Social Media in Education

Social Media in Education

There can be no doubt that there has been a huge movement in social media 

in all aspects of life, education is no exception.  Working in a primary school 

there are many rules and regulations about being under the age of 13 and 

having a social media account.  Although saying that I am always amazed at 

how many students under the age of 13 have their own social media accounts.  

As a direct result of this it is very important to speak about digital citizenship, 

rights and responsibilities with the students. 

What we have done in our school is to create a learning platform for all of our 

students, creating their own social media accounts, but we as a school can monitor 

and administer rights to the various learners.  We use both Google Apps for 

Education and Microsoft Office 365 so that all students can use either one.  

The one great thing is that we have managed to use a single sign on so that the 

students do not have to worry about logging onto the one account and then having 

to log into a different account to change platforms. 

I need to give my age away and mention that while I was at school there were no 

computers, Internet or even cell phones, as a result many people in my age group 

do not have multiple social media accounts, but normally have one which is 

predominately used to stay in contact with friends and family around the world.   

As a result there has been a little bit of apprehension with regards to teachers 

changing the way in which content is delivered.  We have also done extensive 

training with our staff so that the students can communicate, chat, upload 

assignments, etc with the teacher involved.  This has been a great mine-shift for 

the teachers, but I believe that it is an important one.  It allows staff and students 

to work after hours as well as being able to create collaboration projects between 

different students so that they can work on at their own time.  The students however 

think that this is awesome and really enjoy working in this manner.

There are really great advantages to this, going more paperless, students not loosing 

their work, parents been able to see the students work and all their assessments, 

as well as the dog not eating homework to mention a few. 

We have also implemented this into subjects that do not always lend itself to ICT, 

namely physical education.  Last term the students completed their theoretical 

component through social media, namely blogs and wikis.

I do believe that using social media in classrooms is a great way to keep the students 

more actively involved and the more things that we do that is aligned to the 21^st 

century student the easier our jobs as teachers become.

Simple Learning Time

Simple Learning Time

Two Parklands College Learners, Stephan and Luke, have developed an app called 

Simple Learning Time.

Simple Learning Time is a free educational app that has both a digital time and 

analogue clock display. Students can move the hands of the clock to display 

different times of the day in both 24 hour and 12 hour time formats. 

A rotating background indicates whether it is night or day. 

This can be used in many fun ways in the classroom.

Well done!!

Click here to download the app

Closing the Gender Gap in Education

Closing the Gender Gap in Education

Last year I was privileged to listen to Malala Yousafzai’s father (Ziauddin Yousafzai)  speak and I was really moved by what he said.  Here was a young girl who was born in 1997 and has done remarkable things on a global scale to benefit female education.

I have worked in a boys only school for the last sixteen years, but have two girls, obviously my planning is not that good...  

I am also fortunate to be able to meet with the local schools in our area to discuss what we are doing in ICT.  We have a couple of single sex schools around us and the boys love interacting with the girls’ schools around us.  In the computer class we created a board game that had a bias towards becoming an entrepreneur. Once completed we visited the girls’ schools and we then played the board games that the students had created.  The completed project can be found http://www.wsparrow.co.za/entrep/index.html

There is a girl’s school in our area that is really dynamic and they are offering advanced courses in science, mathematics and computer science and they even have after hour clubs for each of these, but this is not the norm.  The teachers are passionate, inspiring and every lesson is filled with real life teaching and learning which is aimed at the 21^st Century student.  The teachers are sharing the work that they do with other schools and communities.

I need to mention that there is no curriculum for ICT in the primary school, not even standards, which gives us the flexibility to create our own content.  In one respect this is great, but on a negative side this means that in some schools there is no teaching of ICT skills at all. 

I believe we are served a double blow in South Africa, firstly we have to deal with very high levels of poverty, as well as having such diverse schools.  We range from having rural schools with no electricity, very little infrastructure to schools that have everything.

Being in a boy’s primary school I am concerned about the academic gender gap.  

A strange phenomenon in South Africa is that there are more boys than girls in primary school, but this gets reversed in high school and tertiary institutions.  Where do all the boys go? I believe partly that the answer to this question is the way that schools are designed.  Most schools are setup in a traditional way, rows in classes, the teacher at the one end of the classroom, etc.  I believe that this learning environment is more structured to favour girls than boys.  Our entire staff attended a workshop entitled “Teaching Superman to Fly” and it was about how boy’s minds are wired differently to girls.  Using the information, we have adapted and put many structures and ideas in place to make the school a more boy friendly place for learning to take place.

I do not think that there is an easy, quick solution, but we have to start taking the initiative for the benefit of our students.

Microsoft Virtual Field Trips

Microsoft Virtual Field Trips

This is really awesome, you can do virtual field trips with other people from

around the world.  You can either bring other people into your classroom or

you can become the host.

There is really a great deal of field trips that are available.

It keeps on changing and new ones are being added all the time!

Click here to go to the Virtual Field Trips

#Microsoft Educator Network #MIEExpert15 #MSFTEduE2 #MSFTEdu #technology 

#edtech #MIEExpert 

Could YOU crack this code to land yourself a job?

Could YOU crack this code to land yourself a job?

Could YOU crack this code to land yourself a job? 

Recruiter releases first ever advert written entirely in computer language.

A new London-based website called Woto has a job listing written in code

It claims to be the first ever advert for employment of the sort

Applicants will need to crack the programming language in order to apply

The move is designed to highlight the growing important of coding in the UK, with schools now adding coding to their curriculum

Woto is a blogging site that lets people share content on custom-built pages

Do you know your ‘if’ statements from your ‘for’ loops?

If so, you might have a shot at the world’s first job advert written entirely in code.

Created by London-based Woto, the advert is looking for a creative designer to join the company - but they’ll need to be adept at coding to apply.

Speaking to MailOnline, Sophie Kurta from Sense Communications, 

who is handling the launch of the site, said there was a possibility more such 

job listings may go live in future as it is a ‘fun way of doing job adverts.’

She explained that as coding in schools in the UK is becoming a bigger issue, 

with it now on the curriculum for primary and secondary school pupils, 

the advert was seen as a good way to keep up with the times.

Excellent!!

#Microsoft Educator Network #MIEExpert15 #MSFTEduE2 #MSFTEdu #technology 

#edtech #MIEExpert 

Microsoft Imagine Access

Microsoft Imagine Access

Coding has become really big all around the world.

Microsoft has a range of different Free applications that you can use

from beginners learning to code to advanced.

Click here to go to Microsoft Imagine Access

This is all available from the Microsoft Virtual Academy

click here to go to the coding section of Microsoft Virtual Academy

#Microsoft Educator Network #MIEExpert15 #MSFTEduE2 #MSFTEdu #technology 

#edtech #MIEExpert 

Afrikaans on-line support

Afrikaans on-line support