TWITTER NOTES FROM SCHOOLNET CONFERENCE 2013

http://storify.com/AfricanTrace/schoolnet-sa-conference-2013.html
This is my first attempt at using storify. My thoughts on it is that one should storify daily otherwise you lose information. It does not seem to be able to pick up tweets for more than a couple of days.

TEACHERS NEED TO CHANGE

Watch this video put together by a group of teachers who recognise the necessity for ICT in education. Many teachers are resisting the inclusion of technology into their classrooms, especially at Junior School level. This is unfortunately detrimental to the overall education of the children. Once they reach High School they need to have a certain amount of ICT knowledge and to leave it all to the IT teacher, who has half an hour a week, is negligent.

This video is of a schoolgirl speaking about blogging and why teachers should incorporate blogs in schooling.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ve8hxNGIFJ0&feature=player_embedded

EDUCATORS TIPS

Here is a link to a list of Twitter Hashtags every educator should know. They are for chats on education. This is a great PLN learning exercise. http://edudemic.com/2012/01/20-hashtags/

This video is very interesting too, giving 10 reasons why technology should be used in a classroom. http://youtu.be/mzi2RIt8_nk

MOUSE SKILLS

This is the most amazing mouse skills game. I'm definitely going to use it with my Grade R and Grade 1 classes. The graphics are good, the language is clear and there is no reading required. I have been looking for an application like this for a long time and am delighted to have found this. www.headsprout.com/code/launchMA.cfm

Library Blog

I've started a library blog for our school - a big step for me. so far my posts have mainly been new books, but I've added links to the web pages and put in pictures of the books too. I'm wondering how I'm going to keep up with all of my new ideas. They seem like the right thing to do to bring the school along the fast track of ICT in education, but they also seem to be very time consuming. Between that, watching Twitter (using Tweetdeck) keeping up with my emails and starting class blogs, which entails administrating them, as well as teaching a new subject, running the library and computer room, staff education and teaching... But I'm LOVING it. I just sleep really well at night, with the odd dream of being chased around by a blog monster or the Twitter bird.

http://educationaltechnologyguy.blogspot.com/2012/01/google-announces-new-google-in.html. Follow this link to an amazing page of Google technology for education. Let's face it, we're always looking for applications for diverse ideas. Here's the place to find them.

http://beartravel.wordpress.com/

Go to this page to see how a Geography teacher in the Netherlands turned her class into a travel agency...