COETAIL@Addis Ababa

Welcome back everyone!  Hope you all had a restful and relaxing break with family and/or friends!

Many of you have been completing blog posts over the past few weeks – remember that all blog posts, comments and Final Project embedded in a reflection blog post – are due on January 14th 2013. Jeff and I are preparing to complete the Final Grades for Course 2.  Your Final Grade will be posted within 3-5 days of the extension date, January 14 2012.

Just in case you’re not sure what you should have completed:

• 6 posts for Course 2
  (Post #6 should have your Final Project Google Doc embedded in it as well as a reflection paragraph on the project – don’t forget to make the Google Doc public)
• 5 separate comments left on other colleagues’ posts

Please check your Google Doc Gradesheet one last time and remember to hyperlink to your blog posts and comments  - we really appreciate this and it makes it a lot easier for us to grade your posts and comments.  I’ve heard from a few people that accessing Google Docs has been difficult in the last few weeks.  If that’s still happening to you – please email me with the hyperlinks to your blogposts and/or comments and I’ll put them in your Google Doc for you. (Thanks for you last links Erik – I’ve updated yours.)

CC Image By Sanderslelli

The end is in sight!

All the best!

CC Image by “clarkk

Hello Addis Ababa CoETaILers! We realise that it has been a very difficult time for you recently with internet and connectivity issues.

To try and ease the situation for you, we are extending the deadline for Course 2 work until January 14th 2013.

Yes, you read that correct!  All blog posts, comments and Final Project embedded in a reflection blog post – are now due January 14th 2013.

I want to take this opportunity to say how proud I am of all of you – you are doing a great job of demonstrating and modeling what you have learned during Course 2 and I’m enjoying reading your thoughtful and reflective blog posts as well!  Keep up the great work!

Jeff and I would also like to wish you a very safe, and enjoyable break.  We hope that you enjoy time with your families and/or friends.  I will be travelling back to my home country for three weeks from December 21st, and Jeff will be on holiday from December 17th until January 8th.  I’ll be back to work on  January 14th.  We will be checking our email from time to time but if you need either one of us urgently – please don’t hesitate to write urgent in the subject line!

Safe travels everyone!

Sorry for the confusion about the finish dates for Course 2.  This week is the last week of suggested readings.  Course 2 officially ends on December 16, 2012.

Here’s what you need to have completed by December 16, 2012:

• 5 blog posts
  (based on the week’s suggested/recommended readings or something else that you have been reading during the week)
• 5 comments 
  (on your colleague’s blog posts – 1 comment each week)
• 1 blog post that has your Final Project embedded as a Google Doc and a reflection paragraph about the project.

Please ensure that you have linked ALL blog posts and comments in your Grade Google Spreadsheet.  Jeff and I will be submitting Final Grades for Course 2 to SuNY on December 18, 2012.

Please don’t hesitate to leave a comment or email us if you have any questions.

Can you believe it?  It’s the final week of Course 2 already!  I am really enjoying reading all of your posts right now (especially since I’m so passionate about this topic!).  It’s great to see so many of you thinking about what the different readings mean for you as an educator, for you if you’re also a parent, and what it means for your students. It’s also great to see that you are starting to use Creative Commons images in your posts and correctly giving attribution.  My hope is that as you continue to model this, so too, will your students!

Week 5′s focus takes a closer look at the communication tools that exist today.  They are powerful mediums to help spread positive change and global awareness.
This week’s Essential Question:

What makes the web so powerful?

Recommended Readings:
http://www.20thingsilearned.com/home
http://curatorscode.org/
Website as a graphic of connections

The particular skills that we want you to be demonstrating are:

• Understand how and why we hyperlink information.
• Hyperlinking often and to relevant information within blog posts.

By now, you should have decided on your final project for Course 2 and be working towards it’s completion.  Please take the opportunity to talk with your administration and all interested parties if you’re working on a school AUP.  We don’t want this to be just an exercise for you to go through in order to complete Course 2.  This is a perfect opportunity to work on a living, breathing, changing document that “fits” your school, your students, and your colleagues and the direction that the school is moving in.

Some Rights Reserved: s_falkow

Completion Dates for all blog posts and Final Project & Reflection Blog Post will be posted after I have confirmed grading submission dates with Jeff and SuNY.

Please remember to link to your blog posts and the comments you have left for your colleagues each week in your grade google document.

Blog posts and comments will be graded against the Blogging Rubric.
Final projects will be graded against the Final Project Rubric.

We’re over the half-way point of Course 2!  How are you feeling?  Is your mind a blur of creative commons, digital footprints and attributions?  Hopefully the reading material has been interesting and thought-provoking but not too overwhelming!

It’s Week 4 and we’re taking a closer look at Student Safety/Bullying.
Our Essential Question is

Who’s responsibility is it to teach students to be safe online?

It’s important that we help the students that we are working with, and their families that online behaviours and actions can easily impact the access and safety of personal information – not just theirs, but others’ as well.  And just who’s responsibility is it?  Who is responsible for the online behaviour of students AFTER they leave the classroom/school?

As educators, we do not have to re-invent the wheel and spend countless hours organising or preparing lessons for our students on this very topic!  Common Sense Media have a wealth of ready to go lesson plans – for various Grade Levels.  All resources and lessons are completely free and they are GOOD too!

This weeks “Must Reads”

• http://dmlcentral.net/blog/danah-boyd/bullying-has-little-resonance-teenagers
• Digital Citzenship Lesson Plans from Common Sense Media

Recommended Readings

• When Dad Banned Text Messaging
• What Avery Doninger Wrought
• School heads called parents in cyberbully case
• Teaching kids to be ‘digital citizens’ (not just ‘digital natives’)

Enjoy your week of reading and reflecting – I’m looking forward to reading all about it!

It’s the end of Week 3 and I suddenly realised that I did not post the week’s essential question and readings for you all!  I’m so sorry about that!  We’ve been putting together a verse of a song for this CoETaILer’s awesome global project that fitted right in with our Fragile Earth Social Studies unit plus we’ve been getting reading for our International Week (which is the best ever week of school!).  I’m sure that you have all been extremely busy too!

CC Image by: qthomasbower: http://www.flickr.com/photos/qthomasbower/3640360821/

Here’s a quick wrap up of Week 3′s reading and don’t forget that from now on, all of your blog posts should only have Creative Commons images/audio/video or using images/audio/video that you have permission to use as well as correct attributions.

Week 3′s Essential Questions:

Do we as a global society need to rethink copyright laws?
What’s our role as educators in copyright usage in schools?

Recommended Readings

• Creative Commons Website
• Copyright: iTunes, Podcasts
• Understanding and Respecting Copyright a problem for many
• Doug Johnson on Copyright

• Creative Commons Video on Copyright and Creative Commons

The skills we want you to demonstrate are that you

• can search for and embed creative common pictures into a blog post
• can correctly cite Internet sources
• understand how “Fair Use” applies to education

Thought I would share with you (for better or for worse) the Learn2Talk I did at the Learning 2.012 conference in Beijing back in October.

Feedback welcomed!