Support Documents for K12 Online Conference

I will update this post as the support documents post for my K12 Online Conference Presentation.

More to come later ...

My Wordle of a Year of Twittering

My Facebook Results

I tried the "How Facehooked Are You?" quiz and my result was Good Facetime.

How Facehooked Are You?

Good Face-time You're on your way to becoming a Facebook addict, but you're not quite there yet.

Created by Oatmeal

Learning with Smartboard

Today 5 students from University Pelita Harapan visited SWA to learn about how technology is used in the teaching and learning process. When visiting Grade 4, the Uni students got to learn first hand from the kids how to use the Smartboard for Maths. They all agreed that using the Smartboard is really engaging and helps to consolidate concepts.

Interactive Storybook using iPhone/iPod Touch

I just found this today and thought that I'd share it here on this blog. SWA has just bought 15 iPod Touches to use as a part of our Digital Library resources and for class activities. I really like the way this syncs in with the story book holder. Next term at SWA I am planning an iPhone Game Creation EX (After school activity). I would like to share this with that group as something that we could try to produce as well.

Sky Diving via The Green Screen

Today the Grade 10 had some fun trying out Sky Diving via the Green Screen. Take a look at the demo video.

Blogging with MYP

As a part of SWA's new Netiquette program in MYP, I will be teaching a lesson a week in online learning. To get things started I have been teaching all the students to create a blog and getting them enthusiastic by customizing it with templates and widgets. Here is an example of one of the blogs using a beautiful template from BTemplates.

Playing Enter Zon in Intermediate Chinese Lessons

Here are some Middle School students at SWA playing the online role playing game 'Enter Zon'. It has become very popular as the game is quite engaging and encourages kids to immerse themselves in the language.

Google Safesearch - Updated Service

When you're searching on Google, SafeSearch, is a feature that lets you filter sexually explicit web sites and images from your search results. While no filter is 100% accurate, SafeSearch helps you avoid content you may prefer not to see or would rather your children did not stumble across.

Today they launched a feature that lets you lock your SafeSearch setting to the Strict level of filtering. When you lock SafeSearch, two things will change. First, you'll need to enter your password to change the setting. Second, the Google search results page will be visibly different to indicate that SafeSearch is locked:

Even from across the room, the colored balls give parents and teachers a clear visual cue that SafeSearch is still locked. And if you don't see them, it's quick and easy to verify and re-lock SafeSearch.

To use SafeSearch lock, go to the "Search Settings" page on Google. For detailed instructions, check out this video:


I will teach my Parent class this afternoon about using this new feature.

Apple Remote Desktop Monitoring

Here at SWA we monitor all the Macbooks in the school using Apple Remote Desktop. It is truly a powerful tool that enables all teachers to see the student's screens whenever they need to. Our IT Tech Dept monitors every screen in the school. We use an Internet filter but Remote Desktop enables us to interact with students through chat, control the screen, view a whole class at once and lock the screen.

As a teacher I like to use it to guide the students in their work. I send messages about what they are doing to help guide the students more individually. You might argue that walking around the class has the same effect. For me Remote Desktop allows me to send my students off to work on a project in a quiet place away from the classroom. I don't have to worry that they will be off task as I can see their screen and know what they are up to.

On the technical side our on site technicians can help students with troubleshooting remotely. Just yesterday in Grade 3, one of the students was about to use iMovie to edit a documentary, only to discover that his laptop (from the laptop cart) had iMovie '08 instead of '09. I used iChat to contact our Tech Dept and they were able to install iMovie '09 remotely.




The photo shows the student waiting for the update with his screen locked via Remote Desktop so that he cannot press the wrong key during the installation. The problem was solved within 10 minutes.