Internet safety – fear tactics don’t work

via NetFamilyNews

Last week Chairman Julius Genachowski unveiled the children-and-family part of the FCC’s universal broadband plan, designed to enable, among other things, 21st-century education. There’s just one problem: Schools have long turned to law enforcement for guidance in informing their communities about youth safety on the Net, broadband or otherwise, and the guidance they’re getting scares parents, school officials, and children about using the Internet.

Read the rest of this article from Net Family News Major obstacle to universal broadband & what can help for the real facts about Internet safety.

Ann Collier has collected a compact list of resources that YOU NEED today about a new approach called the “social norms” approach, used by health professionals to “identify, model, and promote the healthy, protective behavior.”

The scare tactics and stranger-danger approach prevalent over the last decade is “doubly problematic”, says Ann. It not only fails to change behavior, it hampers the efforts of educators to integrate technology into meaningful, relevant learning experiences for youth that WOULD change behavior.

The good news is this appears to be changing, and kudos to the FCC for seeing this so clearly – the bad news is, there’s still a long way to go to reach most K-12 schools.

Sylvia

Student Leadership – Building Authentic 21st Century Skills

This is an archive from my webinar at the Cyber Conference for the Capitol Region ISTE affiliate (CRSTE) held on Feb. 27, 2010.

Student Leadership – Building Authentic 21st Century Skills
Clicking this link will launch the Elluminate web meeting tool and start the archived webinar. It may ask you to OK launching Elluminate. Once it starts, it’s just like you had attended the online webinar in real time. You can hear the recording, see the slides, and watch the chat log.

See the list of all archived sessions

In this session, I talk a bit about how empowerment and engagement are an essential part of the cycle of learning. Hope you give a listen!

Sylvia

Back to New York and NYSCATE

Well, it seems like I just got home from the east coast, and I’m off again!

This time I’m headed for the New York State education technology conference NYSCATE in Rochester, NY November 23-25, 2008. I’m looking forward to seeing old friends and meeting new ones, most likely at Dinosaur BBQ.

If you are going to NYSCATE, be sure to check out these sessions:

NYSSTL –Technology Leadership for the 21st Century
Sunday, 1:45PM Stacy Ward
Learn how the HFM and WSWHE BOCES have created the New York State Student Technology Leaders (NYSSTL) Club in 30 middle schools. Students help their teachers learn to use technology and their classmates prove their tech literacy, creating a community of 21st century learning in our schools.

Where Teachers Learn, Where Teachers Teach
Monday, 10:45AM Sylvia Martinez
For many teachers, technology professional development happens outside the classroom and never crosses the doorstep into the classroom. This session will explore two models of professional development that cross that barrier: classroom embedded and student-led professional development.

Little Green Monsters: The XO and Its Implication For Education
Tuesday 10:30AM Brian C. Smith, Sylvia Martinez, Dr. Gary Stager
The XO low cost laptop was designed to revolutionize education in the developing world. The panel will discuss the lessons we can gain from this learning initiative and the implications for the future of education. We will also explore why such a simple idea has created such controversy.

By the way, I’m happy to have someone record, live blog, or ustream my sessions IF you can come and do it. It’s just too hard to do it AND present.

After that, it’s back to New York City for a family/friends Thanksgiving, and then some workshops in Brooklyn. More about that later!

Sylvia

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Students, Teachers, Parents and Administrators Speak Up!

Speak Up BannerAnnouncing Speak Up 2008: Oct 27 – Dec 18, 2008

Since inception, Speak Up, the national online research project facilitated by Project Tomorrow, has collected the viewpoints of over 1.2 million students, educators and parents on key educational issues and shared them with local and national policy makers.

This is your opportunity to have your students, teachers, administrators and parents participate in the local and national dialogue about key educational topics including: technology use, 21st century schools, science and media/information literacy.

For registration information, click here.