Here are two 30 minute lessons that I’ve developed for 3rd grade students on the benefits and pitfalls of the World (Wild) Web. For good reason, parents and teachers are concerned when children begin browsing, so I wanted to compile an informative and memorable lesson. Words in italics are what I’d say with the group.

Alright everyone. We have two busy sessions planned so let’s get started. Can anyone tell me WHAT IS the Internet?

My favorite answer is from here - http://www.davesite.com/webstation/inet101/net01.shtml

Now, what is both scary and exciting is that the Internet doesn’t really have rules. There are no Internet Police. Yes, you can get put in jail for some things, but that depends on the laws of the country you are living. Now the Internet is one of the closest things to magic in our world - it’s full of amazing facts, video and people. But, we have to be careful because it also has words and pictures from people who aren’t very nice. So, when you encounter inappropriate stuff, just move away - often they are doing it to get a reaction. Don’t let them control you. Today we’ll begin learning how to use the Internet safer and better. Before we start, let’s take some guesses for how old the Internet is.

Here is my favorite answer - http://www.howoldistheinternet.com

So the Internet is new technology. Let’s have a quick review with a technology we are all familiar with. Now, it’s not in English, but it does have subtitles, but I think you’ll figure it out very quickly.

View A monk learning ‘new technology’

This playful skit pokes fun at people struggling with new technology, but we all have to push through it and realize the benefits of learning something new. Now, when you use the internet with your ‘browser’ which is a program that helps your computer understand the information on the Internet - you have to know how to open, close, and go back. Let’s have a quick review of the browser (FireFox, Internet Explorer, Safari) that your school uses. Also, take time to enjoy the ‘refresh’ button which tells the computer to ‘look again’ at the page because it may have changed. This is useful if the webpage loads slowly or you’ve made changes to a website in another window.

Now, some things you will encounter on the Internet will be so amazing, you will wonder if they are true.

Watch Flying Penguins

The BBC is one of the top providers of real information. Why would they spend money to produce this kind of video? How do you check if something is not real on the Internet? Well - it may sound silly - but I use the Internet to help me. For the penguins - I type “flying penguins hoax” and hit enter - the second choice indicates it was an April Fools joke. The word hoax means lie or trick. Actually, if you go on YouTube, they have a great video showing how they made penguins fly.

Often people will get emails that are trying to trick them. My family is convinced that freezing water or microwaving water in a plastic bottle will give them cancer. Even though I show them when I google “freezing water bootle hoax” the whole page is full of links to show it’s not true and they are safe. Even big people get fooled. My wife’s former high school students emailed her to inform her that Kentucky Fried Chicken changed it’s name to KFC because it was no longer using real chickens. She believed it. Not true as I showed her with a quick search. But, she insisted they were now college students at the highest level of school. Even the best fall. Whenever you are not sure of something, add hoax and search the Internet for what is real.

Even when the information is true, it’s not the best.

Watch this video on how to avoid being Misinformed - a video designed and produced by a student.

Three key concepts came up in this video:

1. Is the website the best authority on the topic?
2. Is this website biased?
3. Is this information correct or outdated?

The first, we’ll discuss next session. Biased means the website is trying to push a particular opinion. In the video, it implies a building company may say it’s product is the best, but maybe that’s not true. If you visited the websites of America’s top restaurants, they’d all say they have the best hamburger or ribs or chicken wings, but obviously they can’t all be right. Some fact quotes are really opinions or the person/company may have a desire for you to believe them so they can get rich by your actions (you buy their product) so we have to be careful with the information we read. Finally, the information could be inaccurate.

Look at these two websites:

Pluto is a planet (from Space.com, June 6, 2008)

Pluto is not a planet (from UniverseToday.com, April 10, 2008)

The most recent article is that Pluto is a real planet. They both can’t be right. So who is right??

Finally, we have some homework. Humans are expanding and ruining the homes of various animals. Our school has some money and we can support one animal. Use your research skills and select one animal that we will ’save’ before the actions of humans cause it to become extinct.

Will we save the ‘Tree Octopus‘ or the ‘Mountain Walrus‘ or the ‘Sabre Tooth Salmon‘? [I open each window for a few seconds so students can get a quick peek at each - please be sure to later on correct their beliefs, else we’ll have a whole generation of folks vehemently believing a hoax ‘because it was on the Internet’]

2nd session:

I begin with a quick review of last class. We discuss which creature we’d try to save and discuss why someone would create a website on something like a ‘tree octopus’

So being able to determine the validity or truth/accuracy of a website is an important skill.

Watch this 6 minute video on Evaluating a website.

Now, on with being a better searcher of information. My favorite video for instructing this is Common Craft’s 3-min video: Web Search Strategies in Plain English.

Finally as this library ninja will attest, don’t forget that books have valid information and can sometimes you can find the information there faster than with the computer.

If time permits, I have an open discussion or in small groups discussing what we have learned from these two sessions.

The students of 3AK may have fake moustaches, but their blog is no slouche. “Cutting edge” would be the phrase for this class as they are always posting on the latest charitable event or sharing their pictures of their learning activities - often within hours of the event. The 3AK students raised 1800 RMB (~$260 USD) for Men’s Health awareness and research. Plus, they are the first class to post a Voicethread multi-media piece. Partly because our school has some difficulty with ports in recording audio, but Andre is a tech savvy guy and he worked a way around the school’s filter problems by recording students comments with iRivers and then uploading them from home. Bravo! This creative teacher extends that tenacity to other areas of his program as well; often calling on his students to reflect on all areas of their curricula. It’s impressive how Mr. Kelly encourages his 3rd graders to be responsible and intelligent blog commenters. Finally, the many links he has found to compliment the fine work in his classroom must be appreciated by his students and parents. Keep up the great work 3AK!

Some trees will live another day thanks to a great Web 2.0 creation - Shanghai Taxi Guide. No more lost taxi cards. No more outdated taxi cards. No more worry the taxi driver doesn’t understand your taxi card. Hello Digital taxi cards for $5. The HoodHot Shanghai Taxi Guide through iTunes allows you to use your iPhone or iPod Touch to show your taxicard address in Mandarin. It’s fullscreen and includes major side streets which greatly helps your taxi driver get ‘close’ to where you live. Since it is stored data that you’ve downloaded earlier, there are no roaming fees or data connection worries. Updates are regular for changing locations and numbers. At present, almost 3000 hotel and other locations are available. If your compound is not listed or you have a favorite restaurant you think should be included, simply mention leave a comment at the HoodHot Travel website and it’ll be included in the next installment!

Credits to Jennifer Vincent-Fallis for sharing this gem with me.

Kim Power is one of the pioneer bloggers at the Shanghai American School. Power Palace has been viewed over 5000 times and by 1300+ unique visitors. Mrs Power updates her blog regularly and covers the whole range of her classroom curriculum on her blog. She tries to include a picture or video in each blog entry to draw her readers in. Using age appropriate ‘current events’ that augment her teaching lessons; her grade 5 students are drawn in to leave comments on her blog by their independent choice. Obviously they’ve been schooled on how to leave comments and not compliments to further the discussion of ideas. Plus, each of her students’ personal blogs are included in her blogroll section to further encourage the interchange of ideas amongst the students. Power’s Palace is a model for how a classroom blog should be run.

A truly inspiring use of web 2.0 technology is the Native Studies wiki the students are collaborating on together. It must be stated that ‘learning is messy’ and ongoing. This wiki is just days old and already one can see how the students are working together (in fact, Mrs Power can see exactly whom is contributing and editing what information) - talk about a great tool for teacher to use on group work. It may sound daunting as a teacher, so tune in now as this wiki evolves. What I’d admire about Mrs. Power is her openness to advertise this part of the learning - often teachers wait for a finished product as if learning is a secret medieval process.

Another highlight of her blog is her page on her ongoing Performance Evaluation for her supervisor this year. Here her beliefs, goals, and reflections are shared. It’s great to see ongoing self discoveries to research and improve her program. This is a golden opportunity for any parent of a 5KP student to read their teacher’s passions about teaching - it’s as vital as the fifth grade curriculum itself.

Bones, Bones, Bones. Great topic if you are a werewolf, but here in third grade, it’s science. Let’s begin with the authors of our science studies at FossWeb. At this site, you will find a fun javascript game called Bones that can be seen on the left side.

The Vocabulary section at this site is also good and has hyperlinks so you can shoot down fast to the answers you want for each keyword.

Kidshealth.org has a fun practice sheet for vocabulary that you can print out for skeletal vocabulary - in color, too. They also have a cute Skeletal bones Word Find.

An interactive 10 question quiz on bones from Kidshealth.org has some facts we didn’t cover in our Grade 3 studies, but well worth informing yourself about. It’s an informative interactive quiz.

Build the Skeleton by Medtropolis offers a color version of the one provided by FossWeb. Plus, the ZoomIn option offers some amazing graphics and a very detailed look at the 206 bones in the human body. The skull closeup is very impressive. Finally, the Bone Narration is another worthy visit at this site.

For the future doctor or great scientist in your class, here is a site worth looking at with its in depth study of bones (beyond what we cover in grade 3) - also having two MacroMedia Flash videos on the skeletal system. This may require a software download first for your browser to show the bone videos.

Another KidsHealth page that covers when bones are broken and what is the composition of bones.

This site has a picture of a dog skeleton. It would be fun to cover the words and see if the students can predict where the various ‘human’ bones are on this other mammal. Taking it a step further, students could reflect on how the bones are distorted between the two animals and even further - why that may be. A lesson here for the clever teacher.

Q: Is the funny bone really a bone? Find out here.

BrainPop.com has five related video clips (spinal cord, broken bones, joints, scoliosis and the skeleton) - be sure to ask your teacher for the login username and password.

Brainpopjr.com has two video clips with a fun activity after each one (Bones, Fossils) - be sure to ask your teacher for the login username and password.

There is a lot of literature about using games for student learning. Here are four fun ones that partain to a unit we are investigating in grade 2 on Forces, Motion and Balance.

http://puzzling.caret.cam.ac.uk/game.php?game=roller  — an addictive game that is easy to learn. If only the little guys’ face would create sound when he’s screaming it’d be a perfect ten. It has some educational value; it would be interesting to have a quick discussion with students following their gameplay to see what they ‘learned’ after spending time in the simulation. Since, I am planning to use this blog for their lesson, I won’t post any answers. Now, students should be able to express why they think their model will succeed.

http://puzzling.caret.cam.ac.uk/game.php?game=parachute — the learning happens fast here, it’s more of an action game and the academic value is more for high school or college, but the animation and gravity problem will be appreciated by the elementary students. It is similar to games I’ve seen students play on MiniClip.com

Another game involving gravity and forces is one that requires some registration after some gameplay - Catapult - but I think it’s worth doing. In Http://www.knowitall.org/hobbyShop/BalloonBlast/bblast.htm the students control a catapult; manipulating velocity and angle to hit various bullseye targets. A more advanced game from this site is a Rocket game which has many interesting variables. As mentioned above, students should create a plan and predict why it will go high - they should defend their model.

Late addition - check out NASA’s own roller coaster - The Vomit Comet  and how it got it’s unusual name.

Forget reindeer, did you know penguins can fly?

Mr. Popper would be so proud of these penguins. What better way to open up a discussion on information literacy and the importance to read with a critical mind.

Ms Li is a techno phenom and has on several occasions taught Simon Power and I a few tricks regarding blogs. She is also active in helping other teachers with their blogs. Her blog, The Way of China, offers many great insights into China and learning Chinese from a students point of view and as an adult interested in the culture. She has aspirations to lead her department in this area for the school and the Media Literacy team can’t wait for it.

Lynn’s students leave comments on her blog and she replies in English with further homework (in Ping Yin - the phonetic English pronunciation of Chinese script) on her blog. It’s truly amazing and differentiated to the needs of each student in her class. A committed teacher for sure and one using technology in an innovative way!

The Way of China blog is a must visit for anyone interested in the rich Chinese culture or anyone teaching Chinese to non-Chinese speakers.

Over a dozen teachers at our school have shaved their faces this weekend and they will grow all sorts of moustaches this month. No, they aren’t the ones who missed being the lead singer of Queen. For the month of November, men are slowly growing facial hair to raise awareness around men’s health issues. This all started with a non-profit Australian organization called The Movember Foundation

The Movember Movement has drawn a lot of support and each country has its own sponsors and charitable beneficaries, with a main focus on prostate cancer. Given my own father was diagnosed with prostate cancer several years ago, I found this a worthy venture. My son has never seen me with a clean shaven face and my daughter only once. They were stunned to say the least.

The Movember group has raised over $29 million (CAD) globally since its 2004 inception. It’s not too late to join the fun for this month.

You gotta love it when the art teachers are getting techy. Our lower elementary art teacher is a self-learner who taught herself most of the things on her great blog. The choice of theme alone is very chic and the selection of links to great art sites in her blogroll is fabulous. Ms Valenti has hundreds of pictures of students learning and loving art. I’m not the only fan of this great SAS teacher website, Christina has had almost 300 unique visitors at this point without any promotion. It’s obvious the word of mouth thing is working for her. Parents of her students have left comments of praise as well. Her description of art activities like her ‘recycled junk to treasure’ and ‘Tips on Appreciating Art’ go a long with with the little ones. Thanks Christina for doing such outstanding work with your students. I know my daughter loves your class. And keep up the great job of keeping us in the (Picassa slideshow) loop.