Dr. Thomas Johnson | ict-design.org | education | technology | ai & NOT A.I. | design

Stop Cyber-bullying Now!

Attention:

STOP CYBER-BULLYING NOW!

The following video shows a glimpse of what some of the worst outcomes are from cyber-bullying:

Proof:

How many people are getting cyber bullied a year?

Bullying statistics 2010:

New bullying statistics for 2010 revealed about one in seven students in grades kindergarten through 12th grade is either a bully or has been a victim of bullying. Sometimes a teen or child who has been bullied eventually becomes the bully as a way to retaliate. In fact, revenge for bullying is one of the strongest motivations for school shootings, according to recent bullying statistics. A reported 61 percent of students said they believe students shoot others at school because they have been victims of physical violence at home or at school. This is a true indicator that bullying can occur in all forms by other students, children, teens as well as adults. According to various bullying studies, many teens and children act out violently on their peers through acts of bullying because they are abused at home.

Other bullying statistics:

Over half, about 56 percent, of all students have witnesses a bullying crime take place while at school.

A reported 15 percent of all students who don’t show up for school report it to being out of fear of being bullied while at school.

There are about 71 percent of students that report bullying as an on-going problem.

Along that same vein, about one out of every 10 students drops out or changes schools because of repeated bullying.

One out of every 20 students has seen a student with a gun at school.

Some of the top years for bullying include 4th through 8th graders in which 90 percent were reported as victims of some kind of bullying.

Other recent bullying statistics reveal that 54 percent of students reported that witnessing physical abuse at home can lead to violence in school.

Among students of all ages, homicide perpetrators were found to be twice as likely as homicide victims to have been bullied previously by their peers.

There are about 282,000 students that are reportedly attacked in high schools throughout the nation each month.

Bullycide statistics:

Suicide continues to be one of the leading causes of death among children under the age of 14. Bullycide is a term used to describe suicide as the result of bullying. New bullying statistics 2010 are reporting that there is a strong connection between bullying, being bullied and suicide, according to a new study from the Yale School of Medicine. Suicide rates are continuing to grow among adolescents, and have grown more than 50 percent in the past 30 years.

bullystatistics.org

Strategy:

Think about online safety.
If you are a student, kid or teen, watch these videos. Think about yourself and how someone has effected you or how you are effecting someone. If you need to:

Tell someone.

If you are a teacher or parent, start by showing and talking to kids about any of the following videos:

Anti-Cyber-Bullying

Cyber-Bullying Talent Show – You wouldn’t say this in person

Do you really know who you are talking to?

Bulletin Board – Once you put it in Cyber-Space, it is always there

Be careful what you post. You never know who is going to see it

Sweety High – Straight talk about Cyber-Bullying

Anyone can seem like a different person Online – Brad Paisley

Consequences of Cyber-Bullying

Internet Stranger – Possible Case Scenarios

Computer Labs are made wrong. Here’s why:

24 Jun

Attention:

Get rid of rows of computers in your school!!

How many schools have you been to where the computer labs are a room full of 20-30 computers lined up in rows around a the room?

Lots?

Me too.

This is old school thinking and it’s wrong. A computer lab should not be row upon row of computers. There is no need. We have wifi and students have laptops of their own (or they should).

More and more forward-thinking schools are implementing laptop programs. If this is the case, get rid of the desktops. Put them in the library or put two or three computers in each classroom. Donate them to the office staff or the underprivileged school down the road. Be more savvy when you invest the money into technology.

Proof:

“Results confirm the hypotheses that [students] seated in circles engage in significantly more on-task behavior than those in rows and that [student] seated in clusters engage in more on-task behavior than those in rows but less than those in circles.” http://psycnet.apa.org/index.cfm?fa=buy.optionToBuy&id=1985-18658-001

Yet most computer classrooms in schools still have row upon row. The desktop computer no longer needs to be the standard. The laptop, the tablet and the smart phone are smaller, useful technologies that need to be employed effectively.

Computer classroom designers might take a look at leaders in the field, Google’s and Facebook’s headquarters, to see what fun engaging design looks like:

GOOGLE

images from http://www.reactorr.com/blog/index.php/2009/08/google-land/

FACEBOOK

images from: http://freshome.com/2009/10/15/facebook-headquarters-in-california/

I wish schools I have seen or worked at looked fun like this.

Strategy:

Then what should the computer classroom of 2011 and beyond be?

Outdoors – Why limit the confines of classroom learning to a classroom? Get kids outside experiencing and doing, with tablets and cellphones connected to the internet as supporting reference tools or better yet as creation tools for capturing, writing about, drawing and much more. Take students on trips to the mall, the store, the field, behind the school, the cafeteria, and nature. Read more about outdoor classrooms here.
If educators have to works indoors, two words: Beanbag chairs (Swiss balls could also work) – They are lightweight, movable workstations. Put electric/data ports for charging and connectivity throughout the floor of EVERY classroom and put lots on the walls. (At least until they mass market wireless electricity)
Group centers and Circles can easily be formed by the teacher for collaborative physical meeting points.
With the new-found money in the budget, invest in specialized media centers: graphics tablets, video raid systems, video greenscreens, music stations and studios with sound editing capabilities. Computers aren’t just for using the Microsoft products. Start thinking about how the other subjects like art, drama, phys ed, and science can be using them.
Fitness rooms with setups to place tablets are a must. Make sure you have speakers to plug those iPods into.
iPads and iMovie are a must for drama class and why not for the sports field.
Wacom tablets are a new must for art class which can now also be called Digital Design class.

Administrators and educators:
Think outside the box. Redefine the computer classroom. Think Engaging. Think Useful. Think Fun! Invest more in your wifi.

Good luck with the future.

6 Comments

Posted by Dr. Thomas Johnson | ict-design.org on June 24, 2011 in Design, Education, Technology

Tags: Computer lab, Education, Facebook, Google, Hardware, LabVIEW, Laptop, School, Student, Technology

2 Reasons why I love Infographics

13 Jun

Attention:

If you don’t know what infographics are, it’s about time you learned.

If you are a teacher and you don’t know what these are, it’s about time you started getting your students to use and create them.

Infographics, also known as information graphics are: The picture worth more than a thousand words¹.

Wikipedia presently states an infographic is a “graphic visual representations of information, data or knowledge’.

But why are they important to harness and use?

Proof:

You have probably come across a few infographics in your life: Subway route systems, weather maps, and even the common red octagonal stop sign, which is a simple form of an infographic. Below, I have listed the importance and reasons why I love infographics:

Graphics are universal, meaning they are easily understood across cultures.
If you have traveled to a non-English-speaking country, think of a time you have tried to read signs to figure out what they mean. If you were in a Spanish-speaking country this was possibly easier than if you were in China or Thailand where not only the words, but also the script is completely unintelligible to you. However, many of these countries have used the idea of infographics to convey meaning to those who need it. Think of the red octagonal sign with the gibberish script on it. Placed at a corner, an English-speaking driver of a car still should inherently know to stop. Just as they might understand the squiggly lines on a yellow sign might mean a curvy road up ahead. The graphic does more for the international user than any word in any language ever could.
Complex information is displayed visually to appeal to this type of intelligence.
Howard Gardner explains those having Spacial/Visual intelligences as “having visual and spatial perception. [They are able to] interpret and create visual images. [They have] pictorial imagination and expression [and] understand relationship[s] between images and meanings, and between space and effect.” http://www.businessballs.com/howardgardnermultipleintelligences.htm
I feel this is my primary type of intelligence.

We understand why we might want to use or create infographics and for who, but how?

Strategy:

Determine topic of the infographic.
Research data needed to display.
Decide on color scheme.
Design infographic and keep it simple.
Try: Graphs, Timelines, Flowcharts, Size Comparisons, Venn Diagrams, Annotated Pictures and Maps
To create graphics use:

Go Beyond: Use Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, Fireworks, 3D Studio Max or any free available graphic design software like:

Vector Inkscape | Insightpoint
Raster Gimp | Gimpshop | Smoothdraw | Serif Drawplus | Project Dogwaffle Free
3D Graphics Blender | Google Sketchup

Find more graphic design tools at snap2objects blog here.
See a step-by-step guide to creating an infographic using Adobe Illustrator here at vector.tutsplus.com
See a few website examples of infographics here, here, here, and here.

¹ Coined by Thomas Adam Johnson Monday, June 13th, 2011

Sneak Peak: End of the Year Video

06 Jun

Attention:

For those of you who would like a sneak peek at the end of the year video I made for the MYP kids at Concordian International School, this blog post is the embedded video and link to it.

Proof:

Strategy:

Want to make one yourself?

Subscribe to Animoto
Upload, or choose pics/video from your computer or even Facebook
Choose some music – Animoto has lots of nice stuff, but you can upload your own
Choose the theme and transitions
If you would like longer than 30 second videos, you need to pay $5.00
Download high quality videos for $3.00 per video
Use Freemake Video Converter to edit, change formats, and add images

I was using Adobe Premier, but with all its bells and whistles I wanted to use something a lot simpler. Freemake definitely does everything I needed and the quality seemed better than what Adobe was giving me. Freemake feels like early versions of iMovie that were easy to use with an easy learning curve. Try it yourself to see what I mean. Good luck and happy video making.