Week 8 tutorial: Duty of care and cyberspace

This week's reading was A school’s duty of care for students to whom it gives access to
cyberspace: Data in (Content Regulation) and Data Out (Privacy) by Graham Bassett. The discussion focused on ethical issues and the duty of care of teachers when it comes to using technology in the classroom.  Issues such as internet safety, duty of care and control were raised. 


The reading talked about a student who became a victim of cyber-bullying. Damaging content was posted on an outside server and could not be controlled in real time. The school removed the link on their own website, however the information posted on the outside server could not be removed straight away, leaving the student exposed to anyone in cyberspace. Thus it is important that schools, teachers and students are aware and cautious when it comes to interacting with cyberspace. 


Cyberspace connects people from all over the world through computers and telecommunication. Cyberspace is a web of visual, audio,written and programmed communication between almost anyone regardless of location and time. It can afford students great opportunities to interact with each other, other schools and educational correspondents with having the added benefit of being accessible any time and anywhere. Student work, homework and feedback can be placed on a class blog or wiki and students have the convenience of accessing these resources from home or in the class room.

In order to allow students to become safe users of cyberspace, it is imperative that teachers and schools are liable when it comes to blocking in appropriate websites, educating students on cyberspace behaviour and pre cautions and controlling and monitoring the content posted. Benefits of control include teachers being able to guide students to the intended resources and content, monitoring for potential cyber bullying and to control who can access and view classroom blogs or wikis. Class blogs and wikis can be programmed in a way that comments and posts must be approved before being published. This allows teachers to prevent any damaging content being released.

On the other hand, there are strong arguments for intellectual freedom. Without the control and surveillance of teachers, students can have freedom of thought, can explore and find information from sources other than the one the teacher has given. This promotes a sense of ownership.

A school’s duty of care for students to whom it gives access to cyberspace: Data in (Content Regulation) and Data Out (Privacy).
Retrieved from: www.netsafe.org.nz/Doc…/netsafepapers_grahambassett_duty.pdf.

IWB art lesson

From the previous post, you have read that I would do an art lesson using the IWB today. It was my first time using an IWB but thankfully the students helped me out a lot. I decided to use the smart board because   I would be able to visually present the work of an artist, ask students to come up and create drawings, cater for visual and aural learners and also the IWB session made a great use of time while the under painting dried. 


Firstly, students were asked to under paint their art paper blue or green as the theme for today's art lesson was the ocean. While the papers were left to dry, I asked the students to sit with a clipboard, A4 paper and a pencil ready for the IWB lesson. We started with learning about an artist and students were able to click on his website and explore his gallery of art works. While looking at the pieces, students were asked to note patterns, motifs and fish shapes. The IWB enabled me to show the students step by step drawings of a fish, I added my own motifs and students were asked to come up and fill the fish with motifs or symbols that represented the ocean. It was great to see all hands were up and willing to participate. The last slide of the Smart notebook had an interactive game where students had to match information of the artist and terms and definitions. Students helped each other out and read out the information together at the end. Students had to do draft versions of their final art work before proceeding to paint.


It was a successful first attempt at using the Smart board and my cooperating teacher commented on how engaged the students were and how organised the timing was of the painting and IWB lesson. I think that the students benefited from learning about the artist's intentions, motivation and techniques as well as viewing other student's work before attempting to create their own motif fish painting. If this was my first attempt at a smart board lesson and not being very tech savvy myself, more teachers should give it a try. There are endless templates and even pre made notebook tutorials and files online to choose from. The possibilities are endless and I am looking forward to incorporating the IWB into my future lessons.

Professional Experience Prac 3

During this semester, my prac is taking place in a Greater Western Sydney school. I chose it even though it would take me almost 2 hours to get there and 2 hours back because I wanted to see if there was a difference or 'divide' between schools. Monday was an observation day where I arrived at a staff meeting and discovered there were so many student teachers from different universities there. This school told me that they truly believed in giving back to the new generation and providing a supportive place for student teacher placements was a great way to do so. I think so anyway.

As I made my way to my year 3 classroom, there was a big difference to my previous placement. This room had no Interactive white board, not even a white board. Just one of those old black boards that I had when I was a primary school student myself. I asked the teacher if there was a Smart board and she replied that there was a communal one in the workspace just outside the stage 2 classrooms. It had to be booked if teachers wanted to use it but my cooperating teacher said  barely anyone uses it. This wasn't much of a surprise since we had been made aware of this in professional experience class. I hadn't previously taught on an IWB before so I decided to use it for art on Thursday. 

When I asked my teacher why she didn't use it she replied that she doesn't understand it and doesn't want to touch it. She'd taught using traditional methods for years and she hasn't needed to use the IWB. However she does tell me that her son is in his first year of permanent teaching and uses it for everything. I asked her why doesn't she learn from him how to use it. She replied saying that she thinks the IWB should be for the younger teachers. Unfortunately, this is the view that I'm sure many teachers hold about new technology as it can be daunting and may seem unnecessary. It is therefore a reminder that we as upcoming teachers should keep an open mind to new technologies as it is moving more rapidly than in the past.