• We didn’t have the best advertising for the event, so it wasn’t well-attended.  However, the parents that were there initiated excellent discussions and it was wonderful to be able to connect with them on a more intimate level than I would have been able to if it were a larger group.
• I was very disappointed that for some reason no one showed up to take down filters (as was planned), which meant I was unable to actually show parents sites like MySpace, Facebook, and YouTube.  It made it rather difficult to actually do the presentation I had prepared, which was going to focus on parents participating in social networking (at their own level/peer group) to better understand why their children are so attracted to it.  I had to attempt to explain MySpace and Facebook to parents who had never seen the sites, which is harder than I thought!  Also, some of the videos I wanted to share were from YouTube, so those were blocked as well. I’m not sure what happened, but hopefully it was just a simple misunderstanding that will be cleared up for next week’s workshop.
• It was really interesting to actually talk about social networking with parents rather than students and my PLN – what a different perspective!  The parents had varying levels of comfort with technology, so that made the discussions even more interesting.  It was so wonderful to give the parents just a taste of the possibilities of the web today and see their minds start working and wondering.  That’s the best part of my experience with learning and web 2.0 – the curiousity it inspires.  There’s always something new to learn!

I’ll ponder more on this, but while I may have only reached 4 parents (and an assistant principal) tonight, I still believe I’m fighting the good fight……………

If you would like to contribute to the wiki, please just request to join!

This tip deals with web document composing.  I have been frustrated when typing blog posts and MANY things in moodle because every time I press “enter” after a line, I end up with a double-space.  Now, I’m coming from heavy Microsoft Word use and teaching about single, double, and 1.5 line spacing (in business ed classes), so this is new to me.  I’m used to being able to type my text and then go back and do just about anything with the formatting toolbar or keyboard shortcuts, so editing and composing online has been a bit difficult.  It’s a whole new world to me!  Makes me wonder if teaching all of the intricate formatting in Word, etc is becoming a thing of the past with the numerous options available online today?  I hope not, I’m still kind of partial to Word for anything more than simple text input – old habits die hard   I’m all for new things, but I hate letting go of the old!

Anyway, I learned that in moodle and edublogs, to achieve a single-spaced line, I need to press SHIFT + Enter instead of just pressing Enter.   Just pressing Enter gives me a double-spaced line and that’s not appropriate for all of the instances in which I choose to start a new line.  Now, that may seem exceedingly simple and small (and possibly not important) to many people, but I get very into the vertical alignment and appearance of documents and I really don’t like publishing anything to the web without proper appearance.  This tip helped me greatly! 

I’m working on learning more HTML to make things even more customized, but until then, my new knowledge of  finally being able to do “single spacing” in moodle and edublogs is making me smile

FRONTLINE: growing up online | PBS via kwout

(Frontline – PBS)
As many educators and parents are aware of, PBS has been airing a show titled “Growing Up Online” on Frontline.  The tagline on the site right now reads “Just how radically is the Internet transforming the experience of Childhood?” and I think that really sums up my feelings.  You really MUST watch this, it’s our responsibility as adults to join in the discussion about how our young people are growing up and becoming ready to enter adulthood.  I’m not going to describe the entire show, I’m not going to critique it, I just want to put a few of my thoughts out there……..

• I have to come to terms with the good/bad sides of most things that my children will encounter when growing up, and not ban potentially useful or harmless experiences because of my fear
• I need to learn even MORE about the issue than I currently know
• All teachers should be required to watch this
• All parents should WANT and need to watch this
• The problem isn’t the internet or social networking, it’s the lack of education about the topic on all levels from government to parents
• I’m doing the best that I can to stay up to speed with the changing world both as an educator and parent…………….it feels like a losing battle

You can watch the episode online RIGHT NOW (just click here) if you missed it – I’d love your thoughts, they might help me get my mind around some of the issues raised……..