Teenagers Sexting - What Is Your School Doing About It?

Earlier this week a story broke of high school teenagers from Portland, Oregon taking video of other students engaged in sexual activities, then sending them to peers via Internet resources.  These incidents happened both on and off high school property.

One parent of a high school student feels it isn't just a Grant High School problem, but that the problem exists nationally.

As the police stated, not knowing that sharing a sexual photo or video of a friend who is under the age of 18 is no excuse, and will be considered distribution of child pornography which will have significant impact on the life of anyone.

This discovered behavior prompted immediate action by the school principal to encourage all parents to have conversations with their children regarding the seriousness of their behavior.

When I read that the principal sent home a letter to all parents with resources, I thought about all the other principals of high schools throughout the region, state, and nation.  What are they doing?  Are they encouraging parents to talk to their children about these issues?  Are these discussions happening in schools between teachers and students?  What should be the responsibility of the schools in teaching digital citizenship? 

Common Sense Media is a great resource to find talking points and lessons regarding this issue and many more.  In particular there is an entire lesson they host called "Overexposed: Sexting and Relationships".

Here are resources from Netsmartz addressing the issue, Tips to Prevent Teens Sexting for Parents, Tips to Prevent Sexting for Teens, and a video "Your Photo Fate".

I encourage all teachers to talk to students regarding digital safety, and if you happen to use this topic to get you started, excellent.  If this activity happened in Portland, Oregon, can it be happening in your school?


Sources:

• Police Investigate reports of sec acts filmed at Grant High School - FOX 12 November 17, 2014
• Portland police investigating Grant High students' filming of sexual activity - Oregon Live November 17, 2014
• Grant High School students' filming of sexual activity reflects nationwide issue - Oregon Live November 19, 2014

Klikaklu - Picture Matching Treasure Hunts

Are you familiar with Geocaching, where you use GPS to find a hidden treasure by navigating to a location and using some clues if necessary?  Do you remember the scavenger hunts you went on as a kids where you collected a series of objects from around the neighborhood?





Klikaklu is a free app available for iPhone, iPad, and even Android.  This free app allows you to navigate through a modern treasure hunt.  At each stop there is a photo, find the photo, match it with your iDevice, and proceed onto the next stage. If you complete the hunt successfully, a reward may be waiting on the end.

Where do you find these treasure hunts, or better yet, can you make them?  Klikaklu just revised their app so during the first seven days after installation you can create treasure hunts.  After seven days, you'll need to purchase the upgrade for $4.99 to be able to create new or modify existing treasure hunts.

When creating a Klikaklu hunt you will have two options, either linearly where students progress from clue to clue in order, or as a scavenger hunt where they get all the clues up front and can find them in any order.





This would be a great activity to have incoming students at your school, for instance Freshman orientation day, find different locations throughout the school property.

You could use this activity for regular classes where each stop is a question, math, science, or language arts, and they must generate answers along the way.  Klikaklu has this feature built in where you can have students answer multiple choice, true false, short text, or number questions at each clue and upon completion of the hunt.

For creative writers you could put stops where words are visible,  students must bring back the words they found, and when finished write a story using all the words they chose to bring back.

Klikaklu would be very entertaining for those special days throughout your school calendar. 

Who knows, maybe you'll find that pot of gold at the end of your next treasure hunt.

Alien Assignment from Fred Rogers Center - Great for PreK and Primary!

Apps that allow children to get up, move, and interact with their environment are great for the classroom. With Alien Assignment (Free)  children are sent around on a scavenger hunt to find items to help the alien family repair their spaceship.

App plays like a movie which then asks the students to find something that they ask for.  For example, the spaceship lost it's memory so they asked for a picture of something with words on it.

The app opens the camera inside the app for students to take the picture, then moves on to the next need.  This continues for 4 items.  Once the students have collected the four items they ask a grown up to review what they found.

Teachers or Parents can then look through what the students chose to take photos of and verify if they found the right item.  If they did not, it will have the students go back and continue looking until all four pieces have been found and fixed on the spaceship.

This free app allows students to interact with the storyline, find characteristics, problem solve, and practice their listening skills.  All instructions are given given aloud by one of the little alien characters.  Once one scavenger hunt is complete, it begins a new hunt with different characteristics.  I played the app three times by myself and with my own first grader and we didn't have repeat characteristics., though eventually they would probably repeat.  This app would make a great center activity in the classroom or walk the room activity near the beginning of the year.  

The Fred Rogers Center has other apps geared towards younger students as well.  Many are great for at home or in daycare settings.  

Professor Garfield Digital Citizenship Apps

 Keeping the conversation going with your students about digital citizenship and teaching digital literacy is important.  The Infinite Learning Lab  has created free apps for the iPad that would be a great tool to add to your curriculum.

• Professor Garfield Online Safety
• Professor Garfield Cyberbullying 
• Professor Garfield Forms of Media
• Professor Garfield Fact or Opinion 

Each app contains a comic strip story which contains click and drag style questions as they move through based on what they are learning in the comic.  Because the comic strips do not read aloud, these would work best for independent readers, upper elementary through middle school.   

The most power would be to incorporate these apps into a discussion on the topic.  Some students may find it too easy to drag through the comic and then click and drag until they find the right answers.

GroupMaker - a Great Teacher Tool

GroupMaker is a free iPad and iPhone app that allows teachers to upload class lists and organize them into groups quickly based on various characteristics, such as gender or academic level (based on a 1,2, or 3 rating). 

Once your students are uploaded, adjust and regroup as needed.  The ability to add photos for quick reference is great and by using the PICK! feature let the app choose a group or student to answer, discuss, or present first!     

Group sizes can be one to twenty.  Create as many Group configurations as you would like and save them within the class for quick access! 

GroupMaker is an easy app to add to your teacher toolbox.  

Distractions - Managing Devices in the Classroom

It takes one frustrating class period with students to cause the idea of using devices in the classroom to go to the back burner.  They were distracted! They wanted to play games, take pictures of themselves, text their buddies.....  

Here are some ways to make the experience easier on the teacher and at the same time teach students how to be better users of the devices they have in their pockets.  

Establish Clear Expectations

As with any new activity of course!   When can they use them, how to handle them, what accounts to use, etc...  With older students, especially classrooms using BYOD or iPod touch labs, require that the devices stay on top of the desk (no in the lap texting/game playing), and when not in use “turtle” them or “apples up” meaning the screen is asleep and facedown.  Post your expectations and have consequences for not following them.  The more you use the devices, the easier establishing a routine will become.

Finding Your Workflow

I know what app, I know what I want them to do, but they know more than me!  Please remember, you don’t have to be an expert.  Allow the students to explore the app before using it for an assignment or let them figure it out on the way.  We had a post last fall from a classroom teacher on this very topic: Let Them Explore.   

If it is a creation app, make sure to do a quick sample and figure out the workflow to turn in the assignment.  Will you view it on their device, can it save to their photo album, will they email it to me? Everyones workflow may be a little different, but make sure you decided on that before hand.  

How to Use the Device for Learning

Students need to be exposed to the tools loaded on the devices.  If its BYOD, have them download tools on to their own devices that will teach them to use their device beyond games and their social networks.   

What about how to search for good sites for references or teaching them about copyright issues?  Common Sense Media is a great place to look for lessons pertaining to researching, copyrights, as well as how to be a responsible digital citizen for grades K - 12.  

But They are Still Distracted!

There have been discussions on the distractibility of all the new technologies we use in our everyday life.  It’s not just our students, we too are more distracted than ever (look around at the next staff meeting!)  With iPads there are settings options, like Guided Access, to lock a student in an app, but with high schoolers with their own devices, it’s not that easy.  

In the blog post “Teaching a Distracted Generation to Focus” on Technapex the author discusses the findings of a study on just how distracted we all are.  A great suggestion in the post on taking “Tech Breaks” caught my attention.  It’s the opposite of what it sounds, when teaching class, stop and take a couple minutes to allow students to check their devices, then put them back on the desk and get back to work at the task at hand.   Rather than fighting students throughout the lesson, set a “tech break” in the middle of a lesson, then focus back to the lesson... turn it off/asleep and turtle on the desk. 
Remember, there will always be and always have been distractions in classrooms....note passing, comic books inside the textbook, even the cool mechanical pencil! Do you have any tips and tricks for helping deal with the "distractions" with students? Please feel free to share what has worked for you!

photo credit: blakespot via photopin cc
photo credit: Enokson via photopin cc

Snapchat - Digital Safety Can NOT be Taught Enough!

Before I start about the app, this is not a post about how to use an app in the classroom.  This is more of a "heads up" post, especially for those of us teaching upper elementary to college aged students.

The basic premise of Snapchat is to be able to quickly snap a photo and send it to another user and the photo will "self destruct" in a matter of seconds.  

Quick, easy, share a funny moment with good friends..... but it creates a false sense of security in thinking that it will be gone within so many seconds of the receiver opening the picture.  But it's not gone.  One simple screen capture and that photo is now in the hands of someone else and can be sent anywhere.  

To get the full idea,  this app came to our attention when the Today Show ran a segment last week.  You can watch the segment here.   

This app reminds me of the importance of digital safety talks with our teens.  

Common Sense Media has great Educator Resources for Digital Citizenship content aligned with the Common Core.   

QR Code Math Problems

QR codes, that little square box that leads to mystery and engagement.  Such is the case for the typical worksheet of math problems.

For example, you have the standard worksheet of several story problems that students need to complete for practice.  This daunting worksheet where teachers find students practicing all the excuses to postpone the activity like "my pencil broke" or "can I use the restroom".

What if each story problem were revealed as the product of a QR code?

I was visiting a classroom last week, and looked at the walls noticing many QR codes scattered about.  I asked what they are used for?  The teacher stated she just put all the problems from the worksheet into QR codes; that students weren't motivated to complete the worksheet but eagerly engaged to complete the QR code tasks.

Try this strategy with your next worksheet for student practice, whether it be solving math problems or writing sentences for vocabulary words.

Classroom Management with ClassDojo and the iPad

ClassDojo is an online tracking system for positive and negative behavior, that if you haven't had a chance to explore, you should really take the time.  I mentioning it now because the website has a nice, easy to use app for the iPad and iPhone.

ClassDojo App by Class Twist Inc  - Free with no ads!

Don't assume this is a primary site - it has potential through upper grades as well!  (I used the site with 6th grade math - they still like reward systems!)

What is ClassDojo? (as described from the site)

ClassDojo is a classroom tool that helps teachers improve behavior in their classrooms quickly and easily. It also captures and generates data on behavior that teachers can share with parents and administrators.  Better learning behaviors, smoother lessons and hassle-free data - and its free!

• Log in and Sign up at the ClassDojo website.
• Follow the guided tour and add your classes. 
• In "Edit Class" manage students and add behaviors that fit the needs of the class. 
• Under "Report Cards" set up to send emails to parents, view whole class behavior and points or by individual student.  

Sign in to the account on the iPad and record as you move about the room.  The information syncs between website and app making it easy to access the data that you have collected.   Project the class up on the screen (students love the avatars!) and discuss behavior at the end of the class period or have students nominate students for positive behaviors that they noticed during class that may have gone unnoticed by the teacher.    

More advanced and interactive use allows the students and parents to use their own code to log in and view their points.  

Between the website and the app - the data collection aspect is easy and valuable and worth the few minutes to get it set up!