Tech News & Tips for Parents

GMail, here we come!

This fall we have been going through a school-wide transition to GMail and Google Apps. Most teacher and administrative accounts have now been moved, and student accounts will be migrated on November 26. What does this mean?

• Faculty and staff have been very pleased with Google Apps. This program offers not only email, but also an integrated word processor, spreadsheet and presentation program which students can access from any internet-enabled computer.
• Google Apps also features document sharing, which we anticipate will be fantastic for group work.
• Another advantage of this program is that it saves revisions to documents, allowing teachers to comment and grade online, and letting teachers and students track a paper from rough draft to finished product.
• We will have a new domain: c-dh.org. This means that most faculty/staff addresses will be firstinitial+lastname@c-dh.org, and most student accounts will be lastname.firstname@c-dh.org.
• "Old" email addresses will remain valid, in other words either the old or new address can be used.

Look for these changes after Thanksgiving, and ask your student to show you our new program!

Fearmongering

Cyber-safety expert Nancy Willard, author of Cyber-Safe Kids, Cyber-Savvy Teens,  has written a compelling article on the tenor of many online safety discussions these days. This really resonated with me. As adults, it is our responsibility to be cognizant of what's going on onine and teach kids how to deal with it responsibly and safely. If we react to misuses of the Internet with panic, we risk losing credibility with kids, and they will be less likely to come to us with their online problems. Unfamiliarity can breed fear; when it comes to the Internet, better to move past our fears with a balanced and measured approach. Social networks like Facebook and mySpace are not inherently bad. Technology is not inherently bad. Their value depends on how we use them; this is where our kids need us!

*Cross posted at Tech Tips for Teaching & Learning *

Researching? Start here!

Students working on school projects commonly start with a Google search. Savvy students do not end there, however. Our own Library Media Center has an information-rich site full of great resources: http://www.cretin-derhamhall.org/StudentNet/references.htm. You'll find a variety of databases, references, news sites and more. Give it a look!

Have you Googled yourself lately?

Last night MPR's In the Loop aired a program titled "Your Exposed Life". It will be rebroadcast Wednesday, October 17 at 9:00 p.m., and is also available for live streaming or download on the website.

This program took a look at how much of our personal information is online, what the implications are, and what to do (or not do) about it. Some of the discussion had to do with who is looking for information on us, and what it could mean. How would college admissions offices or potential employers view your child's mySpace or Facebook page?

For many people, mySpace or Facebook is a fun social network. There's no inherent harm in it; like so many things, it depends on how it's used. Tools like this are, and will continue to be part of our lives, so we need to teach kids to use them well. We want our kids to be safe and to think before putting personal information online. Young people tend not to see the potential consequences of their actions, particularly online where they feel more anonymous and protected than they really are. Many believe that only their friends will ever see their mySpace page, and accuse adults of snooping if we look for them. We need to stress over and over again that this is public information, with all that implies. Once we put our information out there, it is hard to pull it back, even if we delete the page. Who knows who might have printed or downloaded it?

We need to do all we can to get this message across to the kids in our lives.

Wiki wiki wiki!

What's a wiki? Chances are your student will be working on one soon. Here's a great explanation:

Wikis in plain English

Did You Know?

Yesterday we were fortunate to have Scott McLeod, J.D., PhD speak to our faculty, staff and several Board members and guests. Scott is an Associate Professor in the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies at Iowa State University, as well as the coordinator of the Educational Administration Program and Director of the UCEA Center for the Advanced Study of Technology Leadership in Education (CASTLE).

Scott led us in a challenging day of considering what skills will be needed by our students in their future. In the next few days I'll share more about this, but today I invite you to take a look at this thought-provoking movie, "Did You Know?". We welcome your comments!

LCD Projection Systems Enhance Teaching & Learning

This past summer LCD projection systems were added to six more classrooms (plus the Media Center), bringing the total classrooms with these systems to thirteen. These systems offer teachers and students the opportunity to use not only DVD/VCR video, but also computer-based resources including podcasts, video, websites, blogs and more - and to use them on-the-fly and on a regular basis, without having to reserve equipment in advance.

For example, Social Studies teacher Mary Robison is using many resources from CNN, Values Symposium teachers show YouTube videos, and Science teachers make extensive use of full-length videos and clips from United Streaming (a subscription-based service from Discovery Education). As Biology teacher Ann Marie Froehle says, "It is almost the best thing that has happened to me at CDH!".

Passwords

It's that time of the year when we techies get many visits and emails from students who have forgotten their passwords. They do have a lot to remember: user id's and passwords for our network, Infinite Campus, Email and Moodle. Like many adults, they are tempted to use something easy, like their name, so they won't forget. After all, they reason, who would want to get into their account?

Well...in technology like so many other areas, high school is a time to form habits that will serve them well in their future. This generation will need to use passwords to fill out college applications and financial aid forms, do their banking and shopping, check their own and their children's grades, and more than we can probably even imagine. It's important that they learn and practice secure computing.

What makes a secure password? It should consist of letters, numbers and if possible another character such as an underscore or period. It should be at least 8 characters. It should NOT be your name, birthdate, telephone number, and certainly not your social security number! Ideally it would be totally random and would not make a word. For many kids this age, that makes it pretty hard to remember, but if you use words, at least split up the letters with numbers or symbols. And (nobody likes this one) you should change your password often; many companies force a password change every month or two.

To make life manageable, many of us use several passwords among our accounts. It goes without saying that the one you use for banking should not be the one you use for random websites! In the end, it's a matter of common sense. There ARE people out there who would like to know your passwords, and they are pretty savvy at doing it, so be vigilant about protecting yourself.

Keeping Kids Safe Online

Online safety is an issue that is getting a lot of attention these days, and CDH is no exception. This was one of the topics of teacher inservice time before school started this year, and we will continue to address the topic throughout the year.

Yesterday's Pioneer Press had a compelling article about online safety concerns here in the Twin Cities: http://www.twincities.com/allheadlines/ci_6794265, which includes excellent suggestions for parents and schools. We all need to work together to keep our kids safe and guide them toward responsible internet use.

Moodle All the Way

Have you heard of Moodle? However strange it may sound, it has become a great tool for teaching and learning at CDH, as well as many other schools.

TechTerms.com defines Moodle this way:

Stands for "Modular Object-Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment." Moodle is an open source course management system, originally developed by Martin Dougiamas. It is used by thousands of educational institutions around the world to provide an organized interface for e-learning, or learning over the Internet.

Moodle allows educators to create online courses, which students can access as a virtual classroom. A typically Moodle home page will include a list of participants (including the teacher and students) and a calendar with a course schedule and list of assignments. Other Moodle features include online quizzes, forums, where students can post comments and ask questions, glossaries of terms, and links to other Web resources.

Just one year after Moodle was introduced at CDH, teachers have created 74 currently active course websites for this year. The sites are as varied as the teachers and courses they represent. Some are used primarily for discussion forums to supplement classroom discussion, some include assignments, reviews, quizzes, glossaries and more. Use of Moodle is optional for teachers, but most students have at least one course website on Moodle.

Each student has his/her own user id and password, and enrolls in courses. Students are required to use their CDH email address to enroll; this enables us to protect students by limiting enrollment to our student body. Parents can access Moodle pages as guests, but should not attempt to enroll in the courses (enrolling puts you on the teacher's roster). To enter as a guest, obtain a course key from your student's teacher.

Moodle can be a terrific addition to a class. Ask your student to give you a tour!