Digital Citizenship. How Can We Say 'Thank You'

I am keen to act upon a recent recommendation to further develop digital citizenship practices at PIE. I must admit I have been focusing on the iPad roll out this year so this dropped off my radar.

Looking to next academic year, I would like to put some good practice into place. One of the biggest challenges is not only developing understandings about good Digital Citizenship practices but to sustain those good practices.

I have always believed in authentic experiences last the longest so I need an approach that would reflect this. Ongoing discussion is key.

Living in Indonesia it can be difficult to maintain the right perspective. You can readily buy pirated CDs at most shopping centres. Our students have difficulty in learning that just because you can access media, doesn't mean that you should take it and use it. Just because you bought a pirate CD or grabbed a resource online, doesn't mean that you can ethically use the contents. Some kids think that because they 'paid' for it (paid = spent $1 for the pirated copy) or found it themselves online - it's OK to use.

My message to students is citing information and media is like saying thank you to the one who made it. When someone does something for you, it's good manners to say thank you. Here is a way to say 'thank you'.

I am mostly working with the younger grades so I need some visuals to help bring the message and to give the class teacher a resource that they can refer to often. I have started working on some Info Graphic posters to be copied and put up in the classrooms. It is helping me that the current theme in Grade 4 is one of Digital Citizenship. I have been involved in talks with classes and from that I have a better perspective of the current situation.

I have made a start with posters for the younger grades. Take a look. I hope to build on this and level it up for older students. My first 3 are Recording Resources, Safe Information Searches and Safe Picture searches. I am looking for easy to follow accessible information. These posters will help classroom teachers get the message across and help them to remember what to do.

School-Based Book Publishing Group

I have started a book publishing group at school. We have currently around 15 teachers in the group. So far we have met as a group a couple of times to work out some agreements like a title page template and a proof reading system. We have already produced several books. Here is a photo of our first big book. We are fortunate to have colour photocopier machines in the school. The teachers are able to print wirelessly from their Macbooks to these photocopiers. The hard binding is done outside the school at a local photocopy centre. An A4 book costs Rp30.000 ($3.50) to bind and an A3 costs Rp60.000.

Our system is a simple one:

All work must be original which includes all photographs and written work

All books must include a Preface and a title page

All books must be proof read twice by a language teacher from the language of the book before the book goes to the printing stage

We intend to develop an eLibrary of our SWA-Published books. I am currently looking into a few options. I want the books to be embedded as well as on virtual bookshelves.

Here is a copy of our Essential Agreements:

ESSENTIAL AGREEMENTS OF SWA PUBLISHING GROUP

The number of pages must have a minimum of 15 sheets of paper. (for printing purposes due to hardback binding requirements, eBooks not limited to this)

All content must be original including text and pictures. Eg: photograph is taken by the SWA community (not downloaded from internet) children’s pictures or artwork may be scanned

Font and layout style must be consistent.

Fonts have to be easy to read.

Pictures should be clear (not too dark, not too bright, not blurry)

Parental permission need to be obtained, when the book would be published outside of the school

Language used in SWA books is according to the language guideline and is proofread by a proofreading process.

The topic can be vary in any subject or any grade level. (eg. picture book, non-fiction book)

The book should include preface

Here I am reading our first big book together with Grade 1. These kids co-wrote the book. They were very excited!!

Creative Story iBook about Merapi - Grade 1's First Joint Work

The Grade 1 students at the Jakarta World Academy have been following the recent eruptions of Mt. Merapi in Central Java. The students are very concerned about what has happened to the people living near the volcano who have lost their homes.
These Grade 1 students decided to write a story about what happened. To make the story more accessible to their age group the class teacher encouraged the class to write it in the style of a fairytale. The students were able to write a few sentences of their own each, which when put together make up the whole story.
The class has two iMacs so the students took turns to write up their story in Comic Life (a program that these young learners are already familiar with) on the computers to be later dropped into Pages to get it ready for iBook conversion.
So far each student has typed up their words and drawn a picture to accompany their part of the story. Now we are getting it into the correct sequence so that each page can be inserted into a Pages document ready for exporting as an ePub. The reason for making an iBook is that many of these children have iPads or iPod Touches at home and they want to be able to read their book on those devices. I am planning to have a small workshop when the book is ready for parents so that they can learn about how to put an ePub on the iPad and how to view it. We are also planning for our next research activity (individual student work) to be published as iBooks. I will also make a pdf version of the book for those students who don't have an iPod or iPad.

I'll keep you all posted.

Grade 1 - Wrapping up this UOI

Today the Grade 1 students worked in groups making presentations about their learning throughout this unit on Animal Life Cycles. They put all their work into a Keynote and will present it to the parent audience in the form of a television news report.
The kids are using Google SketchUp to talk about their trip to the zoo with the animals that they created themselves using Spore Creature Creator. They have learned to capture a movie of their animal and embed it into the Keynote presentation. The SketchUp will be linked to be opened so that one student can navigate within the 3D environment whilst their partner explains about the virtual zoo. As well as this they will share their animal reports that they each made about their chosen animal.

Movement - A Follow Up Lesson in Keynote

Movement in Grade 1 - Making a simple animation

The Grade 1 students this morning used Keynote in their UOI lesson to further explore the concept of movement. Here is an example Keynote made by one of the students.

Who Am I? Beliefs

In Grade 1 the students are making mini presentations about their beliefs. This is one example by Kayla. She is taking a photo of herself using the webcam to put into her Keynote.

The Grade 1 students are easily able to make multimedia presentations independently. All of this work is currently being collated and put into a digital portfolio. The teacher will burn each student portfolio to DVD to be sent home for the parents to see.


We decided to save the keynotes as a Quicktime movie so that parents can view them on a Windows computer as well.

Using Sketchup in Grade 1 - Yes Grade 1!

Today the students in Grade 1 made virtual restaurants as the final activity in the current Unit of inquiry about Healthy Food. The students had already made food drawings using Kidpix and Keynote presentations about what's in their lunch boxes. Today we decided to be risk-takers and try using Sketchup. I was quite prepared to change the activity if it was too hard.



So what happened? Amazing things happened! I am a firm believer that if you can use technologies you should so long as the activity is age appropriate. Some teachers prefer to only use some programs with certain classes. I think that by the time the Grade 1 kids are in Grade 5 (when we usually introduce Sketchup) there will be new software developed anyway.

So we tried it. Only after a few basic instructions the kids were off and running. One boy had finished his base, roof and windows and then went ahead trying out the different fill textures. I told him to 'go for it' and not wait for the teacher.



Soon others were looking at his screen and asking for his help. Even the class teacher was learning from the students. Of course there were some kids that needed extra help and more time - but doesn't that always happen?

By allowing the kids to go ahead the task was quickly completed and the fast finishers were able to help out their friends (which they loved to do).

The results were very good and now the class teacher will repeat this activity during Maths lessons (connecting it with the current work on 3D shapes) to further develop their understanding and skills.

What's My Lunch Today - Part 2

Today in Grade 1 the students continued with their Keynote presentations about the food that they eat for lunch.

To make their presentations even more interesting the students made video clips using the Macbook webcams about their lunch.










After the students had finished this task we went to Playnormous.com and played Lunch Crunch http://www.playnormous.com/gameplay_lunchcrunch.cfm
What a fun game! It is important that children learn about healthy eating so that they can make better food choices. Playnormous is a great site with lots of games and class activities that support the games on the site.

Grade 1 - What's My Lunch Today?

In Grade 1 today the students make an inquiry into what is in their lunchbox. The kids were easily able to photograph their food by holding it up to the laptops, capture it by using Photo Booth and then labeling the different food using Keynote. The kids then made a picture search to find similar food online. Take a look:

Grade 1 using the laptops from the cart

Here is Grade 1 in action. They are making food pictures using Kid Pix. Look at how engaged these kids are!