Cyberbullying

This week's discussion on cyberbullying was a real eye-opener. I've been a classroom teacher in elementary schools for 12 years. To my knowledge, that hasn't been a major problem. (Then again I've been in a primary age bubble.) There have been various and disturbing other incidents that come to mind, but not this one. Perhaps that happens once the children are older, literate and tech savvy. Until then, there's traditional bullying, unfortunately.

I now see that primary grades are a great place to be proactive and open the door to communication about cyberbullying. We talk about (traditional) bullies and what it does to people. Why not cyberbullies? In early childhood, students mainly pretend not to listen...but they do hear us.

Blogs and Elgg

My elgg research led me to http://blogsavvy.net/giving-blogs-with-elgg. This is for "Professional Blog Consultants." Elgg is actually based on blog networks. This site offers help based on the type of blog one wishes to run (business, community, education, a cause, or for money).

The more we blog, the more relevant it seems. A few months ago, I didn't understand what a blog was. Now I see that it is big business.

Education blogs are free at Edublogs.org .

Elgg Tour

In my Elgg journey, I came across the site, http://tesl-ej.org/ej34/m1.html. It has graphic organizers which clearly outline the learning landscape of Elgg (from a recorded tutorial to a user's manual). It also tells us what elgg means... "elk " or "moose" in Scandinavia.

This led me to another site, http://elgg.net/tour_1.php , to walk us through. Like MySpace, users must be over the age of 13 to subscribe. Elgg offers e-portfolios and file repositories.

Social Bookmarking

This week's class discussion about social bookmarking is quite interesting. I've been looking forward to learning about it. I was so excited about registering at del.icio.us, until I had to give personal information. These days, we have reason to hesitate, unfortunately. I've read postings by classmates who share my opinion.

Here I thought I'd be able to bookmark my webct address and my blog... but no. These two accounts that I wanted to list were not recognized by them. I gave out my personal information for a blank page. Maybe I did something wrong and will have to troubleshoot. I'll have to investigate further when time allows.

Elgg Sites

My Elgg research led me to http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/elgg.php. There are many different types of elgg sites, depending on one's needs. Steve O'Hear interviewed the creators of Elgg, Ben Werdmuller and Dave Tosh in this article. They say that Elgg, " is social networking software designed especially for education - built from the ground up to support learning. "

Elgg.Net is really for personal networking. Elgg Spaces is for e-learning. The creator has control over audience and what is being viewed in Elgg sites.

Elgg is designed to differ from a traditional Virtual Learning Environment. That's not to say that VLE has existed long enough to merit being called traditional, but differ nonetheless. Elgg is detailed to compliment the learner, rather that the course content. The creators call it "learning landscapes."

RFID

This week we had an interesting topic to read about and discuss. Radio Frequency Identification, or RFID is all around us. Who knew that we use it in EZ-Pass? The different frequency levels are used for different technologies, also including self-checking at the library/market and tags that can be placed under the skin in animals for tracking. It is amazing to think that radio waves can read data close up or several meters away.

Telephony

This week's class discussion was about Telephony, also known as Voice over Internet Protocol or IP. It took a long time for me to give in and subscribe to cable as my phone provider. I'm afraid to lose power and have no phone. I try to remember to keep my cell charged just in case. I was wondering if others have kept their land lines or switched to IP.

Elgg

According to http://elgg.org/about.php "Elgg is an open source software platform designed to allow people to easily connect and share resources. Established in March 2004 by Ben Werdmuller and David Tosh, Elgg allows you to create a social network and host it on your own infrastructure, modifying the features to fit your specific needs." One can start one's own custom-made, online interconnected data exchange.

Elgg networks are taking off around the globe. They can be found in private schools, universities and for social networking. The above site offers several links to tell more about Elgg and help people start new ones.

Welcome

Welcome to Stacy's Corner! I am Stacy, a NYC school teacher of 12 years. I am currently in the middle of my second Masters program, which is in Library and Information Science. One of my classes is about technology and so here I am! I hope that you will join me to discuss current technology issues... and there are so many! We will emphasize Elgg for the first half of this course and 1:1 Computing in the second half (along with other information science goodies). I welcome your posts and will do my best to respond in a timely fashion. I hope to hear from you soon!