Welcome to today's workshop. We will be looking at the place of social media in modern education through examining the phenomenon of the "selfie". I ask that you participate online at Go Soap Box and Google Forms.

The web URLs are here:

Go Soapbox - app.gosoapbox.com access code DigiLearn

Google Forms - http://goo.gl/forms/8Z2URwv88i

Using online tools to get students understand each others thinking is an example of purposeful and intentional use of technologies as a learning tool. To experience this and put ourselves in the pace of the learner we will be using some digital tools and considering their purpose and application for learning.

Finding out about the self - compared to others.

How do find out what students already know? How to you build on this? How do you use this information to create multiple entry points into the learning and therefore differentiate your teaching? Using a google form is one way of integrating the use of an online tool to help ascertain information about your students. It could also act as a reflection tool to give you information about yourself as a teacher through their eyes. Finding out about myself.

http://bit.ly/Martsint

or Narcissism?

View https://screen.yahoo.com/history-selfie-212239602.html

Song
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdemFfbS5H0

Innovation - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=muBxDVdzbQw

Many fret that this explosion of selfies proves that ours is an unusually narcissistic age.

Discussing one selfie, the Post trotted out a tired line about “the greater global calamity of Western decline.” C’mon: The moral sky isn’t falling. Marina Galperina, who with fellow curator Kyle Chayka presented the National #Selfie Portrait Gallery, rightly says,

“It’s less about narcissism—narcissism is so lonely!—and it’s more about being your own digital avatar.”


Chayka adds, “Smartphone selfies come out of the same impulse as Rembrandt’s ... to make yourself look awesome.”


Franco says selfies “are tools of communication more than marks of vanity … Mini-Mes that we send out to give others a sense of who we are.”

Selfies are our letters to the world. They are little visual diaries that magnify, reduce, dramatize—that say, “I’m here; look at me.” Jerry Saltz http://www.vulture.com/2014/01/history-of-the-selfie.html

Image- Aboriginal Art, Kakadu, by Karen Butler - Copyright free.

Image- Aboriginal Art, Kakadu, by Karen Butler - Copyright free.

The selfie has become symbolic of educators and the broader community discounting social media as time wasting, flippant and a social evil.

Whereas it can be a powerful tool for learning if used purposefully and intentionally by the educator.

Protecting young children's privacy is important. Sometimes students who do not have permission for their mages to be in an online space can use avatars instead. Here is an app that uses an avatar. Students can also use them to pretend they are in another place in time or space.

Helps young children create a narrative using images of the self in a fantasy setting. Another great app is Toontastic that supports teaching the narrative arc.

Take five photos and add voice - I feel happy, sad, mad and two others...when...

Giving students a vocab about feelings is important.

This activity teaches the skills of photostory and self portraiture.

Where could you share your art works with an authentic audience?

Teachers who are not engaging in some form of social media are missing an experience that is native to their students. It is crucial for people to understand the places our students inhabit

The most important aspect for teachers engaging in professional development through social media is this notion that the smartest person in the room, is the room.

No longer are conversations limited to the person you are sitting next to, or small group facilitation.

Professionals can think and comment on the go and share their thoughts with each other through back channels facilitated by tools like Twitter and Todaysmeet.

Shifts in education have been created by mobility and ubiquity, these are

A change in the way we understand privacy. Deprivatising classroom practice is now more possible that ever. This introduces levels of discomfort as well as new opportunities for learning from colleagues

A change from instructive practice to more constructivist practice - not an either or but a need to recognise the place of both.

The curriculum is not being delivered by teachers. It should be seen as a basic entitlement on which we can co create content, liberate student passions and allow them to amplify their learning to a more global audience

Learning used to be differentiated, now we are talking about personalising the learning - creating many entry points to the same content.

There is a move from standardised assessment to more unique co-created assessment models.

Tools to explore.

Twitter: hashtags #edchat #artschat @sateachlearn

Facebook: Teaching and Learning in SA Page, join groups. Share info. Create a page.

Google Plus - join communities, share info. PS4CbyC

Pinterest: Online crapbooking - bookmarks great ideas. See DigiLearners -
http://www.pinterest.com/digilearners/

Wordpress - blogging - good for reflection, online e-portfolio. mrs-butler.com

Edmodo - like facebook for kids. Great place to securely connect kids with each other. Can have quizzes, polls, discussions, rewards - badges, gradebook.

Go Soapbox - student response system - great discussion tool - no pics

Today's Meet - Like Twitter. 140 characters - microblogging. Good for discussion - no pics

Animoto - free - 30 second video production and sharing

Thinglink - allows students to add hyperlinks to a single picture.