Tag Archives: digital safety

Posted on by

Joining the conversation!

Introduction

Our newsletter, like the ALaN Network GoogleGroup, is a way of starting conversations. The conversation may continue through other media but often the most useful way to join that conversation is to comment on the initiating post. Please! Please! Join our ALaN conversations – add comments to posts in the newsletter and in the GoogleGroup.

About commenting

Many very well known and experienced writers of online articles/bloggers say that the discussion that happens through the comments is the most important part for them, so being able to join in through commenting is a great way of sharing your own ideas as well as giving feedback to the writer. If someone has already made a similar comment to what you have in mind don’t be put off! You can still add your comment in support of an opinion already expressed – maybe expand on it a little, add further thoughts  or put your own slant. Also don’t be put off if you disagree – you can still comment – expressing disagreement is fine as long as it is done with respect and in an appropriate tone. Personally, I always think of the “feedback sandwich” and (especially if I disagree) try always to begin and end my comments on a positive note.

Commenting online in a public (eg the newsletter which is a blog) or semi-public (eg the GoogleGroup) discussion forum is a little bit different from providing feedback privately or within a very small closed group. Comments are an important part of both discussion forums and blogs. However remember that commenting is public feedback and so it is important to bear in mind your own security/safety as well as the tone and potential impact of your comments.

ThinkBeforeYouPostResize

“Good” commenting

Good commenting is very much about:

  • Adding value to the conversation. You don’t have to say something totally new to do that, reinforcing someone else’s idea/opinion is fine.
  • Being respectful of others’ ideas and opinions even if you disagree. There is nothing wrong in disagreeing with someone through a comment it is how you do this that matters.

This Lifehacker post although several years old makes great points about good commenting that you may find useful for your students and for yourself.

Ideally when I am introducing students to commenting I give them these links:

or similar ones and then ask them to make their own list. I do also have “Guidelines for commenting” that I can share with colleagues for use with their students who may be commenting on blogs or taking part in discussion forums. Some of the points overlap with those made in made in the Lifehacker post mentioned above but I also raise issues of safety for the commenter and others.

Conclusion

Just as with face-to-face interaction respect is important! Making respect explicit is especially significant in asynchronous online interaction because we lack the body language and audio cues that can soften a possibly hurtful comment. This is one reason why using “emoticons” is so much part of online conversation.

Commenting in forums and on posts is the “life blood” of online interaction. So PLEASE join our conversations here in the Newsletter and also (if you are an ALaN GoogleGroup member) in the group. You could start with a comment on this post!

Posted on by

Do you (or your students) Toon?

Introduction

my students are all off-campus and so are using their own computers with widely varying software. Many of my students are also not particularly computer literate so expecting them to use sophisticated features of word processing or presentation packages is not an option. The strategy I adopt for a lot of work with my online students is to use mostly (though not always) online tools. This post is about using one of them – ToonDoo – an online cartoon making tool.

How do we use ToonDoo?

I have been using ToonDoo myself for several years to create occasional texts to engage student attention and to break up heavily text based resources.

Then about 3 years ago I first used it with online students when we created a cartoon together via virtual classroom (Elluminate). Each student was given control of my desktop in turn to add their own “bit” to the cartoon. These students then signed up to ToonDoo and made their own cartoons. I have also shared my use of ToonDoo fairly widely through webinars and associated blog posts.

Recently I have extended the use of ToonDoo with my students as part of my National Vocational E-Learning Strategy project Extraordinary Learning For A Digital Age (ELFADA) funded under the Partnerships for Participation initiative. This was part of a mini-project on digital safety. The students learnt about ToonDoo in a virtual class session through an Application Share demo and together we created a Toon. This was shared through the course blog in a post on visual texts.

The next step was for the students to visit a series of links to cartoons each addressing an aspect of digital safety. They chose some of these to review and evaluate.

Finally the students created their own cartoon choosing a topic from those they had learned about through our work on staying safe online, they then published a blog post with links to their cartoon, or with the cartoon embedded. These are two of the student posts,  Jordan’s looking at scams and some consequences and Meg’s with a warning to take care what you share.

Conclusion

I have found using ToonDoo to be a great engagement tool for students and will continue to use it with my own online students. I also find that ToonDoo is used easily by students across all three levels that I currently teach online. In common with many other online tools it is relatively simple to use – this is a huge bonus for online students who don’t always have a lecturer available for immediate help.

Please use the comments to share your own and your student experiences with ToonDoo or other cartoon making tools. Or if it is new to you let us know if you think you might try this with your own students.

Jo Hart