Heading in the right direction
I was feeling a little overwhelmed at the beginning of class today, because I hadn’t done any of the things on my list from Friday, other than look for past district workshops and discover they were no longer on the calendar, so I have no way of knowing what was offered last year. Today’s work period, however, was very productive. I wanted to try to work within the framework of an existing organization (province or district) so that it gives some legitimacy to my project, and uses a system teachers may already be familiar with. On our district technology teacher’s blog I discovered a link to apply for an online collaboration group using BuddyPress. Although the link is inactive, I did some research about BuddyPress, and discovered it is a WordPress plugin that lets you create your own social network. My thinking is, that if I set up this final project with BuddyPress on my own site, I can transfer it to a district site in the fall.
When I came home this afternoon I spent some time finishing up reading all the articles I found last week. I have also started a conglomeration of information, taking the main points and organizing them into the basic headings of my MindMeister map: screen time digital citizenship, ways to use technology, social development and cognitive development (to correspond to the areas of development in the primary program), and tips and tricks. I think these headers will become talking points for my workshop. I am concurrently working on a plan for my workshop. I’m not sure how final that will be by the end of this week, but it is feeling good to organize my thoughts. I already have a quote from Hertzog and Klein (2005) which I think would make a great opener,
“[T]echnology is playing an important role in the lives of our children. How can we channel their curiosity and use technology to help them grow intellectually, socially, and emotionally? How do we integrate technology into our instruction to go beyond consumers and gaming to using technology as tools for creative production?”
I also turned to a strong member of my PLN (aka my husband) to help me get a new site set up for BuddyPress. My current class blog is hosted on his server, so he helped me set up primarycollaboration.mscollinslovesbooks.com. There’s nothing there yet, but I’m hoping to spend some time tomorrow exploring BuddyPress. I had to laugh when I saw the tagline, normally you see “Just another WordPress site”, but I like mine better!
Very exciting developments, Amy! I didn’t know buddypress was a plug in. Good work on your sleuthing to find that out. How handy to have an in-house tech support! As we have been talking in class, it is becoming more apparent to me that our youngest school citizens (primary) need to be taught how to use technology for learning. When I am talking to the older grade teachers, they are discussing the problem of students’ habits for looking up information online, and how they have never been taught to use the Internet for in-depth research or discussion. Students will search as far as Wikipedia and consider their research complete. If they were taught, at a younger age, to think of the Internet as a learning environment, they would be able to develop their research skills earlier and have a better facility with search terms, key words, and advanced searches. As well, it is never too early to help young people learn about intellectual property and copyright laws. These are ethical and cultural topics that need to be addressed at an impressionable age, before habits of piracy become entrenched.