Kiddle - Child Friendly Internet Searching

Kiddle is marketed as a "kid safe, visual search engine".  It uses an embedded Google search box that filters out explicit/adult content.  Search results are often categorised and it's useful to know how these work when you are web searching with students.

Many websites included in the Kiddle search have been recommended by educators, librarians and parents around the world.  The best results for students are likely to pop up in results 1 - 7.

Tech on Tap Presentations

Thank you to everyone who presented a tool or tech integration strategy at Tech on Tap last week! Here are the tools you learned about as well as some bonus materials. If you're interested in learning more about one of these tools and how you can use tech to improve student learning, email a DLC, or even the teacher who presented the tool.

FlipGrid is a video discussion platform. Students can share short video responses to engage in discussion. Ideas for Math Ideas for Classrooms More Ideas Presented by Lauren Teather  Use Twitter to share what is happening in your classroom and make global connections to collaborate. Check out this free Cultural Guide to Twitter for educators. Want more? Watch this to learn about the importance of a school hashtag. Presented by Deborah Chu SeeSaw is a student-driven portfolio and a communication tool. It's also what we're using in the British School and Elementary School starting next year! See videos of how teachers are using Seesaw and sign up for free webinars here. Presented by Anne Kipa  Google Classroom makes it easy for learners and instructors to connect – inside and outside of schools. Classroom saves time and paper, and makes it easy to create classes, distribute assignments, communicate and stay organized. Presented by Nate Walker Action Bound is an app for creating digital scavenger hunts by means of installing digital content in the physical world. Presented by Alan Hoskin SAMR is a model for tech integration and evaluation. Is your tech integration at a substitution stage, augmentation, modification or redefinition. The goal is the "transform learning" with the last two categories, but it's important to remember that this is a good unit goal. Not all tech integration is going to redefine learning. It's okay to substitute too. Check out this article for more. Presented by Renata Prest HotelTonight makes it incredibly easy to find and reserve a sweet deal at a great hotel. Three taps, one swipe, you’re booked! Presented by Barry Benger VoiceThread can be used for students to demonstrate their learning journey, thoughts and ideas through photo images, video and an oral commentary to explain there thinking. It is easy to use for students and can also be shared so other students can see and make comments on the learning that has taken place. Presented by Liz Boughey Puppetpals  lets you create animated cartoons and is a great way for students to showcase their learning! Presented by Jessica Yang Padlet is a collaborative bulletin board. It allows users to pin video, audio, record live, add links and resources. It's great as an exit ticket, a way of curating resources, and even collects video discussions, like Flipgrid. Presented by Lisa Adams  The Five Minute Journal appmakes the process of journaling and spending time being grateful easy to do on the go. Use it as a photo or bullet journal. Presented by Heather Wirch Osmo Coding Awbie uses hands-on physical blocks to learn to code. Each block is a coding command that directs Awbie on a wondrous tree-shaking, strawberry-munching adventure. Great for early childhood. Presented by Nikki Kim  Book Creator is the simple way to make your own beautiful ebooks, right on your iPad. Want more? Read Compelling ways to use Book Creator in Your Classroom Presented by Jacquie Coogan  Overdrive is an app that allows SFS users (and many other public library users) to check out eBooks and audiobooks for use on many electronic devices. Great for traveling light and for long summer road trips! SFS Login Info  Presented by Joren Roth Chrome extensions are tools that work within chrome on other pages and sites. Here are three of my favorites. Eyedropper Color Pickerallows you to match colors exactly. Flip It allows you to quickly curate articles, videos, other resources into a "magazine" AKA Flipboard. Talk and Comment  allows you to leave voice notes on your students’ Google Docs. Presented by Jill Zappia

Google Takeout for Students

If you are leaving Seoul Foreign school at the end of this year, you probably want to take your Google data with you to your new school.  Here is a video that will show you how to use a Google tool called Takeout that allows you to easily export all your information and take it with you when you leave.

Here is a link to Google Takeout

Interactive maps before Google Earth

Twenty years before the launch of Google Maps, the BBC launched an interactive map distributed by laser disc. Alas it never caught on. Find out more about this extraordinary project.

https://www.bbc.com/ideas/videos/the-interactive-map-that-was-way-ahead-of-its-time/p063z2t2

https://www.bbc.com/ideas/videos/the-interactive-map-that-was-way-ahead-of-its-time/p063z2t2

Survival in the age of surveillance

• Download all the information Google has on you.
• Try not to let your smart toaster take down the internet.
• Ensure your AirDrop settings are locked down.
• Secure your old Yahoo account.
• 1234 is not an acceptable password.
• Check if you have been pwned. (owned, conquered or gain ownership of - video game speak)
• Be aware of personalised pricing.
• Say hi to the NSA guy spying on you via your webcam.
• Turn off notifications for anything that’s not another person speaking directly to you.
• Never put your kids on the public internet.
• Leave your phone in your pocket or face down on the table when you’re with friends.
• Sometimes it’s worth just wiping everything and starting over.
• An Echo is fine, but don’t put a camera in your bedroom.
• Have as many social-media-free days in the week as you have alcohol-free days.
• Retrain your brain to focus.
• Don’t let the algorithms pick what you do.
• Do what you want with your data, but guard your friends’ info with your life.
• Finally, remember your privacy is worth protecting.

Guardian newspaper

Automated Chinese jaywalking fines are a foretaste of so-called ‘smart cities’

Given the choice of living in a so-called ‘smart city’ and living in rural isolation, I think I’d prefer the latter. This opinion has been strengthened by reading about what’s going on in China at the moment:

Last April, the industrial capital of Shenzhen installed anti-jaywalking cameras that use facial recognition to automatically identify people crossing without a green pedestrian light; jaywalkers are shamed on a public website and their photos are displayed on large screens at the intersection,

Nearly 14,000 people were identified by the system in its first ten months of its operation. Now, Intellifusion, who created the system, is planning to send warnings by WeChat and Sina Weibo messages; repeat offenders will get their social credit scores docked.

Yes, that’s right: social credit. Much more insidious than a fine, having a low social credit rating means that you can’t travel.

Certainly something to think about when you hear people talking about ‘smart cities of the future’.

Source: BoingBoing vie Thought Shrapnel by Doug Belshaw

(related: 99% Invisible podcast on the invention of ‘jaywalking’)