CMIS Evaluation Technology Focus

Cyberbullying has become more high profile in the community in the last few years as technology such as mobile phones and the Internet become more pervasive.

Funding from the Australian Government is producing new research, such as this done locally at Edith Cowan University. How to deal with the problem of the bullying from a school perspective is under discussion with the Cyber Bullying Intervention program, also under way at ECU.

For a range of Australian and international information and research, the CMIS Cyberbullying webpage provides links to some of the major work currently underway.

We have also started a Cyberbullying list in Delicious and will add new resources as they come to our attention. If you have access to an RSS reader or make yourself an igoogle page, you can subscribe to this Delicious list and get an alert as we add new items.

Becta is the UK government agency leading the national drive to ensure the effective and innovative use of technology throughout learning. The agency has just published major new research into the use of Web 2.0 technologies, such as wikis, blogs and social networking, by children between the ages of 11-16, both in and out of the school environment.

The purpose of the research was to inform policymakers and schools on the potential benefits of Web 2.0 technologies and how their use can be effectively and safely realised. It shows that young people are attracted to many of the Web 2.0 developments, some of which may also be appropriate to use in schools. It also found that, when used effectively, Web 2.0 technologies had “a positive impact on motivation and engagement through involving students in more participatory learning.”

There is no denying that a well constructed boolean search is the way to improve your search results.

Teaching students to use boolean search strategies has now been made easier. Boolify helps students understand their web search by visually demonstrating the logic of their search. As students add or remove the jigsaw piece qualifiers ‘and’, ‘or’ and ‘not’ the changes in their search results appear at the bottom of the search screen. This dynamic display gives continuous feedback on the effectiveness of their chosen search strategy.

A short and simple expanation of boolean search logic is available on the Boolify Help page. The Boolify page notes that ‘Search results are presented through Google’s “Safe Search STRICT” technology. However, no filtering technology is 100% secure, as this blog posting astutely points out.’

The CMIS website has more information about Search Tools and Student Safety Online.

In an earlier blog post we looked at Search Engines other than Google.

Choosing the right tool for the job makes life easier. You may like to explore these search engines to help you find what you want on the WWW. To get the best from these sites it is worth taking the time to complete the virtual tours or read the help screens.

Welcome to a new way to search!

	Search Crystal - advanced search tool – suited to teachers and secondary students. Requires free registration. Users are advised to view the tutorial to get the most from this very nifty engine. from the website …’ SearchCrystal lets you search and compare multiple engines in one place. It is a search visualization tool that enables you to compare, remix and share results from the best web, image, video, blog, tagging, news engines, Flickr images or RSS feeds
	KartOO – a search engine particularly suited to visual learners, middle primary to secondary. Allows users to view interconnectedness of concepts and information. from the website… KartOO is a metasearch engine with visual display interfaces. When you click on OK, KartOO launches the query to a set of search engines, gathers the results, compiles them and represents them in a series of interactive maps.
Image unavailable for use	Kids Click – The day-to-day operations of KidsClick are currently maintained by the School of Library and Information Science at San Jose State University. The site includes links to Search Lessons, Image and Sound seaches. Librarians – make sure you check out the through a Librarian’s Eyes link at the bottom of the page.
	Quintura for Kids – a visual directory and simple search most suited to primary students.from the website … Quintura for Kids is designed specifically for children and utilizes the Quintura cloud, an interactive tag cloud for easy navigation and search for kids-related information on the Web. The intuitive nature of the cloud allows kids to refine their search by mousing over or clicking on keywords and phrases that appear in the cloud. The interface also allows for predefined searches by clicking several graphical icons on the site.
	WebBrain – allows directory and simple searches. The interactive visual display encourages users to recognise the interconnectedness of information. Largely text based so more suited to upper primary and secondary students.from the website … WebBrain lets you search the Web visually, so you can explore a dynamic picture of related information, instead of searching through long lists of text. WebBrain lets you easily browse the Web and discover what’s out there. WebBrain uses TheBrain technology, which enables effective use of knowledge on the Web, the corporate intranet, and even your personal computer.
	Intute – use the customisable generic search or subject specific search. Make sure you check out the Virtual Training Suite for help in getting the most out of your searches. The Internet Detective tutorial helps identify the good, the bad and the ugly of Internet research.from the website … Intute is a free online service providing you with access to the very best Web resources for education and research. The service is created by a network of UK universities and partners. Subject specialists select and evaluate the websites in our database and write high quality descriptions of the resources. The database contains 120603 records.
	Bubl – BUBL uses the Dewey Decimal Classification system as the primary organisational structure for its catalogue of Internet resources. Users may also search the database using the Simple and Advanced Search options, the Alphabetical Directory or the Subject Terms directory. Most suited to teachers and secondary students.
	DMOZ – The Open Directory Project is the largest, most comprehensive human-edited directory of the Web. It is constructed and maintained by a vast, global community of volunteer editors. Most suited to teachers and secondary students.

Take a look at the CMIS webpages on Search Tools

Marc Prensky conducted a series of workshops and keynotes in Perth from 28-30 May 2007. They explored online technologies and their application for innovative education.Resources from these workshops are available on the SOCS webpage.

Marc Prensky keynote podcasts and PowerPoint slides

Student panel podcasts

Marc Prensky workshop resources

Marc Prensky testimonial

Order Marc Prensky DVD

Also available: CMIS Resource Bank records for Marc Prensky’s books.

from the ACER media release 18 Jan 2008 The ICT Literacy Sample Assessment was conducted in October 2005. A total of 7,393 students in Years 6 and 10 from 517 schools participated in the assessment which measured their ability to use ICT appropriately to access, manage, integrate and evaluate information; develop new understandings; and communicate with others in order to participate effectively in society.
Results of the assessment show that nationally, 49 per cent of Year 6 students achieved the Year 6 proficient standard and 61 per cent of Year 10 students achieved or bettered the Year 10 proficient standard.
The ‘Proficient’ standard is a “challenging but reasonable” level of performance that would be expected for a student at that year level.

The report is available and can be downloaded here.