Author Archives: dogtrax

YouTube: It’s Where Bullying Happens

Date
Posted by
Comments1

I try to look for trends with my students around technology, which is why I am periodically giving them surveys to gather data about them, as a class. I’ve been posting about how we have been talking about cyberbullying in our Digital Life unit. We covered a lot of ground — mostly, how to address an issue if it happens to them and what to look out for. In the past, when I have asked where this kind of cyberbullying behavior might take place, the majority response was “instant messaging.”

Not this year.

This year, when I asked where they see this kind of behavior, the response from my sixth graders was immediate and loud: YouTube.

Many of them have their own YouTube accounts, or at least, they spend a heck of a lot of time there, watching videos. And they have clearly noticed how the comment section on videos has become a breeding ground for insensitivity, rudeness, profanity, bullying and more. One student said that a certain somebody (not anyone he knows) always puts a raw comment on his videos. Another student laughed off a remark left by someone,  but it was too profane to share in class. A third said people “attack him at YouTube” for his videos around gaming. And if you just wander around in YouTube, it is clear that the kids are right about their impressions of YouTube, and it’s no wonder so many schools and teachers fear YouTube.

To their credit, YouTube and Google have a page on YouTube called Harassment and Cyberbullying that defines the problem and gives out some practical solutions (but who reads that kind of informational page other than teachers and parents? There is a another page for teachers, too, at YouTube that is also worth checking out).

Some of the ideas by YouTube on dealing with bullying:

For teachers who want to share videos from YouTube in the classroom, but want to avoid students seeing the comments and also other video previews, I suggest using Quiet Tube — which shuts off and hides everything except the video itself. It’s a wonderful tool that I use all the time when tapping into YouTube for its rich resources.

Finally, there is a “safety” switch at the bottom of the YouTube browser, which is designed to filter out inappropriate videos. (You have to look for it — it’s in the bottom menu area). YouTube doesn’t claim that it is 100 percent effective, but it is worth “turning on” if you are using YouTube at school, or at home with your children. That, plus some helpful knowledge, might go a long way to avoiding an uncomfortable and unfortunate situation for your students, and mine, too.

Peace (in the tube),
Kevin

 

Slice of Life: It’s Movie Time!

Date
Posted by
Comments10

(This is part of the Slice of Life activity over at Two Writing Teachers).

My seven year old has this vision: he wants to make a movie.

No doubt, this inspiration comes from watching his older brothers and friends shoot a movie just about every year in our neighborhood (and one was even featured in a local film festival). But he is determined, and excited, so I have been helping him talk through the storyline, gather up his friends, and I’ve been running the Flip video camera for him. I’ll also do much of the editing.

But it has been fun to watch his mind at work. The story — called Robbers on the Loose! — is about the theft of a jewelry box from the Queen  of France (played by my niece) by a fortune teller/robber (my son, with too-big fake beard), and the police (friends) chasing the robbers (my son and friends) to recover the stolen piece. Oh, and our dog is in the movie, too.

Yesterday, we shot the first scenes with my son and my niece in the woods near our house. While they know the storyline, they are ad-libbing the dialogue. So, well, many calls of “cut” and “let’s try that again!” They were so cute! And they were psyched about the footage we got. They think it was the best video ever created, and we’re not even done (gotta love the enthusiasm of a seven year old). The hardest part is to make them speak loud enough for the camera.
fortune teller and queen

At home, I moved the video that we got into iMovie and we began a little editing. Then, I decided to try out the tool in iMovie to create movie trailers. What a blast! We set the whole thing to the ‘adventure setting’ and the movie trailer came out like a Steven Spielberg production. We just need some more footage to liven it up a bit more. That will come today, as we are gathering together about seven 7-year-olds for the cops and robbers scenes.

It will, do doubt, be chaos. Hopefully, fun chaos.

Peace (in the movies),
Kevin

 

Student Webcomics and Cyberbullying

Date
Posted by
Comments1

I sent inside our webcomic site the other day, just to get a glimpse of the work my students started around their cyberbullying comics. (The activity is to create a webcomic featuring something they learned from our work around the issue). Some of the comics are developing nicely. These are two collages that I created from a handful of student work.
Cyberbully Collage 1

Cyberbully Collage 2

Peace (in the frames),
Kevin

 

Book Review: Gregor and the Prophecy of Bane

Date
Posted by
Comments0

My son and I ripped through this second book in the Gregor the Overlander series (by Suzanne Collins). Gregor and the Prophecy of Bane kicked up the story a notch, as Gregor is called on yet again to the save the Underland. This time, the threat is a white rat named The Bane and the prophecy seems to suggest that the killing of the rat will save the odd humans and allies who live in the land beneath the surface. The story begins with the kidnapping of Gregor’s baby sister and for much of the story, he is driven by revenge for her death (which doesn’t quite turn out to be true).

Collins nicely begins to reveal more of Gregor’s character and situation. Here, he learns he is a “rager,” or a creature with innate fighting abilities. Ragers are feared in the Underland for their indiscriminate fighting powers, and Gregor loses all control of himself when he is put into a raging situation. The moment when Gregor finally confronts the white rat — with his rager instincts almost in full gear — Collins throws a twist into the story (which I won’t reveal) that gives Gregor more complexity as a character than we had seen previously.

So, now we venture into the third book of the series: Gregor and the Curse of the Warmbloods.

Collins does a lot right with this series. Although the initial scenario has been done before (a world below), she really gives you that claustrophobic feeling, and provides tension at every corner of the adventure. She’s not afraid to kill off a character and the use of giant spiders, cockroaches, rats, bats and more are enough to give you the shivers at times. And her use of prophecies to guide the plot is wise, since the interpretations and misinterpretations give just enough twists to keep you on your toes.

My son and I are hooked and along for the ride with Gregor, although the action here can get a bit violent at times.

Peace (in the Underland)
Kevin

 

Talkin’ Cyberbullying and Makin’ Comics

Date
Posted by
Comments1

cyberbullying activity

We’re nearing the final lessons in our Digital Life unit and the other day, we focused in on cyberbullying. You would think that students would be getting an earful about this kind of bullying every year, but … no. When I asked how many of my students had ever had a teacher talk about it with them, only a few hands went up. Yikes. More hands went up when I asked if parents talked about it. But not too many more.

We began with an activity around a scenario that involved using a website to attack someone else, and discussed the situation and the possible responses. Then, I shared three videos: a Brainpop video about cyberbullying that did a fantastic job of explaining not just what it is but also strategies for victims (but you need a Brainpop account to access it), and then two videos from the CommonSense Media site. The two videos were personal vignettes from two girls who had been the target of cyberbullying, and how they responded and how they felt.

You could have heard a pin drop in the room as they girls talked about their situations. It was powerful. (And I can’t say enough about the CommonSense Media resources and curriculum around digital citizenship and digital life. I’ve been very impressed.)

Next, we went on the laptops and went into one of our communities: Bitstrips for Schools. Students have now begun a comic activity that is supposed to represent some ideas on how to prevent or deal with cyberbullying. They didn’t get too far and we will pick it back up after our February break (although I suspect some of them will work on the site over vacation). But I am going to poke around in the site and see what they have been up, and share out a bit tomorrow.

Peace (in the panels),
Kevin

 

Comic Book Review: I Smell a Pop Quiz (Big Nate)

Date
Posted by
Comments0

Big Nate is great.

I mean, as a teacher of sixth graders, the lead character in the Big Nate comic and books is like a collection of quirks from my own students (in a smaller body). This collection — I Smell a Pop Quiz! —  from creator Lincoln Peirce is another funny look at school through the eyes of Nate, who seems immune to most criticism, engulfed with big ideas that rarely pan out, and engaged with his odd assortment of teachers whose patience is continually tested.

Every now and then, I make copies of educationally-related comics and put them up anonymously through the areas where teachers go: in the copy room, in the mail room, etc. Hopefully, it generates a little levity with my colleagues.  I have a few panels from I Smell a Pop Quiz earmarked and ready to go. If you are a teacher, you can find plenty to laugh at here. And your students will enjoy this collection, too. While Peirce has also tried his hand at making novelized versions of Big Nate, they don’t work so well, in my opinion.

Big Nate belongs on the very small stage — in those three or four panels of funnies where the confines of the writing actually brings out the very best in Peirce’s writing and art.

Peace (in the panels),
Kevin

 

Remixing Advertising Media for Gender Awareness

Date
Posted by
Comments0


There’s no doubt that the Lego corporation is trying to make inroads with girls. Just look at the pink sets of pieces, and the themes that they are generating. And notice how the sets aimed at boys continue to be adventure-orientated, and mostly blue. This interesting site that I found called The HTML5 Gendered Lego Advertising Remix brings this difference to light in an interesting way. The site (which requires an upgraded browser) allows you to pull the audio from a boy or girl Lego set and put it beneath a video of a girl or boy Lego set.

What you notice is the way that music and voice is used, and color (of course), and theme. My youngest son loves Legos (as did his older brothers) but he is turned off by the girlie Lego sets. I’m not sure of the answer to how to best address gender by businesses, who after all are in the business of selling things.

The results from this remix site are pretty fascinating, I think, and provide a good insight for students to be thinking of the way they are targeted for advertising through design, theme, image and audio. I may need to try this activity with my students as part of our Digital Life unit. (Question for me: will our browsers allow it?)

Peace (from a boy),
Kevin

 

Top Ten Things I Heard People Say About My Nerdy Book Club Sweatshirt

Date
Posted by
Comments3

Yesterday was dress-down day at our school, where staff can dress casual and donate money into a fund to support families and staff of our school who might need a little extra help. Normally, I just wear jeans and a dress shirt. But yesterday, as we were about head into February break, I decided to put on my Nerdy Book Club sweatshirt. (For those not in the know, the Nerdy Book Club is an online collection of teachers, librarians, writers and others who like books. There is a blog website and a #nerdybookclub hashtag on Twitter. You can join, too. You just did. That’s how simple it is.)

I got a lot of interesting reactions to wearing the sweatshirt, which I had hoped would generate some conversation. Here are some of them — from students and colleagues.

  • What books are they reading? They don’t really have titles.
  • Nerdy Book Club? Where does that meet? In a library?
  • That’s my husband… right …. there. (points to the Nerd in image)
  • Let me get this straight. You’re all teachers. You love books. And yet, you are nerds? That’s so weird.
  • Those kids look pretty happy on your shirt, Mr. H. Must be good books.
  • I think my mom is part of that Nerdy Bookie Club. Or, she should be. She reads, like, all the time.
  • Do Kindles count for your club?
  • No offense, Mr. H, but I don’t think I’d want to be in that club. Sitting around, reading? No thanks.
  • I get the nerd part. That’s you, Mr. H. But how do books fit into it?
  • There’s a stain there, Mr. H. Looks like you spilled juice or something.

Peace (in the nerdiness),
Kevin

Usernames, Passwords and … me

Date
Posted by
Comments0

I designed an activity the other day as part of our Digital Life unit that centered on passwords. We watched the Common Craft video about secure passwords (which was a hit as was the one about protecting reputations online) and used a site called How Secure is My Password, and then, the task before my students was to come up with username and password suggestions for all their teachers. They had to think about what they knew about us — about what we teach and about our lives outside of school — since usernames would reflect our personality, but keep our identity hidden (this connects with our work around identity).

The passwords had to be strong — they had to use the website to make sure the password could resist hacking for at least a week — and memorable. Oh boy, they had a lot of fun with that activity. (I also reminded them to be nice to us. But they were asking more questions about our interests, and pets, and children, and more than ever before).

Yesterday, I had them go to our classroom blog site and post their recommended username and password for me. You will see some themes here: writing, teaching, ELA, saxophone, music, etc. The color “blue” is prevalent because my homeroom’s Quidditch color (yes, we play Quidditch at our school) is blue. I had fun looking over these. They had fun making them.
Mr H Username List

Mr H Password Ideas

But the real lesson, as I reminded them, is that when they are confronted with choices about usernames and passwords, they should remember our work here and come up with something that protects their identity but projects something about them, and a password that keeps their private data locked behind the virtual walls.

Peace (in the sharing),
Kevin