s time we experimented with digital learning.

And if you’ve read this blog you’ll know that by Digital Learning I don’t mean thrusting a small screen in front of students and expecting knowledge to automatically be transferred from hyperlinks to neurons.

There’s a lot more about how I’m approaching #DLDay on my school blog. Here’s are three things I will be trying out this week. I bet they could be easily applied to areas outside education.

VOICETHREAD:
https://voicethread.com/share/5326162/

This is an interesting way of allowing a group to collaborate on a topic, using voice or video. The spoken word could be a powerful way to get a team or a class to focus on the content, not the presentation. When I interviewed the CEO of Voicethread last week, Steve Muth used the phrase “No Bling” to describe why Voicethread is powerful.

PADLET
http://padlet.com/wall/m2iy0fn1fy

For some reason the embed code is not working here. Padlet is essentially a way to create a multimedia story on a blank wall, and share that story in a variety of ways. So you could have a small group curate ideas from multiple sources and quickly assemble them in one place. A bit like a wiki, but with a visual look and feel.I like the fact that it also gives you a QR code for each project.

VOKI
http://www.voki.com/
When I first heard that Voki was about creating avatars, I didn’t want to take it seriously. It reminded me of the avatar fetish we once had when Second Life was all the rage. But on second look, Voki is a neat way to get students to engage in digital storytelling, by getting them interested in creating content. The ‘voice’ of the avatar could be created in many ways: by uploading text, uploading a pre-recorded voice recording, or by recording it live. Once again, your avatar generates an embed code.

How will students take to these new ways of engaging? No predictions. But I could tell you that just this week I tested out voice recordings with first graders, and they were beginning to record mini stories in less than 30 minutes of showing them how to use Audacity.