TeachToday

NTEL - eSafety Environment

2011-02-27T06:19:04Z

The main goals of the project are to develop an eSafety environment to enable ICT support in school (http://klimentvarna.net) and to offer a great variety of materials orientate towards a vast group of users – such as teachers, students and parents, and everyone, who uses the portal should be able to test one’s own knowledge and skills in relation to the theme of eSafety.

Target groups are teachers, pupils aged 7-9 and 15-17.

The main task of the students, who are constructing the portal, is to discuss the concepts and principles of the themes: the responsible use of modern technologies and the students’ safeness while they are online, without realizing these themes it is not possible to apply the project eSafety.

During the creation of the portal, students participated in lively discussions related to the promotion of the responsible use of modern technologies. Different methods of protection from spyware, spam and password theft are discussed and they are made by the students from senior classes during the construction of the portal. The students accepted at heart the idea through this medium, to present to their classmates different ways students are safe when they are online. While working on the project eSafety, the students also become motivated in construction of php application and instruments for realization of their ideas about eSafety Internet and environment. The senior students improve their skills and show their work to younger students, who in their turn are very pleased and they acquire and perform what they have learned from the senior students.

Led by Teachtoday, our team decided the logo of the environment NTEL to include “eSafety Environment”.

Due to the importance of the topic, we put in the main menu theme “eSafety”.

A few modules are realized in the portal for training on the theme “eSafety”.

Module 1: To create a lesson and tests in addition to that lesson.

Every parent, student or teacher could register and look at them. After you have filled the test, the result is added to the user profile and the teacher, who has created the eSafety course, can see how each one has cope with the tests. The teacher generalizes the results and makes statistics for the questions with the lowest percentage of right answers.

We have the following division of the teaching materials:

Interactive materials for the youngest children

The senior students present

For teachers and parents from teachers and parents

The environment allows a publication, a search, an interchange, and a multiple use of the learning objects to be carried out. The pupils have prepared presentations (some of them are interactive) on the following issues:

- the responsible use of modern technologies

- the students are safe when they are online

Module 2: Gallery

The students are assigned tasks to create collages on the theme “eSafety projects” and the best will appear in the gallery on the site.

One of the students involved in designing of the site proposed an icon for eSafety, which was placed in front of the articles.

Module 3: eSafety articles. With the help of Valentina Petrova the scholars will create their articles.

Module 4: Communications (blog and forum)

In the forum and blog, all users can express their views and suggestions for safe browsing in the Internet.

NTEL is used by The Department for Information and In-service Teacher Training in Varna in which most of the teachers from Bulgaria increased their qualification. Thus unite around more teachers and their students about the topic “eSafety projects”. A workshop for teachers from the whole country will be organized together with Department for Information and In-service Teacher Training. They will get acquainted with our ideas about the project, and will have the opportunity to add materials to the portal.

It is planned to have the site translated into English.

Anyone who sees the site has the opportunity to get acquainted with the work of our team on the topic.

It is foreseen to organize workshops on the theme “eSafety” with students and teachers from different countries in cooperation with the international camp in the village of Kranevo.

Owing to our contacts with teachers from different countries from all over the world we share our ideas and experiences on promoting the responsible use of digital technologies.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Valentina Petrova, Teacher in ICT, Varna, Bulgaria, vmb75bg@abv.bg

Don't Copy-Paste!

2011-02-22T16:28:27Z

ELENA VLADESCU

Nicolae Titulescu National Vocational College, Slatina, Romania.

elenateachict@yahoo.com

My name is Elena Vladescu and I am Physics and Computer Science teacher in a school from Slatina, Romania.

I am planning to start in February a project on “Copy – Paste” practice. I noticed that not many of my students are aware of the traps of Copy – Paste practice.
Target group: high school students from my school

Steps:

-establish two teams of five volunteers each (16 years old);

-survey on plagiarism in our high – school;

-evaluation of the survey results by the volunteers and communication of these results to the target group;

-information leaflets on plagiarism, creativity protection and copyright laws (for students and teachers);

-Power Point presentation in the Students Council, school website and school magazine;

-set up of a special website;

-set up of a Facebook discussions group;

-enlargement of own campaign to the lower secondary level in our school.

Learning outcomes:

-found out plagiarism proportions in our high school;

-students information on plagiarism consequences, protection methods of creativity and copyright laws;

-special website created by voluntaire students;

-Facebook discussions group on Copy – Paste practice.

INNOVATION:

My "Don't Copy-Paste!" volunteers ideas:

- information campaigne on Copy-Paste traps, plagiarism and creativity protections;

- to establish a "Don't Copy-Paste!" Day yearly in our school;

- to invite experts in a videoconference to talk to the students about copyright laws and plagiarism consequences;

- to repeat our survey next year to measure our campaigne results;

- logo and drawing contests for our special website.

STUDENT PARTICIPATIONS:

- volunteers students will participate in the planning, implementation, evaluation and dissemination parts of the project;

- volunteers team will participate in the coordination the project;

- the whole high school will participate in the survey, logo and drawing contests.

SUSTAINABILITY AND REPLICABILITY OF THE INITIATIVE:

We plan to repeat our survey next year to measure our campaigne results and to establish a "Don't Copy-Paste!" Day yearly in our school, as I said before. Also, if will be a succes, we plan to extend our project to the gymnasium level and also, in the whole town, if possible.

WEB PICTIONARY

2011-02-28T18:09:57Z

lidija_prof@yahoo.com; lidija.branilovic@skole.hr

My name is Lidija Branilović and I'm an English teacher and a webmaster of our school websites: www.os-inovaka-macinec.skole.hr. Here is a project which I decided to put across my students who also take ICT classes.

PUPILS: 5 – 8 graders AGE: 10 – 15

NUMBER OF PUPILS: 2 groups of 15 (total 30)

PROJECT: Web Pictionary (Programme)

TIME LIMIT: 4 – 6 months

DESCRIPTION: - elderly students are going to do a web pictionary – from A to Z writing the words for Internet safety and also drawing, making images and pictures representing the words and / or definitions. - The vocabulary would be consulted with an ICT and an English teach (there are lessons on computers and Internet in every English Students' Book nowadays). - Except the pure vocabulary, students would make their own warnings on the topic. - Their work will be presented to all the teachers and younger students who are going to use it in their classrooms. - Students at our school are mainly Roma population (almost 80%) so the language barrier is something we deal with everyday – I decided to do it in English (without any translation into Croatian, as it isn't even their mother tongue), but it can be done in German, too.

POSSIBLE VOCABULARY: HTML, HTTP, ISP, WAN, LAN, WEB, WWW, blog, site, upload, download, virus, firewall, etc. from the simpliest to the most complicated. Warnings on the Internet Safety would be totally students' work.

OBJECTIVES: - developing creativity - developing language skills - developing working habits - teaching tolerance - teaching younger students the basis of ICT - encouraging students to present their own work - making students aware of all the (dis)advantages Internet brings - not being afraid of talking about the Internet safety and asking questions about it (no matter how much or little they know about it)

INNOVATION: - Younger students (grades 1 to 4) in Croatia don't have ICT classes in school. So, they should be taught the very basis about computers, programmes (hardware/software) and the Internet. - Also, older students (grades 5 to 8) take ICT as an extracurricular class, and not all of them take it. - So, in the process of making this programme, we would include mainly students with ICT knowledge, but they would as well teach others. - Each student would have his small group of 3-4 students and mentor them until they get it all right. - Also, parents would be involved in the process: workshops on Internet safety and doing research on-line.

STUDENT INVOLVEMENT: - students from grades 5 to 8 who take ICT classes would be working on the programme itself, and later on present it to all the other students, parents and teachers. - All the students would get short notes on how to use the programme.

SUSTAINABILITY & REPLICABILITY OF THE INITIATIVE - Younger students should be taught the very basis of ICT but this should be done by elderly students (with the supervision of an ICT teacher), because 37% of students learn and remember more when they hear it from another student then from a teacher. - This programme could be in every computer in school, and every classroom could easily have access to it. Teachers could ask students to find something, or they could do it themselves. - Also, this project could be easily done in correlation to any other school subject, for example - it could be done in German as well

LEARNERS' OUTCOMES: - elderly students will develop and practice their presentational skills as well as their speaking skills (they'll become tutors and mentors now) - younger students will learn the basic information about computer hardware and software - They will listen about the Internet safety, the advantages and disadvantages of the Internet - they will discuss the warnings on Internet safety as well as make their own afterwards

TEACHERS INVOLVED: - English teacher - ICT teacher - The principle

TELL ME AND I'LL FORGET;

SHOW ME AND I'LL REMEMBER;

LET ME TRY AND I'LL UNDERSTAND!

Proiect - "Si(n)gur pe Internet"

2011-02-21T11:52:51Z

In urma activitatii realizate cu prilejul "Zilei sigurantei pe Internet" am initiat impreuna cu un grup de elevi proiectul "Si(n)gur pe Internet".

Obiectivul principal al proiectului il constituie popularizarea in randul elevilor a problemelor care pot aparea in decursul utilizarii Internetului si a modalitatilor de solutionare a acestora.

Proiectul consta in realizarea lunara a unui scenariu sub forma de material video sau ppt, postarea acestuia pe blogul dedicat proiectului http://sigurantapeinternet.blogspot.com/ si dezbaterea intrarilor sub forma comentariilor online de catre elevi.

Conditia pe care trebuie sa o indeplineasca materialele propuse este sa reflecte cat mai mult cu putinta realitatea zilnica a fiecaruia dintre noi in ce priveste situatiile intalnite atunci cand folosim serviciile furnizate de Internet.

Etapele proiectului:

constituirea echipei de elevi care va coordona activitatea
stabilirea programului de lucru si a modalitatilor de colaborare/comunicare intre membrii echipei
stabilirea sarcinilor care le revin fiecarui membru al echipei
elaborarea temelor care vor fi propuse pentru a fi realizate sub forma de ppt sau spoturi video;temele vor acoperi temele majore legate de navigarea in siguranta pe Internet
realizarea materialeleor si postarea acestora
analiza si interpretarea comentariilor postate despre materialele propuse
concluzii, diseminarea rezultatelor in randul elevilor scolii
promovarea proiectului si a blogului pe site-ul scolii http://scoli.didactic.ro/cntarghezi la sectiunea Proiecte educationale

Termen de desfasurare a proiectului :martie-iunie 2011

Prof.Popescu Corina

Profesor de informatica

Colegiul National "Tudor Arghezi", Tg.-Carbunesti, Gorj, ROMANIA

Safer Internet Day 2011

2011-02-14T07:55:23Z

Cu prilejul " Zilei sigurantei pe Internet " am organizat pentru prima data in scoala o campanie de informare a elevilor pe tema utilizarii in siguranta a Internetului.

In acest scop am incarcat toate materialele utilizate pe un wiki pentru resurse care vor putea fi folosite ca model pentru activitati viitoare.Rezultatele activitatii sub forma de comentarii, vor fi consemnate de catre participanti pe blogul dedicat acestui eveniment.

La activitate au fost invitati sa participe elevi pe grupe diferite de varsta precum si cadre didactice.Resursele au fost puse la dispozitie de consortiul Sigur.info, reprezentant Insafe in Romania.

In urma desfasurarii activitatii s-a format un grup de lucru care a propus continuarea lunara a acestei activitati prin intermediul blogului , care va fi folosit pentru analiza si dezbaterea unor studii de caz propuse de elevi, sub forma de materiale video sau prezentari PowerPoint.

Prof.Popescu Corina

EDUTAINMENT ON-LINE

2011-01-23T21:20:21Z

Pupils are known to be interested in everything they hear about; they often want to be an active part of the teaching process and also good peer correctors. They want to teach each other new things that they find interesting and well-learnt. I'm a webmaster in our school although I don't teach ICT. My pupils want to be that, too. So, I came up with an idea of letting them do a smaller part of our web sites (for the beginning) - they will write/talk/sing/act/show all kind of things they feel other students should know. But, as pupils can't always be trusted because they get funny ideas from time to time, I'll let them write whatever they want and put it on our site but via me (so, I'll be checking their entries and uploading them for starters). As our school is Roma population majority and many (if not all) of the Roma people don't have computers at home, and therefor can't do this but also have great ideas - I've come across a minor problem and solved it. I'll be working ICT with them in school letting them use school computers for two hours a week and also take part in this project. Pupils will teach other pupils new things (EDUCATION) but also present interesting and fun things others would probably like (ENTERTAINMENT) so - that's where the name comes from: EDU - TAINMENT. Activities: ICT teaching after school; downloading and uploading interesting materials they did themselves Time limit: January 2011 - June 2011 Number of pupils engaged: 20 (2 from each class)

Better Safe Than Sorry ...

2011-01-30T16:59:18Z

“Better Safe Than Sorry …” (BSTS) is a project meant to raise awareness among pupils (aged 13-14) and their parents around online safety issues and educate them about the responsible use of New Technologies in general and social networking sites in particular.

The idea of such a project came to me in October 2010, when I had a meeting with my pupils’ parents. While we were talking about their concerns, quite many of them told me they would ban their children from using the Internet in general and New Media (social networking sites), in particular because of the dangers their children could encounter online. I told them that it wouldn’t be a good idea for their kids’ future because the use of the Internet could provide great educational benefits to their children. Fortunately, I persuaded them not to do that and decided to help them with that important issue. Besides, I also had some ready-made lesson plans and digital resources on e-safety.

Project period: November 2010 – May 2011

Activities:

- creating the project web page

- teaching lessons on online security and e-safety every month (2-3 hours)

- celebrating Safer Internet Day 2011 in February and contributing to our National Awareness Centre blog (my 7th graders will share their experience on e-safety with other children and disseminate our BSTS project); getting familiar with a Helpline/Report an Abuse section

- organizing a workshop – “Pupils Teach Pupils” (focused on tips for protecting kids’ privacy online) that will be conducted by my 7^th graders A for their peers. They will teach their 5^th graders A how to create an online comic strip with e-safety tips that will be printed and displayed in the school hallway

- providing both technical and e-safety advice to my pupils’ parents in the ICT suite every month

- organizing an interactive contest and a workshop for representatives from other schools (pupils and teachers) in order to disseminate our project and raise awareness about online safety issues among other pupils

- uploading the best outcomes of our project (as well as photos taken during our project activities) on the project web page

- evaluating the project through questionnaires completed by both my pupils and their parents

Outcomes: PowerPoint presentations, posters, comic strips, flyers, blog posts, web page

Dissemination: workshop and interactive contest, blog, web page, posters and flyers

Evaluation: questionnaires

For more information about our e-Safety project, click here.

Project coordinator: Andreea Silter

Teacher of English and ICT project coordinator,

Bucharest, Romania

andreeasil@yahoo.co.uk

Safely use of new edtools and application web 2.0 and social media in special needs education .

2011-01-22T08:19:49Z

My name is Duma Cornel Lucian ( pr.lucian@gmail.com ) . I am teacher from Caransebes Romania and all my students are children with special needs . I think that new technologies, edtools and applications web 2.0 and social media open the gateway to knowledge in education in XXI century for teachers and also for students . Although my students have special needs I try to help them to use safely ict and internet and this thing even more because last year I was selected by Stephane Chaudron from European Schoolnet to work in Teaching Internet Safety project under EUN and TeachToday . After I launch #edtech20 project - free project in the clouds for teachers around the world ,, Teach , learn and play in XXI century using in a e-Safety way tools and applications web 2.0 and social media in education 2.0 “ who was selected finalist in Elearning Awards 2010 - runner up in the category ENISA silver award for teaching online safety and citizenship organized by European Schoolnet and Enisa . For this reason I propose and my propose was accepted by my headteacher and Caras-Severin County School Inspectorate to teach a optional course : ,, The computer my friend “ and in this course I teach my students how to use safely new technologies web 2.0 and social media .

Every mounth I teach my students how to use safely new edtools . My students work can be follow on our page from this wiki http://e-safety4etwinners.wikispaces.com/1.+Teacher+DUMA+CORNEL+LUCIAN%2C+Special+School+Caransebes+Romania+-+Founder

In Octomber I teach my students how to use internet safely and Netiquette .

In November they learned more safely rules using eSafety kit . http://www.esafetykit.net/index2.html

In December like in every year we celebrate the birth of Son of God or Christmas .

My students make paintings , drawings , ornaments and Christmas cards .

http://studentsallovereuropecelebrategodsbirth.piczo.com/?cr=2

In January and February with all this photos and videos from December students will make Glogster Edu presentations .

Mars – In this mounth students will learn to make safely animation like this exemple .

April - Students will learn to make safely tagclouds and also they will learn how can collaborate safely on-line using google apps May – In this mounth we will have the conclusion of all this edtools and applications related to eSafety in the online walls like wallwisher .

Copy-Paste practice

2011-01-21T14:40:47Z

ELENA VLADESCU

Nicolae Titulescu National Vocational College, Slatina, Romania.

elenateachict@yahoo.com

I am planning to start in February a project on “Copy – Paste” practice.

Target group: high school students from my school.

Steps:

-establish two teams of five volunteers each (16 years old);

-survey on plagiarism in our high – school;

-evaluation of the survey results by the volunteers and communication of these results to the target group;

-information leaflets on plagiarism, creativity protection and copyright laws (for students and teachers);

-Power Point presentation in the Students Council, school website and school magazine;

-set up of a special website;

-set up of a Facebook discussions group;

-enlargement of own campaign to the lower secondary level in our school.

Expected results:

-found out plagiarism proportions in our high school;

-students information on plagiarism consequences, protection methods of creativity and copyright laws;

-special website created by voluntaire students;

-Facebook discussions group on Copy – Paste practice.

NTEL - eSafety Environment

2011-01-29T06:57:06Z

It is essential that the benefits and risks of using new technologies are well understood in the context of application.

The main goal of the project is to develop an eSafety environment to enable ICT support secondary school (http://klimentvarna.net). The environment allows a publication, a search, an interchange, and a multiple use of the learning objects to be carried out.

During the creation of the site, students participated in lively discussions related to promotion of the responsible use of modern technologies. The students accepted at heart the idea the medium to present to their classmates different ways students are safe when they are online. Anyone who sees the site has the opportunity to get acquainted with the work of our team on the topic.

Led by Teachtoday, our team decided the logo of the environment NTEL to include “eSafety Environment”.

Due to the importance of the topic, we put in the main menu theme “eSafety”. This menu includes presentations, gallery and articles. The pupils have prepared presentations (some of them are interactive) on the following issues:

- the responsible use of modern technologies

- the students are safe when they are online

One of the students involved in designing of the site proposed an icon for eSafety, which was placed in front of the articles. With the help of Valentina Petrova the scholars will create their articles.

The students are assigned a task to create collages on the theme “eSafety projects” and the best will appear in the gallery on the site.

In the forum and blog, all users can express their views and suggestions for safe browsing in the Internet.

NTEL is used by The Department for Information and In-service Teacher Training in Varna in which most of the teachers from North Bulgaria increased their qualification. Thus more teachers and their students unite around the topic “eSafety projects”.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Valentina Petrova, Teacher in ICT, Varna, Bulgaria, vmb75bg@yahoo.com

„Race to the Finish”: activity evaluation

2011-01-21T05:51:24Z

OBJECTIVES:

1.Game impact analysis in terms of increasing safety usage of the Internet and changes in online behaviour for the future;

2.Impact analysis of the activity „Race to the Finish” regarding Internet safety problems resolving in school;

PROPOSED ACTIVITIES

To achieve the first objective the students will perform the following activities:

-students will fill the following questionnaire:

http://www.kidsmart.org.uk/downloads/treasure_hunt.pdf

http://www.safekids.com/quiz/

which tests the level of understanding the rules that must be followed to safely use the Internet.

-each student will create a set of rules which they consider that must be respected, and they will make a regulation for a safe Internet usage, using the following model:

http://www.kidsmart.org.uk/downloads/cn_A2posterPRIMARY.pdf

http://www.kidsmart.org.uk/downloads/cn_A2posterSECONDARY.pdf

To achieve the second objective the students will perform the following activities:

Student will disseminate in school the informations achieved from this project, as follows:

-will display, on school notice board, articles about safety on the Internet;

-will freely distribute timetables imprinted with rules for safety usage of the Internet;

http://www.sigur.info/resurse-sigur-info/orar.jpg

-will make a link on the school website : http://scoli.didactic.ro/detalii/projects/cntarghezi, toa blog with this subject http://sigurantapeinternet.blogspot.com/

User Generated Content in der beruflichen Ausbildung

2011-02-03T07:58:21Z

Mein Name ist Markus Schäfer. Ich unterrichte an einer Berufsschule. Meine Schüler sind Auszubildende, die den Beruf des Kfz-Mechatronikers erlernen. Unser Projekt verfolgt das Ziel digitale Medien nicht nur rezipierend sondern ganzheitlich produktiv in den Unterricht zu integrieren. Das Projekt basiert auf der Idee, digitale Lern-Medien zu nutzen, um die Lerninhalte aus der Schule transparent zu machen. Dies geschieht über die aktive und lernwirksame Produktion interaktiver, audiovisueller Lehrfilme, die im Internet auf der Seite www.kfz4me.de veröffentlicht werden. Für die Produktion der Lehrfilme nutzen wir teilweise Spezialsoftware (Autorensoftware). Die entwickelten Lehrfilme werden von uns geprüft (Inhalt, Urheberrechte, Gestaltung etc.) und dann zunächst in einem eigenen Kanal auf http://www.youtube.com/user/kfz4metube veröffentlicht. Damit stehen die Lehrfilme dann den Klassenkameraden, anderen Klassen, aber auch fremden Personen für das Lernen zur Verfügung. Sie werden abschließend in die Seite www.kfz4me.de eingebettet. Mit den Lehrfilmen wird ein Nachlernen, Vertiefen und Vorbereiten von Inhalten der Schule unabhängig von Ort und Zeit z. B. über das Handy oder andere Endgeräte möglich. Die Schülerinnen und Schüler tauschen bei der Produktion die Rollen. Sie werden selber zu Lehreren. Mit diesem Rollentausch erhält die Verknüpfung von allgemeiner und beruflicher Bildung ganz besondere Impulse, weil der Entwicklungsprozess der digitalen Bausteine die verschiedensten Fähigkeiten, Kenntnisse und Kompetenzen fordert und fördert. So zeigt sich z.B., wer ein besonderes Talent im Zeichnen, im Formulieren oder im Umgang mit IT hat. Außerdem entwickelt man die Fähigkeit der freien Rede.

Das Besondere am Ansatz ist, dass die Schülerinnen und Schüler (SuS) individuell erfahren können, was es heißt, das Recht am eigenen Produkt zu haben. Es gibt oft heiße Diskussion dazu, ob man eine Abbildung aus dem Internet wirklich nutzen darf. Besonders interessant wird die Diskussion, wenn es darum geht, ob man die fertigen Bausteine verkaufen kann. Hier lernen die SuS, teilweise schmerzlich, dass man alle Rechte am Material haben muss. Die SuS haben sich in diesem Zusammenhang auch mit den Nutzungsrechten an sich auseinandergesetzt und beschlossen, dass keinerlei Fremdmedien verwendet werden dürfen, wenn diese nicht ausdrücklich beim Urheber angefragt und eine Nutzung schriftlich eingeräumt ist. Weiterhin zeigt sich, dass die SuS ihrerseits ebenfalls sehr daran interessiert sind, dass keine kommerzielle Nachnutzung ihrer eigenen Lehrfilme durch Dritte erfolgen kann. „Wir verklagen die dann“, heißt es nicht selten. In diesem Zusammenhang kommt dann auch die Erkenntnis, dass das illegale tauschen von Filmen und Musik ebenfalls eine Rechtsverletzung darstellt, die dann möglicherweise eine Klage nach sich ziehen muss.

Zum Thema Sicherheit wird den Schülern klar, dass ihre Beiträge teilweise Fehler haben und eine Nachahmung der Lehrfilme, beispielsweise einer Anleitung zum Testen einer Zündanlage, lebensgefährlich sein kann, wenn die Informationen nicht sicher sind und unreflektiert übernommen werden. Es lässt sich beobachten, dass die SuS insgesamt sensibler mit den Informationen im Netz umgehen. Das bezieht sich auch auf die Informationen sie selber zur Verfügung stellen.

Besonderheit für die Bewerbung

Für diesen Wettbewerb haben wir uns etwas Besonderes einfallen lassen:

Mit insgesamt 10 Schülern erarbeiten wir 6 digitale Bausteine zum Elektromobilität. Sämtliche Bausteine, die wir innerhalb des Projektes erstellen, finden Sie unter der Internet-Adresse http://www.youtube.com/user/kfz4metube bzw. auf www.kfz4me.de.

NTEL- Learning Support Environment

2011-01-15T21:18:55Z

The main goal of the project is to develop an environment to enable ICT support secondary school (http://klimentvarna.net).

The guiding philosophy of the project is open-ended discovery of information and ideas, students’ command of their own learning experience.

During the development of the learning environment two basic problems were solved:

Do computers motivate students to learn faster and better?

Are IT skills and competencies practiced?

Essentially, the skills that students need to become knowledge workers.

Today, students’ work still is mainly paper-based, so that their own projects are hard to store, get discarded every year and difficult to retrieve and to reuse.

An effective approach is to involve users in establishing the expected use of ICT and the benefit of it in education.

Using the “NTEL - Learning Support Environment” an interchange and a multiple use of the learning materials can be performed. The environment allows a publication, a search, an interchange, and a multiple use of the learning objects to be carried out. Every learner has an access to the material appropriate to his requirements, interests, skills, etc.

It is a complex system that incorporate a variety of organizational, administrative, instructional and technological component. NTEL is a complete, secure, on-demand, easy to use, web-based training software portal delivering rich, powerful, intuitive e-learning in an e-learning environment using web technologies like PHP, CodeIgniter, MySQL, AJAX and CSS. And by being built on top of the CodeIgniter PHP framework, which implements the MVC design pattern, this project also ensures to be scalable and expandable in the future.

The developers of the project (Valentina Petrova and her students) are in charge of students' learning, lecturing and coaching, all of them relying heavily on the ICT environment.

The students can easily create content, upload their projects, build skills for the knowledge society and become knowledge workers. They study PHP, CodeIgniter and MySQL in the IT lessons. The students participate in development of the "NTEL – Learning Support Environment".

It is essential that the benefits, risks and cost effectiveness of using new technology are well understood in the context of application. ICT is essential for the creative learning of students.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Valentina Petrova, Teacher in ICT, Varna, Bulgaria, vmb75bg@abv.bg

Das offene Klassenzimmer

2011-01-05T13:01:53Z

Das Projekt basiert auf der Idee, digitale Lern-Medien zu nutzen, um die Lerninhalte aus der Schule transparent zu machen. Dies geschieht über die aktive und lernwirksame Produktion interaktiver, audiovisueller Lehrfilme, die im Internet auf der Seite www.kfz4me.de veröffentlicht werden. Mit den Lehrfilmen wird ein Nachlernen, Vertiefen und Vorbereiten von Inhalten der Schule unabhängig von Ort und Zeit z. B. über das Handy oder andere Endgeräte möglich.

Das Besondere ist, dass Medien nicht nur rezipierend sondern auch aktiv, produzierend in den Unterricht eingebunden sind. Die Schülerinnen und Schüler tauschen dabei die Rollen und werden zu Lehrern. Mit diesem Rollentausch erhält die Verknüpfung von allgemeiner und beruflicher Bildung ganz besondere Impulse, weil der Entwicklungsprozess der digitalen Bausteine die verschiedensten Fähigkeiten, Kenntnisse und Kompetenzen fordert und fördert. So zeigt sich z.B., wer ein besonderes Talent im Zeichnen, im Formulieren oder im Umgang mit IT hat. Außerdem entwickelt man die Fähigkeit der freien Rede und des reflektierten Umgangs mit Urheberrechten. Die Schülerinnen und Schüler bemerken hier, dass auch ihre Produkte bestimmten Rechten unterliegen. Sie entwickeln ein Verständnis für den Schutz der Urheberrechte. Abgesehen davon wird die Kompetenz im Umgang mit digitalen Medien naturgemäß besonders entwickelt.

Beschreibung

Für die Produktion der Lehrfilme nutzen wir teilweise Spezialsoftware (Autorensoftware). Die entwickelten Lehrfilme werden von uns geprüft (Inhalt, Urheberrechte, Gestaltung etc.) und dann in einem eigenen Kanal auf http://www.youtube.com/user/kfz4metube veröffentlicht. Damit stehen die Materialien dann den Klassenkameraden, anderen Klassen, aber auch fremden Personen für das Lernen zur Verfügung.

Um einen Lehrfilm zu erstellen, sind die verschiedensten Aktionen notwendig. So erfordert so ein digitaler Lernbaustein praktisch immer, dass wir uns fachlich sehr intensiv mit dem Thema auseinandersetzen. Wir haben festgestellt, dass eine Vertonung eines Beitrags nur dann sinnvoll gelingt, wenn man das Thema fachlich ganz sicher verstanden hat. Der Lernprozess bekommt hier in der Regel eine besondere Tiefe. Beinahe noch schwieriger als die Auseinandersetzung mit dem Fachinhalt ist das Schreiben eines sogenannten Drehbuchs. Hier geht es darum, dass wir vor der Produktion eines digitalen Bausteins ein ausführliches Drehbuch schreiben, in dem der Sprechtext, Markierungen und andere Ereignisse, die der Film nachher beinhalten soll, dokumentiert werden. Nicht selten enthalten die Filme auch Bild-, Ton- oder Videomaterial, das außerhalb der Schule an einem anderen Ort entsteht. Um die verschiedenen Medien zusammenzuführen, bedienen wir uns moderner Kommunikationstechniken und erweitern damit unsere Fähigkeit, digital zu kommunizieren und verschiedenste Software zu nutzen.

Besonderheit für die Bewerbung

Für diesen Wettbewerb haben wir uns etwas Besonderes einfallen lassen:

Mit insgesamt 80 Schülern erarbeiten wir insgesamt 80 digitale Bausteine zu den verschiedensten Themen rund um die Kfz-Technik, aber auch um allgemeinbildende Themen. Sämtliche Bausteine, die wir innerhalb des Projektes erstellen, finden Sie unter der Internet-Adresse http://www.youtube.com/user/kfz4metube bzw. auf www.kfz4me.de.

ICT Project

2011-01-05T13:00:45Z

Intoduction:

My name is Elena Vladescu and I am Physics and Computer Science teacher to Nicolae Titulescu National Vocational College, Slatina, Romania.

ICT, You and Me is an one year eTwinning project who aims to integrate ICT in the school curriculum and to enhance the responsible use of the internet. Founder partners are Romania and Poland. The target group is 8-14 years old students from Romania, Poland, Spain, Latvia, Greece and Turkey.

Our main objectives are: to teach pupils to use and/or improve their communication skills using ICT, to enhance our pupils’ ICT skills and facilities, to become familiar with basic norms and etiquette for virtual communication to be able to collaborate appropriately in a virtual community. Through creating films, presentations, videos and surveys, collating data about themselves with the help of online statistical tools, pupils learn about cultural differences and similarities of their partner schools in other countries in an enjoyable way. The project language is English.

Our online project on eTwinning platform offers a very safe environment for the pupils. Our Twinspace consists of 12 teachers and 161 pupils.

The project calendar has activities for every month. We started on 10.08.2010 planning the details of the activities and establish base rules and Netiquette.

September: pupils create personalized speaking avatars, upload their photos, and avatars in the TwinSpace, then pupils of the partner schools try to match every photo to the correct avatar. October • My school: a video. November • Creating a logo of the project with the help of Internet tools. December • My home country and town: a slide show or PowerPoint presenting home towns , then they create an online quiz. January • My hobby; Saturday’s cool February • Healthy lifestyle: Me and my diet; Get sporty; How green are you March • Statistics and me: analyzing graphs or charts; creating a portrait/model of a typical pupil from each partner country and a typical eTwinner involved in the project April • A postcard from a summer vacation in partner countries; a slideshow tour. May • Evaluation: an online survey and create a portrait/model of a typical eTwinner involved in our project.

Expected results:

Enhanced skills in ICT, foreign language communication and Maths; friendship, understanding, cultural awareness, healthy lifestyle; photo galleries, videos; surveys and a small model or a drawing of an average eTwinner involved in the project.

Elena Vladescu

elenateachict@yahoo.com

http://twitter.com/ictsciencetoday

PUPILS TO PUPILS

2011-01-05T12:59:17Z

From: MARLENA BOGDANOVIĆ-primary school subjects teacher, CROATIA marlena.bogdanovic@skole.hr

FOR PUPILS from 8 to11 years old

A SHORT DESCRIPTION OF OUR PROJECT:

Afternumerousrequestsbyparentsourpupils and other teachers, we have formed new workshop in our school, at the beginning of this school year: THE VIRTUAL CLASSROOM –a workshop for promotion and sharing knowledgeabout the Internet safety (IS) and responsible use of new technologies in our school and in our wide area.

PUPIL PARTICIPATION- THEIR IDEAS:

design and carry out a questionnaire to find out what other pupils and teachers know about the subject, and about what they want to learn more- related to IS

analyze the results of the questionnaire

learn more about IS (dangerous situations, social networks, cyberbulling, predators on the Net, etc.) –Teaching materials: YouTube videos, ppt. presentations, brochures, etc.

write ascript, choosea locationandrecord a short video in our language (ALREADY DONE – see it on:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3t2c6Qptbs )

make posters and brochures about the IS –they will use all of that to:

v prepare PUPILS TO PUPILS LESSON: they have the idea that they will design an IS-based lesson(responsible use of new technologies), and then visit other schools: their peers and their teachers, and teach this lesson in their classrooms.

v prepare a CD (with the materials about the IS, and with our website’s link), as a gift from us to their schools

v design aquiz for thefinalpart of PUPILS TO PUPILS LESSON and prepareprizes for pupils whoaremost successful in “IS knowledge”

collaboratingwithteachers: create a new, school website: VIRTUAL CLASSROOM, to share their work, ideas, issues, concerns, with pupils from schools in wide area. They also intend to create a blog - for the reflection and feedback.

SCHOOL AUTHORITIES LIKED THIS IDEA AND PROMISED TO HELP:

incorporate this activity into the school curriculum (ALREADY DONE!)

they provideus thespace andtimefor ouractivitiesin school (ALREADY DONE!)

helpmake contactswithotherschools

they will findandorganize therentalof the bus for pupil’s mobility to other schools

our principal’s idea: make an info board in our school hallway – to educate pupils' parents. She also allowed us to use LCD screen on the school wall, for better presentation of IS educational materials

they will help with the promotion of our activities – we already have arrangement with our national television and our local and regional newspapers

Race to the finish

2011-01-05T12:53:23Z

Project title: "Race to the finish"
Type of activity: Teaching Game
Age range: 10-12 Years
Organization: students are divided into two groups
Objective: Acquisition of knowledge necessary to safely navigate the Internet by means of an educational game resembling a board game.

Short description of the theme

We chose this activity because students learn more easily if they carry out practical activities and if the learning contents are organized as a game. Also, this kind of activity encourages collaboration, teamwork and competition.

The Plan of the Activity

Step 1
Students access the link:

http://www.netsmartz.org/resources/nsresources.htm
Discover the nature of the characters Clicky, Nettie, Webster, Potty-Mouth Pete, want-Know Wally.
Classify characters in positive and negative characters in terms of behavior on the Internet.

Characterize each character.

Step 2
Students download the game rules at:
http://www.netsmartz.org/pdf/Race_to_the_Finish.pdf
They manufacture the board, tokens, activity cards.
During the game, the students talk about the situations proposed on the activity cards, express opinions and ask questions.

Materials needed:
-Cardboard and paper of different colors for the activity cards
-Markers
-Glue
-Scissors

Corina Popescu-IT&C teacher

Colegiul National Tudor Arghezi

Tg.Carbunesti-Gorj

ROMANIA

Webquest on Social Networking and Cyberbullying

2011-01-05T12:52:05Z

WebQuests , inquiry-oriented lessons format in which most or all the information that learners work with comes from the web, extend the students' thinking to the higher levels of Bloom’s taxonomy: analysis, synthesis and evaluation. WebQuests also support a variety of instructional and cognitive practices such as critical thinking and problem solving through authentic assessment, cooperative learning, scaffolding and technology integration.

My idea is to implement a WebQuest about social networking and cyberbullying during the winter holidays ( 22-29 December 2010) and the inter-semester holidays (31 January- 4 February 2011) with a group of maximum 20 pupils every time . This project is anchored in sixth, seventh and even eighth grade English language class, Computer Studies and involves Social Studies to a lesser extent. It can also be used with other graders as well, according to their English level (at least pre-intermediate).Students need to have reached an intermediate level of computer literacy.

Safer Internet Day , on the 8th February 2011 , has as aim to help children and teens learn essential skills about safe social networking. This annual international event will be highlighted in my school by posting the Wall Wisher page link with the final letters of my children on the English blogs for the 6th, 7th and 8th graders. I have been using blogging in English teaching from the beginning of this school year .The theme ‘It’s more than a game, it’s your life’ will be also used as a theme of a drawing assignment for the fifth graders who are in their first year of English learning.

Within a period of 6-8 hours, this WebQuest will give students the opportunity to:

-name what information and images they think can be posted online

-read a set of safety tips on social networking sites

-clarify what information and images that they have posted online is not safe

-consolidate their newly-acquired knowledge by playing a topic-related game

-extract new information about profile safety from the game

-investigate the consequences of not keeping personal data private by watching a video

-assimilate the new information in answering again the initial questions about what information and images they think can be posted online

-evaluate their newly-acquired information by comparing their initial answers with their final ones

-put their conclusions together and incorporate them at the end of the task in their informal letter to Becky

-post their final piece of writing on a created WallWisher page

This approach supports creative thinking. Children begin their research from the information posted on their own personal on line profiles and, after reading the safety rules on social networking sites, they are given the chance to look critically at what they have posted on line. Playing a game related to the same safety rules they are provided with a simulation to explore the same issue, in fact another strategy to extract new information. After the analysis level, students are able to synthesise what is safe and what is not to reveal on their on line profiles. Watching the video that reveals a case about posting personal data on line, pupils are already in the position of evaluators. Interacting and collaborating with their group peers they will contribute to the final product which is going to be an informal letter to the main character of the video. While they think about giving advice to Becky about responsible use of technology, students use their highest level of thinking- evaluation- in order to solve the problem. Publishing their material on a public Wall Wisher page whose link is going to be posted on the class blogs gives the children the sense of achievement .Moreover, they communicate information and ideas effectively to multiple audiences using the Internet on a specific day dedicated to the topic they have been working on.

Anyway, being heavily involved in blogging, my classes have opportunities almost every day to discuss cyber safety issues and appropriate online behaviors in an authentic setting.

Camelia Pagila

School with classes I-VIII “ Academician Marin Voiculescu “

Giurgiu, Romania

pagila_camelia@yahoo.com

Simple exercises with students

2011-01-05T12:51:12Z

Objective: To raise awareness of what issues most concern the students, what topics interest them, what type of solution is offered. Teachers get know how kids would like to discuss topics relevant to them. And last but not least how to raise responsibility.

Task 1: What is the best event you have experienced (the students are divided into groups 4-6 people)

a. Think about the experience or what has been a good way and interesting to study
b. Describe the experience of other group members
c. Write the keywords on which the answer could be a good event

Share the ideas with other groups.

Task 2: Tell me your story
a. Write a story about your experience with your friend, or a threat to the Internet. The story has a name, characters and place. Preferably, the conflict has been identified.
b. Write 2-3 questions about the story
c. Try to find a solution - how to make everything correct again.

Discuss stories among other students and teacher.

What were the similar problems and solutions?

Task 3: What should be done to improve security (people working in groups 4-6)
a. Write, who in your opinion is responsible of the issue of Internet safety
b. Add to the list activities how they can do to improve Internet security
Design a poster with group results (like a “umbrella” or other way).

Preliminary results of Estonian 9 school students and 12 teacher's (60 people):
• A good event should meet the following criteria’s: the participants are open to the discussions, they feel safe; people have opportunity to interact with others; the topic is interesting and relevant; a professional speaker. This gives the teacher know that if you talk about dangers of the Internet in the school, you cannot do this with presentation and lecture - the children must be actively involved!

• The most popular stories were written about the field of internet communication (MSN, Facebook), but also the harassment, fraud and computer gaming and virus problems were addressed. The most popular hero was classmate, myself and relatives. The solution usually was to get help from friends, parents, if possible from ICT expert. So in Estonia we have a new challenge how to raise teacher’s reliability helping students with internet security issues.

• Responsibility task showed us students interest/obligation rising their knowledge’s about security issues; friends duty to help other friends who are more exposed; parents responsibility to listen and support, sometimes even monitor their children actions; the teacher and school task is to teach recognition of Internet threats; ICT experts obligation to make better and safer programs; Police are to assist solving problems; Media obligation is to do more coverage and raise discussions about the subjects; and Famous people have responsibility to talk about their experiences.

So if you think these task(s) can be used in your classes – let me know and we can share experiences. For next 4-5 month my interest is to collect these stories and evaluate them with students, parents and ICT-experts. The idea is to write article about conclusions and findings of the children stories.

Birgy Lorenzbirgy.lorenz@pelgulinna.edu.eePelgulinna GymnasiumTallinn, ESTONIA

Webquest on Social Networking and Cyberbullying

2011-01-05T12:50:21Z

My idea is to implement a WebQuest (an inquiry-oriented lesson format in which most or all the information that learners work with comes from the web) about social networking and cyberbullying during the winter holidays ( 22-29 December 2010) and the spring holidays (18-22 April 2011) with a group of maximum 25 pupils every time .WebQuests extend the students' thinking to the higher levels of Bloom’s taxonomy; analysis, synthesis and evaluation. WebQuests also support a variety of instructional and cognitive practices such as critical thinking and problem solving through authentic assessment, cooperative learning, scaffolding and technology integration.

This project is anchored in sixth , seventh and even eighth grade English language class, Computer Studies and involves Social Studies to a lesser extent. It can also be used with other graders as well, according to their English level (at least pre-intermediate).Students need to have reached an intermediate level of computer literacy.

Within a period of 6 hours, this WebQuest will give students the opportunity to:

-name what information and images they think can be posted online

-read a set of safety tips on social networking sites

-clarify what information and images that they have posted online is not safe

-consolidate their newly-acquired knowledge by playing a related game

-extract from the game new information about profile safety

-investigate the consequences of not keeping personal data private by watching a video

-assimilate the new information in answering again the initial questions about what information and images they think can be posted online

-evaluate their newly-acquired information by comparing their initial answers with their final ones

-put their conclusions together and incorporate them at the end of the task in their informal letter to Becky

-post their final piece of writing on a created WallWisher page

Standards :

1. Creativity and Innovation

Students demonstrate creative thinking, construct knowledge, and develop innovative products and processes using technology.

Students:

-apply existing knowledge to generate new ideas, products, or processes

-create original works as a means of personal or group expression.

-use models and simulations to explore issues.

2. Communication and Collaboration

Students use digital media and environments to communicate and work collaboratively to support individual learning and contribute to the learning of others.

Students:

- interact, collaborate, and publish media material together with peers

-communicate information and ideas effectively to multiple audiences using a variety of media

3. Digital Citizenship

Students understand human, cultural, and societal issues related to technology and practise legal and ethical behaviour.

Students:

-advocate and practise safe, legal, and responsible use of information and technology.

4.Technology Operations and Concepts

Students demonstrate understanding of technology concepts, systems and operations.

Camelia Pagila

School with classes I-VIII “ Academician Marin Voiculescu “

Giurgiu, Romania

pagila_camelia@yahoo.com