Currituck County Schools Media and Tech

We are kicking off our Smartboards for Secondary Classrooms project. I will update the status of this project regularly on this site. This is the email I sent to teachers inviting them to participate.

Good Afternoon,

The Currituck County Schools Board of Education Strategic Plan includes the following goals.

CCS-5.1: Provide Smartboards in ALL secondary classrooms with relevant incentive based training. (Train first, then receive technology)
CCS-5.2: Provide laptops to all teachers with relevant incentive based training.

This year we will be adding Smartboards to as many secondary classrooms as our resources will allow. In some classrooms we will use existing resources. We will mount the data projector, purchase and mount a Smartboard (http://bit.ly/23o8v), and use the laptop from a presentation cart with the Smartboard. In some classrooms we will provide the all-in-one Smartboard data projector units (http://bit.ly/4czB2H) and provide a laptop.

To be considered for this project you must agree to the following:
Complete applicable Smart Notebook tutorials in Atomic Learning. (81 tutorials, total play time approximately 2 hours)
Upon completion of training, demonstrate a lesson to peers that uses the Smart Notebook software and the Smart board. (some after hours time may be required for this.)
Complete an orientation session on the Smart board setup in your room after installation. (approximately 30 minutes)
If you want a Smartboard, mounted projector, and laptop (assigned to you) in your classroom please respond to this email and let me know you agree to complete the three requirements listed above.

Principals will be asked to prioritize classrooms in each building and we will work down the list as far as resources allow.

I will keep the progress of this project updated on the Tech Department blog at http://curritucktech.edublogs.org/

I’ll be glad to answer any questions you have. Thanks.

I know that lots of adults use social networking sites but I didn’t realize how many. According to a report for the Pew Internet and American Life Project 46% of online American adults use a social networking site such as MySpace, Facebook, or Linkedin. Not surprisingly, Facebook is the most popular of the social networking sites for American adults.

These numbers come for a larger report, The Democratization of Online Social Networks by Amanda Lenhart. You can see her presentation here.

A new study suggests that approximately 10% of U.S. children are addicted to video games, including online games.

“Video/online games stimulate the brain’s “reward centers” which gives the same high drug addicts feel,” said Dr. Charles Lee, physician for The Pinnacle Schools.

“Children and teens are becoming addicted to video/online games the way people are addicted to drugs, alcohol and gambling.”

The 10% figure sounds a little high to me, but certainly some children are demonstrating addictive behaviors.

From the website: “The warning signs for gaming addictions are the same as those for alcohol and drug addictions. Signs include: Lying, Restless and irritable when doing other activities, Eating meals at the computer while gaming, Inability to keep track of time spent gaming, Increasingly defensive about game playing habits, Poor school performance, Skipping class, Loss of appetite/ skipping meals, Defiant, Isolate themselves from family and friends,  Playing games instead of doing homework.”

The behaviors listed in the paragraph above certainly point to excessive use.  Someone once told me “If something causes a problem, it is a problem.”  If video games are causing the problems listed above it is time to take action, restrict video game use, and get the child involved in other activities.

For help identifying video game addiction and takes steps to curb it, check out this great resource from the MediaWise Network.

I am a big fan of the Pew Internet and American Life Project.  They regularly conduct research on how individuals, families, and society are being impacted by the Internet and online technologies.  They have been tracking cell phone use among teens for 5 years now.

Pew found that the number of teens with cell phones has risen to 77%, closing in on the 88% of adults who have cell phones.   More teens send text messages daily (38%) than talk on their cell phones daily (36%).  If you are around teens regularly these numbers will not be a surprise to you.

These numbers reinforce the importance of teaching teens to use cell phones in a responsible and safe manner.  Probably the most important thing we can do as adults is model good behavior and teach the dangers of driving while talking on the phone, or worse yet, texting.    Researchers from the Children’s Hospital of the Kings Daughters and the Eastern Virginia Medical School recently conducted a study to see the impact on teens of driving while talking on the phone or texting.  Donald Lewis M.D., co-researcher, called the results frightening.  Teens drove erratically and ran over virtual pedestrians.

According to a recent study by the American Automobile Association, the risk of a car accident increases by 50% for people who text message while driving.

I think it is time we made this a topic for discussion in our classrooms.

I hope you never get that message on your computer, however, it is a distinct possibility.  We have regular backups running on the servers at school but what about your personal computer?  Think for a few minutes about the files you have on your hard drive at home.  What would happen if that drive failed and could not be recovered.  What would you lose?  Years of lesson plans?  Income tax records?  Pictures of vacations?  Genealogy records?

If you are like me the thought of losing all that information makes you shudder.  We all know we should backup our hard drives regularly but I dare say, few of us do.  You can copy your important files to CDs or DVDs and store them in a safe location or you can consider one of the many online backup services available now.

I use SugarSync to backup my critical files.  They have a free account that lets you backup 2G of files to their online servers.  You select which folders you want to be backed up.  The program monitors those folders and automatically backs up file that are changed.  You can even back up files from multiple computers to the same account.  If you need more space there are other paid plans available.

Other services with similar features include DropBox, ZumoDrive, and OpenDrive.  Don’t wait until it is too late.  Get your critical files backed up today.

A recent survey highlights the prevalence of high tech cheating at school.

35% of teens report using cell phones to cheat and more than half report using the Internet to cheat on school assignments, tests, and quizzes.  They use cell phones to take pictures of tests and send to friends, to warn friends of pop quizzes, to text answers to each other and to store notes they can refer to during a test.

Interestingly, about 20% of teens don’t see these activities as cheating.

This information raises some questions we should probably address in our schools.

1. Should cell phones be allowed in school?  If not, how do you keep them out?  If so, what restrictions should be in place?

2. Is there a way to integrate the use of cell phones in classrooms that promotes responsible use and does not penalize those teens without phones?

3. Are we doing a good enough job teaching and learning about issues of digital ethics?

The full report and parent tips are available at Common Sense Media.

I came across some reports on Teen Tech use this week that challenged some assumptions and reinforced others.

First is a survey of teens from Harris Interactive.  ” In total, the Cox Communications funded survey found that nineteen percent of teens surveyed go online via their cell phone and 19 percent say their parents are unaware. The vast majority of teens (80 percent) whose parent know they go online via their cell phone say they are not given any limits or controls — far fewer than are given boundaries on their desktop PC or laptop.”  Combine this with the finding that 19% of teens have engaged in sexting (sending, receiving or forwarding sexually suggestive nude or nearly nude photos through text message or email) and you can see the potential for problems.

The second survey found that 60% of teens who text admit to texting while driving.  This is definately a big risk for teens as driving while texting (DWT) is potentially as dangerous as DWI.

Finally, there is a Nielsen report that suggests teens’ use of media is not that terribly different from adults’ use of media.  Here are a couple of myths and realities from the survey.

Myth: Teens use media—10 screens at  a time.  Reality: Teens are more likely than adults to use their media one at a time.

Myth: Teens are abandoning TV for  new media.  Reality: Wrong. They’re watching more TV than ever.

This study is excellent reading and it comes to a not too surprising conclusion.  “When it comes to media, teens are not as radically different (from adults) as some think.”

What does all this mean for those of us who are responsible for teaching, training, and caring for teens?  We need to be actively talking with them about potential dangers but we have more in common than we think.

This promises to be another busy summer for the Technology Department.

Kathryn Blades is conducting technology traning every week.  Check out Sea System for a complete list.

We will be installing new computer labs at CHS, KEC, and hopefully, MMS.

We also have a major upgrade to the website software that promises to make it much easier to use.  I know a lot of folks will appreciate that.

NCDPI has released the first draft of the new Essential Standards.  They are asking for us to review the standards and make comments.

We have set up a wiki to facilitate this process.

The wiki was created using Wikispaces, a free service for creating wikis.  The address is http://currituckacre.wikispaces.com/

I created an instructional video using Screencast-o-matic.  This is a free service for creating screencast video.  The address for the video is http://www.screencast-o-matic.com/watch/cQfUoDeC5