Finding Damo

The story of a man, his job, two cats and the meaning of success.

Archive for the category “conversation starters”

01 Mar 2023

Why do I work?

My nephew Cai asked my why I work as part of a homework assignment for school. I asked him if he would send me his finished work afterwards. Here it is.

I have worked a lot of jobs throughout my life. There have been jobs I have worked simply to keep a house over my head and to pay for food and movies and computer games. But I never stayed in a job that I didn’t love for more than a year.

There are a few things that keep me working:

I work because it puts me in an environment where I can spend time with other people, interact, learn from and teach each other at the same time.

I work because it is a way to keep my mind active and to stop from being bored.

And I work to earn enough money to enjoy my life outside work.

So would I work if I didn’t have to?

Absolutely. I might not work as much, and I would definitely take a break if I was suddenly very rich, but I have a job that I love and I would hate to miss out on the other parts of work that aren’t the paycheck.

For example, as a teacher, I:

  • Entertain and educate my students (mostly in that order)
  • Am constantly learning new things – from the students, from other teachers, and from everywhere else in order to keep up and make my classes interesting.
  • Play with robots, make movies, write stories, go on camps, play dungeons and dragons, make computer games and interact with over a hundred people every day. It is exhausting and exhilarating and I can’t imagine life without it.

There is the personal satisfaction you get from doing something well. There is the acknowledgement from others and the feeling of being needed. There is the sense of being part of a community and the sense of giving back to the world and to future generations.

Of course, each of these things can be achieved in other ways, but I don’t know of many that can do ALL of these to such an extent.

I think the best thing to do would be to give me a couple of million dollars and see what happens!

Some other responses:

“I am currently studying so I can enjoy my work more in a new career. I
want to work for more than just money, I think work should be fulfilling and
help society. 

In my previous job as a teacher I was able to help society and help
support my family through the income but I was no longer finding it
personally fulfilling.”

“There are probably three reasons.

  • Money – It’s difficult to do things I want to do, travel and look after the people I love without money.
  • Need to do something with my brain. I don’t know how I would keep my brain engaged without work. My job is challenging and I like to problem solve. If I had holidays all the time I wouldn’t enjoy them. Getting up and getting going in the morning keeps my mental health good. The sense of achievement I get from work also supports my mental health. 
  • Is to do with working in education. When working with volunteer organisations I was not getting any money to teach but I believe in what I’m working for. Education is important and everyone should have access to it.

I have a lot to offer. The work I do fits with my personal ethics and values and is fulfilling.“

“Because I need to earn money to survive. If I didn’t work I would get bored
easily though.“

“For the money and to help people, make them feel good and stuff (Cai’s
paraphrasing of the response).“

Cai’s job was to summarise this information and make some conclusions. It was very interesting.

His report:

Money was five out of five. Fulfilment: 3 out of five. Help people/society: 4 people. Enjoyment: 3/5. Keeping the brain active: 3/5. Connections and learning: 1/5.

Money was a constant between the five people, though everyone had multiple answers and
reasons to the question. There were some recurring themes as shown in the graph above.

His Conclusions:

I think it depends on the sort of person they are and whether they enjoy the job they’ve got,
because some of the answers were really showing how much they enjoyed the job and would do
it even if they were not getting paid and that tells us the sort of person they are. Whereas some
answers were just saying they work mainly for the wages and as they enjoy the job they’ve got,
they would probably enjoy another job more if they could. 

All the people I asked are very kind, thoughtful and caring, so it was really nice to see how much
they did it for the enjoyment and to help others.

Posted in conversation starters, education, family, Money, perryperrysource, Reflection, Relationships, School, Success, Teaching and tagged , , , | Leave a comment
01 Feb 2023

ChatGPT

The first SAC for VCE Software Development is to solve a series of programming challenges using a programming language and GUI. I pose a series of challenges to assess the students’ knowledge of the software.

This year I’m working with Python and PyQT6. When the whole ChatGPT conversation started up I thought I’d see how well the AI could complete my course.

It turns out, quite well!

So the first challenge is to create a simple program that takes three grades and has buttons for average, sum and one that tells you whether the students passed or failed.

I thought about the language and gave ChatGPT this prompt:

Aquinas College has requested that I develop a prototype reporting system using PyQT6 and Python 3.10.  The GUI should take three scores (each out of 100) entered into a form. The form should also contain the following:

Sum button to display the sum of the three scores in a label when selected.

Average button to display the average of the three scores in a label when selected.

The program must ensure that data has been entered into all the score textboxes.

Pass/Fail button to display Pass if the sum of the scores is 150 or over, Fail to be displayed if the sum of the scores is less than 150, when clicked.

Clear button to clear all the textboxes and the label when selected.

Exit button for the user to exit the application when selected.

ChatGPT responded:

To implement the reporting system using PyQT6 and Python 3.10, follow these steps:

  1. Create the GUI using PyQT6 library, add three textboxes for the scores, and five buttons for sum, average, pass/fail, clear and exit.
  2. Connect the buttons with the appropriate functions using signals and slots mechanism.
  3. For the sum button, implement a function that reads the values from the three textboxes, adds them and displays the result in a label.
  4. For the average button, implement a function that reads the values from the three textboxes, calculates the average and displays the result in a label.
  5. For the pass/fail button, implement a function that reads the values from the three textboxes, adds them and checks if the sum is 150 or over. If yes, display “Pass” in the label, otherwise display “Fail”.
  6. For the clear button, implement a function that clears the textboxes and the label.
  7. For the exit button, implement a function that closes the application.
  8. Implement data validation for the three textboxes, to ensure that data has been entered into all the score textboxes.

This is a high-level overview of the steps to implement the reporting system. The actual implementation would require writing code and making use of PyQT6 and Python 3.10 features.

Cheeky me:

ChatGPT:

Yes, I can write the program for you. Here is an example code for the reporting system using PyQT6 and Python 3.10:

Lots of code later. I pasted into Python and ran it. It worked, but was a bit dodgy, so:

And it just worked!

I want to take this further. I could ask the AI to fiddle with the layout. I could try to add in images. I was going to ask it to add in internal documentation, but thought I’d given it enough to do.

I also want to have this conversation with the students. Explain that completing programming challenges in this way won’t help them learn the basics behind the code. But once they have the basics, this could be an awesome way to learn to debug code. It’s a great way for students to break down a problem (so they can give it to the ChatGPT).

I am actually excited about ChatGPT. We can only hope that it is an evolution for education rather than something the government/education departments just try to squash to keep the status quo.

I’m not overly optimistic:

Posted in conversation starters, curriculum, education, ICT, perryperrysource, productivity, School, STEAM, Teaching, tech tips and tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment
03 Aug 2017

Pokemon Go.

damoballI’ve got another Pokemon Go article happening over at FindingDamo. I just wanted to look at it from an educational perspective as well, a year on from my last look at the subject.

A year later, my huge dreams have come to nothing. I haven’t created an AR scavenger hunt. I haven’t made the virtual St James College Paintball stadium.

But I’m still playing Pokemon Go.

It hasn’t lost its fascination for me. A year on, I’m still walking ten kilometres over a weekend to hatch some eggs (and to stay fit). I go on raids with total strangers to catch legendary monsters that I can’t fight by myself.

The concept is a good one. The merit of game-play that doesn’t rely on controllers or even being inside the house is excellent. Surely it is something we can use in an educational setting.

Imagine (and feel free to make these apps happen with my blessing):

What’s that bird? 

You hold your camera up to a bird in the wild, it scans the shape and colour and if it finds a match, adds it to your Bird-watching field book. Gotta see ’em all!

Ghosts of the past

A virtual historical landscape that overlays our actual world. Hold the phone up and see what your block looked like one hundred years ago. There are apps out there like this already – the Vic Heritage app on iPhone shows you pictures of places around Melbourne when you get close enough – but it isn’t augmented reality as much as it is pop up photos using GPS.

With the focus on STEAM and Digital Technologies, there is an excellent opportunity for keen teachers with time on their hands (ha!) to work with their students to create games that don’t just emulate stuff already out there in the world, but to create something completely new, with an educational bent.

How about virtual art galleries? I’ve been working with our Art department on trialling QR codes and AR hotspots to bring up explanations, rough sketches and videos relating to student artworks in the College gallery. Wouldn’t it be cool if you could lift your phone to an artwork and see it in sketch form? Or see a video of the creator explaining their process?

We’re only scratching the surface of the possibilities here. Mostly because any teacher interested enough to make something like this happen already has too much on their plate to take on something new.

But still, have the conversation. Delegate. Get the students to do it as a project. They’ll probably do a better job than you would anyway.

And keep playing Pokemon Go. That Lugia won’t catch itself!

PS. Check out TheSTEAMReport.com.au – I am editing this for Minnis Publications and you can subscribe for a monthly (soon to be bi-monthly) email newsletter containing bitesize articles for your STEAMy pleasure.

Posted in conversation starters, curriculum, ICT, perryperrysource, STEAM and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment
26 Jul 2016
1 Comment

All the extra reality

pokehatePokemon Go has polarised my Facebook feed. Half of my friends are right into it. The other half are groaning over the next Bulbasoar picture. I downloaded the app four days after it was released in Australia, got my wife and daughter hooked and haven’t looked back. I justify this because as the Head of IT at my school I need to know what’s popular in technology. I justify this because as a father, I am looking after my daughter’s health by increasing our exercise while hunting for new species of Pokemon.

I justify this because it’s a very engaging game with a strong community of followers. And it’s fun.

But it has brought to the forefront a conversation that I have been having for years about the value of AR and VR. That’s Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality for the uninitiated.

VR booth from the early 90s

Dactyl Nightmare VR game from 1991

Virtual Reality is the replacement of our reality with another, complete, world. You wear a headset or a helmet and when you move your head, your virtual head moves as well so that you can look around. In the early nineties, this was going to be the next big thing. I spent hours in bulky armour carrying a pistol and shooting pterodactyls on the VR system at a games arcade. I did my major project for my Bachelor of Computing in VRML, replicating the (then) new Melbourne Sports and Aquatic Centre so that people could go on a virtual tour of the space.

VR and VRML were going to replace the Internet and television and movies would never be the same.

Fast forward twenty years. VRML is nowhere to be seen – a victim of optional plugins and varying standards. VR went into hibernation until the Occulus Rift dragged it kicking and growling from its den.

And now, twenty years after I foolishly specialised in online 3D navigation, we are finally ready to have the VR and AR conversation again.

At this year’s DLTV DigiCon, my favourite keynote speaker was Josh Caratelli, a game designer from Big Ant Studios. The point I took from his keynote was this: VR and AR are not the future of technology. Getting involved in this now isn’t early adoption. We should already be on top of this.

Oh, and holograms aren’t that far off either.

So, racing to catch up to where I was twenty years ago with my MSAC model and my exploding pterodactyls, how can I introduce/use AR and VR into our curriculum?

Here’s a couple of ideas:

Scavenger hunts

We have school tours come through on a pretty regular basis. We have Grade 5 Come and See programs where primary students spend the morning doing Year 7 subjects to get an idea of how the school works. We have orientation days and art exhibitions and parent information nights. If we could enhance the school using AR we’d save on paper and showcase the brilliance of our student modellers and programmers.

My plan:

I’ve made a list of things around the school that could easily be modelled. I’ll hand one of these to each of the students in my Year 8 Engineering and Design class. They’ll create these models. We export them into Aurasma – an excellent AR tool for IOS. We match them to their real life counterparts and as parents move through the school with the app open, 3D models will pop up, with the name of the student next to them. Instant exhibition space.

Exhibition Spaces

Speaking of which…

We have regular art exhibitions at the school. If a parent held their phone up to the picture, an information sheet with an explanation of the work, their photo and maybe some sketches could pop up on the screen to add information to the picture.

qr_code_without_logoOr we could go old school and instead of having the student’s name and homeroom, we simply have a QR code, which links to an online space with their production journal and concept art scanned in.

The boys would set up their own pages, demonstrating competency across a number of DigiTech areas.

Value added Literacy

Book-e-mon. Gotta read ‘em all.

When you use Aurasma on Small Gods, it will pop up a review.

AR book reviews

This is the slogan I want for Book Week this year. I’m going to have my class all create an image with a book review for their favourite book. Add in pictures and their names. And then put each of these into Aurasma. The teachers can do the same. As students return and review books, the librarian can check to see if the book is one of the enhanced versions and if it is, the student wins a prize.

In the near future:

Other possibilities would be having a Microsoft Hololens when they finally come out. The Arts department could run virtual sculpturing sessions. We could add AR instructions to woodwork classes. Minecraft club would suddenly be a LOT more interesting.

I’d also take a look at the new HP Sprout.

And that’s just Augmented Reality. What about replacing reality altogether?

VR

Mecha-PTBIn Year 10 we run VET Creative Industries in partnership with the Academy of Interactive Entertainment. We also run Game Design, using Game Maker and Unreal Engine. My plan is to get hold of a HTC Vive system and start building models that we can import into that virtual world. I’d get the boys to recreate the school and run virtual paintball sessions created by the more active Game Design classes. We could run virtual tours of the school.

Enhancement and Acceleration

All this extra reality is a great way to enhance our educational possibilities. AR and VR give the students opportunities to excel beyond the regular curriculum restrictions. Posters could become multimedia extravaganzas. Teachers could walk through a real life recreation of an Egyptian pyramid. We could split the atom in Science without blowing up half of the school.

I think the other big point I took away from this year’s DigiCon is that we need to stop limiting our students and instead let them learn in the best way for them. The other thing I learned is that I have a LOT still left to learn.

Posted in conversation starters, curriculum, Differentiation, education, ICT, perryperrysource, productivity, tech tips and tagged , , , , , , ,
03 Aug 2015

Digicon15

DLTV DigiCon 15 (the #digicon15 summaries)

Twitter is a marvellous beast. We can only go to one session in every slot during a conference, but thanks to Twitter (and the teachers using it) I have resources from dozens of sessions that I couldn’t make.

Over the two days, we discussed a number of technology issues and heard from some very clever and entertaining educators. I’m going to philosophise about a few things and post some links about the things we found out as I try to unpack all of the information shoved willy nilly into my brain. Please feel free to add to/dispute any of the information I place on here. And enjoy.

First up, something I picked up from my first VITTA conference: Storify. I typed digicon15 into the search bar, pressed SHOW MORE about a hundred times and then stuck all 2000 tweets into a storify article. From that point, I could start to order what happened over the two days and create:

https://storify.com/DamianPerry/dltv15#publicize

WHAT I LEARNED DURING DIGICON 2015.

Risk is not a dirty word!Teachers in general are a risk-averse bunch. And fair enough – we are providing a product to parents and we are accountable for our stuff-ups to a number of different groups. However, technological innovation is all about risk taking. And surprisingly, people rarely die from taking risks in this arena. So go for it.

Similarly, we are scared of letting our students take risks. But we need to relax and let them free. Just make sure you’re a member of the union first. Wrapping your students in bubble wrap means that they are ill-equipped to deal with the outside world.

Don’t tell your kids “Be risk takers!” and then “…but don’t do this because you might get hurt!” Schools have too many rules.  Set them free. If they fail, if they get hurt, they’ve learned something and will do better next time.

On the subject of failure, Anne Edmonds performed for us. She’s a very funny comedian and she extolled the virtues of failure as a learning device. Risk and failure = success (eventually). But only if you learn from your failures and don’t let them beat you down.

Hamish Curry played games for us, ate a banana on stage and was from that point on part of #bananagate, which I still don’t completely understand. During his keynote, the sales of Duet, Paper Fox and Monument Valley shot through the roof.

Four RussiansWhen you’re planning lessons, Corrie Barclay (@CorrieB) introduced us to the 3 Russian Brothers and their cousin:

Morov, Lessov, Ridov and Tossin.

What do you do that works that you can do more of (Morov)?

What do you need to do less of (Lessov)?

What do you need to completely get rid of (Ridof)?

What else can you toss in (Tossin)?

He made some excellent points about authentic assessment and enquiry learning. His Doomsday website shows what students can come up with when they aren’t limited by teacher expectations.

The philosophy of being a teacher came up over and over. One of the better quotes that popped up on the screen during keynotes and Spark events was: There is no such a thing as a teacher or a student; there are only co-learners. Especially in IT, we learn as much from our students as we teach them, and the successful teacher is the one that is willing to take the new on board and have a student explain it.

As for the venue, Swinburne is a great place to hold a conference. The wi-fi was flawless, which is usually where these days fall down. The food was delicious and plentiful. Winthrop provided us with free “real” coffee for the two days. And apart from getting up way too early on a Saturday morning, the public transport was a doddle.

And I reinvigorated my company pen collection:

pens

Specifics

ICT v Digital Technologies

how to make a paper plane

My instructions

Digital Technologies = Producer. ICT = Consumer

In one of our sessions, we made the distinction between DigiTech and ICT by making paper planes. I had to make a plane, write down the instructions, post the instructions to Twitter. Then I found instructions from someone else and followed their instructions to make a plane myself. Digital Technologies involves the creation of a product. ICT involves using a product that someone else has created. This activity allowed us to do both.

Implementing Digital Technologies presents the age-old problem of where to stick it. Do we create a separate Digi-Tech class at a year level? Or do we break it up and stick it into a number of different classes?

The instructions I had to follow

The instructions I had to follow.

Technological Innovation

I attended a session about getting students out of school using technology. The idea is that one a couple of days each year, or semester, whatever the school is comfortable with, the students stay home from school and the teachers present classes digitally. There are a great number of reasons why this would be a good idea. Just as many reasons not to do it, especially in our risk-averse teaching society. But it’s an interesting concept.

The teachers at Nossal High School send their students home twice a year for a school free day. The teachers timetabled on for that day teach their regular period via online teaching. They use webcasting, pre-recorded content and online assessment to present and assess their classes.

This was a daunting task for a number of teachers, but through collegiality, a bit of courage and a good implementation plan, the program worked – and continues to work – well.

I’m not saying that we should all send our students home for the day twice a year – I think our parents specifically would have a kitten over the idea – but there is definitely merit in using a collegiate approach to upskilling the teachers in our schools and getting them to embrace technology. Maybe a Digital Day twice a year where students take classes digitally at school. Something to think about.

Coding

I didn’t make it to any of the coding sessions, but I got a great deal of feedback from the other teachers from my school, as well as a friend of mine and of course the multitudes of Tweets.

Some of the better results:

Coding = repetitive failing until you get something that works. – @rissL

Programming, or “coding”, is simply making a list of instructions and having them executed.

I saw someone “coding” a human being. This sounds like a great introduction to the concept.

3D

A 3D scanned me.

A 3D scanned me.

The 3D offerings at DigiCon15 were phenomenal. The ideas I saw put forward will completely change the way I run the curriculum next year. There’s too much to go into here, so I’ll put up a separate blog post on the subject (and link to it when I’m done).

Questions without answers

How can we shape lesson and curriculum design that keeps us as teachers engaged, creative and innovative? – @CorrieB

So many benefits for teaching students the Arts. How can we make schools value this more? – @wongmichy

Links

Corrie’s session: Redesigning Curriculum for the 21st Century.

DigiCon15 on Youtube

And finally, the teachers at Northern Bay being superheroes for the sake of education:

Posted in conversation starters, education, ICT, perryperrysource, productivity, tech tips and tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment
21 May 2015

How to annoy a teacher

There are hundreds of ways to annoy a teacher. Sometimes it depends on whether the annoying person is another teacher, an administrator, a reporter, parent, relative or person on the street.

My uncles delight in telling me that I can’t complain because I have too many holidays. I could argue that until the cows come home and it wouldn’t make a difference, so I won’t bother.

I get annoyed when meetings are called (or cancelled) at the last minute. I get annoyed when I don’t see a class for three weeks due to unfortunate timing of holidays and sports days and correction days and any other multitude of days. But it’s something that happens. I’ll live.

I was unnecessarily infuriated when another teacher told me that one of the extra-curricular activities I undertake was part of my teaching loadangry teacher. OK, annoyance again was warranted but the strength of my reaction was a bit over the top.

If you’re not a teacher, or not a secondary teacher, here’s some background knowledge. Primary teachers all over the country will look at what I’m about to say and join my uncles in telling me secondary teachers are paid too much, but here goes.

We have a teaching load. Looking at my timetable I have 19 periods of teaching a week which is 15 contact hours (I think). I have five yard duties and two emergency yard duties over a fortnight. I have a couple of possible extras a week. I have time allocation for my Position of Leadership, and a couple more for IT-related work. The rest of the time we’re at work is planning, marking and other teaching miscellany. I totally admire the primary teacher who has their classes all day, except for specialist times.

We also have responsibilities. We have to show up to meetings – staff meetings, beginning and end of term training days. We have to attend some information nights and we are expected to participate in certain extra-curricular activities related to our discipline. For example, I am part of the Arts faculty, and therefore I take part in the College production. More to the point, I love the College production and therefore I take part in it (but I would be expected to do so even if I didn’t).

I teach at a smallish school. We have a dedicated staff and we’re never short-handed for any activities that are run. Because we like to get involved. Because we like to do things to enhance our students’ learning experience.

Not because we’re being paid to do it. Not because it’s part of our job description.

I’m not getting paid any more than the teacher who gets in at 9 and leaves at 3.30. This morning I started work at 6.45am and I’ll finish at around 11pm.

It’s not part of my load. And it devalues what I choose to do to say that it’s part of my job description. It took me awhile to figure out why I was so angry at the suggestion, but there it is.

This next bit will sound a bit more like a resume letter than a blog post, but I think it’s important to blow your own trumpet every now and then. Not for other teachers, who already know how much work is involved in what we do, but for my uncles.

Here’s the short list of my extra-curricular involvement at the school:

  • Debating coach (five evenings, plus finals, plus lunchtime planning sessions, plus research and planning, plus professional development and the associated catchup)
  • Creative writing club (lunchtime meetings, plus excursions, plus research into competitions and publishing opportunities, plus proofreading and lesson plans – purely for the boys’ enjoyment and not part of school, plus Write-a-book-in-a-day (8am-8pm))
  • College radio before school at the community radio station (getting up before 6 for a 7-8am show, once every three weeks)
  • College production (don’t even ask, especially on years where I have a more active role)

Not paid for any of it. And apart from the College Production, not even expected to do any of it.

And I really don’t care. I love doing it all. I love being a part of these activities and I don’t begrudge the time spent making them work well (although my wife might sometimes).

But I want to be a bit selfish. I want people to look at what I’ve done and say “look at what he’s done for these kids – that’s pretty special” rather than “meh. It’s part of his job.”

OK, rant over. I just wanted to work my way through an extreme reaction to a simple comment.

my jobAnd now, back to work. Playing with Lego, making movies, creating robotic animations, printing out 3D Pokéballs and taking photos.

My life is soooo hard.

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21 Apr 2015

Technology and Distractability

I’m writing this at parent teacher interviews. As an IT teacher, I’m not in as high demand as the English and homeroom teachers. Most of the students in my class are there because they want to be. So I have time.

I can mark work, prepare lessons and write articles.

When I do manage to talk to a parent, sometimes they’ll find out that I had a lot to do with implementing the iPad program at the school and invariably I’ll get the comment: “How do I stop him from wasting time on the iPad?”

There are a few options here, depending on how diplomatic I’m feeling. For the most part, these work both in the classroom and at home.

1. Not at all diplomatic: You’re the parent. You rule the roost. Put some rules in place that mean that he doesn’t do things he’s not meant to do.

2. Slightly more diplomatic: Have a conversation with your wayward child. What are they using the iPad for? How important are the various different activities? How much time does he realistically need to properly stay in touch with friends and have some leisure time? And then come up with a mutually negotiated timetable for class use versus leisure use. And of course, if the timetable isn’t upheld, you stop being diplomatic and go back to step 1.

all the wonderful things an iPad can do.

3. Very diplomatic: If the work your son is required to do on his iPad isn’t challenging enough or hasn’t been explained properly, then a confused student is a student who ends up on social media. Tablets are incredibly powerful machines. With the proper motivation, students could be inspired to create a movie, make an interactive app or design a scavenger hunt. With no motivation, they can Google the answer, copy and paste work into a Keynote and hand in a Pages document called Blank 43 (which is probably very accurate).

The reality is somewhere between all of that. You are the parents, and you do have the ability to place restrictions on your child’s use of technology at home. The teachers at school are in a similar situation. Any restrictions placed on a student should be made in conjunction with the student, to limit the amount of resentment and rebellion involved.

Your job as parents is to be aware of what your child is meant to be doing and what they’re actually doing and modify the ratio between the two so that the work gets done.

Our job as teachers is to make sure that the work that they do on their tablet is valuable and stimulating and not just busy work that we don’t want to mark as much as they don’t want to do it.

Sorry, did that answer the question?

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15 Apr 2015

Cyber Safety discussion

Extras CoverEverybody wants to be famous. We are rapidly moving towards a world run by a reputation economy. Don’t believe me? Read Scott Westerfeld’s Extras. It’s not that far from today’s reality. Basically, the more friends you have and the more Likes you get on a status update or a photo, the more important you are and the “richer” you become.

And we could argue the merits of this for ages and not get anywhere. The world of social media is a world that considers privacy an outmoded concept. The Internet knows where you are and what you are doing at all times, and the majority of teens have no problem with that.

Your digital footprintI’m not judging. I have a very large online footprint, with accounts on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Blogger, WordPress, Instagram, Google+ and LinkedIn. I even have a MySpace page (although I haven’t opened it in ten years). Being online isn’t evil. Promoting yourself isn’t wrong.

The conversation that has to be had between parents and students is the quality of your online reputation. Ask your child (and for good measure, ask yourself) how they think they are seen on Social Media. What are the words people would use to describe them? What sort of pictures and status updates are they posting and how does that make them look to the outside world?

Over the past few years, St James has made it a priority to talk to our students about the importance of knowing who you are sharing your information with. It is a fact of life that many of the “friends” our boys have on various Social Media sites are people they have never met, and in some cases, people they don’t even know. Logically, if you have 1500 friends on Facebook, some of them will be strangers. Again, try not to judge. The concept of “Friend” on social media is different to the traditional meaning of the word. A more accurate term would be “Contact”. These are people who share their interests, even if they haven’t met IRL (In Real Life). Unfortunately, Facebook’s insistence in using the term “Friend” gives users of the site an artificial sense of familiarity with these strangers they have invited into their lives.

Again, this is where it is time to talk to your child. Ask him how many contacts he has on various Social Media sites. How many of these people does he know IRL? What information about him can they find out from looking at his profile information, pictures and posts? And what are the possible dangers involved in giving strangers access to this information?

Talk to him about Privacy settings. Most of the boys I have talked to over the past few years have an excellent grasp of privacy settings and actually do care about keeping private information from strangers. The problem is, they don’t consider their 1500 friends “strangers”, even if they have no idea who some of them really are.

brave new world coverOnce more, and as I will do at the end of each of these articles, I must stress that a knee-jerk “the Internet is evil and I must protect my child from it!” reaction to Social Media could do more damage to your son or daughter than simply talking to them about issues and trying to understand this Brave New World. A few simple safety precautions and conversations will do far more for your child’s safety.

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09 Apr 2015

A pirate’s life for me!

Australians everywhere cursed the day that Foxtel bought the rights to Grand Designs UK. Well, I say Grand Designs UK. I mean Game of Thrones. We cursed, and yet, around the water cooler on the day after each episode was released in the States, there was in-depth discussion on the plot of the episode.

Piracy takes a huge toll on the entertainment industry. It is romanticised or belittled by the various “pirates”:

“I’m striking a blow for Australian viewers! If they were faster getting it to us, we wouldn’t have to download it!”

“It’s exactly like watching it on TV, just at a different time.”

I’m not here to argue the rights and wrongs of video and music piracy. At the moment, piracy – downloading TV shows, movies, music and games without paying for them – is illegal and therefore I want you to start a dialogue with your sons, my piratical students.

On every second USB that is left in a computer room, there can be found albums of music, seasons of television and entire new release movies. So it’s a problem, and the solution is:

“Talk to your child about it!”

Some conversation starters:

Who is hurt by the theft of music, movies and TV shows?

Consider the artists, producers, designers, actors, marketing people and the product itself. If nobody buys a TV show, then the TV show is cancelled.

What are the dangers to your household?

Because of the popularity of file sharing and lack of policing, it is a haven for viruses and explicit content. Unscrupulous people will distribute viruses named after the latest episode of a popular TV show, but with a different extension. Peer-to-peer (P2P) networks are used for distribution of illegal pornography and there is no guarantee that the video you want is the video you’ll get. Not to mention the more mundane problems of horrible quality videos and TV dubbed into Scandinavian with German subtitles.

Secondly, do you know what your monthly download limit is? If you have a limit, you may be eligible for extra charges if you go over that limit. Otherwise, your speed will be severely limited and slow Internet is an excellent way to test family relationships.

What are the possible consequences of illegally downloading?

Usually, if you are caught downloading, you’ll receive a notice from your ISP saying that a certain company has noticed you illegally distributing content and asking the ISP to make you stop. The ISP will usually give you a warning, but after that, you could lose your Internet account and be blacklisted.

It is important to realise that because you are downloading from the Internet, you are not just dealing with Australian law, and you could be prosecuted by agencies outside of Australia. It’s rare for an Australian to be prosecuted, unless they are deliberately making money from distribution, but not unheard of, and fines can extend into hundreds of thousands of dollars for serious offences.

What are the legal alternatives?

Almost every TV station has their own TV streaming app or website to allow you to watch TV and movies in your own time. ABC’s IView is an excellent example. It’s free to download and often has content available before it is shown on regular TV.

Apple TVs, Chromecasts and other set top boxes provide cheap and varied entertainment. There are also movie streaming companies like Quickflix, and Telstra and Optus both have their own movie streaming services.

Please, take the time to talk to your children about the possible dangers and moral issues involved in illegally downloading content from the Internet. And don’t tell me what happens at the start of Season 5 Game of Thrones!

Posted in conversation starters, education, ICT, net safety, piracy and tagged , | Leave a comment
26 Jul 2014
1 Comment

Parents and Social Media

This post comes out of a conversation I had on Twitter. I made the comment that parents need to have Social media accounts so that they can have a meaningful dialogue with their children. The quote I stole from the presenter I was listening to was “You wouldn’t take your kid swimming if you couldn’t swim.”
I thought it would be just one more tweet in the Twittersphere – ignored and moving on. But it gained a bit of attention, and started a lively discussion.
I’m going to paste the conversation here, because Twitter is a hard place to have a good conversation. Feel free to weigh in. I’m also going to post it, and then edit it when I get to a proper computer, so that I can add in some pictures and links to yesterday’s presentation from the AP at Kilbreda.

Here goes, in some vague order but with no guarantees:
Dan: what! Thats not true surely…I cant swim but take my kids to swimming lessons …
Fiona: But are you the one teaching them to swim? 🙂
Dan: no of course not …. but will get in the water with them… I am an esafety advisor btw for ceop and afp

Emma: No you dont. Dont need to be a swimmer to teach swimming. Dont need a SN account to understand SN
Emma: dont agree you need SN account to protect kids. You need to supervise your kids’ account #havetheirpassword
Fiona: Spying on them? No thanks.
Emma: it’s called parenting.
Emma: How else would you recommend parents see what their kids are doing online?
Dan: hiya, not sure what you mean ..how do they see?
Emma: suggested having passwords was “spying” on kids. Wondered how she suggests knowing what kids are doing
Fiona: just developing an open, honest relationship with them
Emma: That is definitely important, but also not enough. Abuse is not always because they did something wrong. More often because someone else did. Keeping tabs on their account aids watching other people. dealt with so many abused kids whose parents thought they had good open honest relationship

Dan: not all teachets on twitter or social net… thats also an issue
Emma: Why do they need to be on twitter. What if their kids are on Whatsapp or Snapchat? Do they have to create?
Dan: I agree.

Dan: I put a free site together http://t.co/yUtnJLB96Y and its got a parenting section
Dan: Why do they need to be on twitter. What if their kids are on Whatsapp or Snapchat? Do they have to create?
Dan: having done loads of presos to parents in uk and aus ..same issues everywhere for them.
Emma: Yep. Usually the knowledge gap between the two and a fear or lack of motivation by parents to close it

Dan: I agree but parenting is complex… lots of analogies. . Analogies are mostly stupid. Need to focus on the issues.
Dan: fr example do you need to be a football player to coach football
Damian: you need to have played football to coach it ^properly^… Surely
Emma: No, you need to understand the sport I have seen coaches who have clearly never kicked a ball in their life

Emma: I have never used snapchat or Instagram, but am well versed in problems therein and what parents can do.
Dan: absolutely I use most but but not all of them

—
Ok, that’s the conversation so far. Excuse spelling and grammar errors. I’ve just copied and pasted directly from the Twitter feed.

There is a lot more in this, but not during keynotes. I’ll write more about it tomorrow.

Two final tweets from me:
I can’t talk to my students about Scrillex. I haven’t listened to it. Likewise I need some experience with SM to have a dialogue.

Parents who make decisions about their child’s SM use w/out experience can make judgements based in fear rather than knowledge. #DLTV2014

Posted in conversation starters, education, net safety, perryperrysource, School, Teaching, tech tips and tagged , , , , , , , , ,

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