dotEpub and Equitable Mobile Learning Opportunities

When introducing ideas on mobile learning  can be  frustrating to some educators; especially when they know what the future of classroom learning should look like and have limited resources to provide a working classroom model. Realizing now that it is not the idea of mobile learning that they are trying to replicate. It is the ideas on how to provide those tools or resources to make it equitable for all students to have the same opportunities.

Over the past year, I have conducted several workshops on mobile learning in the 21st Century. On every occasion during these sessions teachers have expressed an equitable frustration about students who do not have internet at home. Usually these ideas of reality awareness are expressed within the last ten minutes of my presentations on mobile learning opportunities, those knowledge opportunities that are extended beyond the classroom walls. Inevitably during these closing moments one educator will state openly, usually with emotion, "What about those students who do not have internet access at home?"

It is at this point that the reality for my knowledge of equitable opportunities for technology resources needs to expand. To help teachers find solutions for extended learning opportunities that are derived through technology but are unavailable at home for some families. One solution that is currently on the horizon is to give every student an iPad, or a mobile learning device as a substitute for a textbook.

To take it a step further research on the idea of creating teacher generated text materials through a new conversion format called ePub has come to the forefront of equability. The idea is to help teachers with the process of creating and generating their own text material in ePub format and push the teacher generated assignments out to student mobile devices. In my workshops I have called this idea the "New Alexandrian Libraries." To expand this thought further, on both fronts of equitable access within the mobile learning environment, and the conversion of teacher/student generated text to ePub format, a new open source solution has arrived, dotEpub.

"dotEPUB is free software that allows any webpage to be converted into an e-book. This works on any epub-compatible device including e-readers, tablets, smartphones, netbooks, and desktop computers. This applet gives you the ability to save a webpage now and read later when you don’t have Internet access or to just save those long articles you didn’t have time to read while browsing."

Now students and teachers can convert a webpage into an ebook on an iPad, store the generated eBook in their reader and have the materials needed, to take home for extended learning opportunities. To learn more about how to convert a webpage using dotEpub into an eBook or how to create eBooks select any of the resource post listed below:            

Convert a webpage into an e-book on your iPad

Flipping Your Classroom with eBooks

How to Create an eBook on iPad

The ePub Generation

Homework as Reflective Learning

"Research referenced in Marzano, Pickering, and Pollock's book indicated students need to practice a skill 24 times to reach 80% competency, with the first four practices yielding the greatest effect."¹

Traditionally homework and practice has been connected by the context when students are learning on their own and by applying new knowledge they expand a deeper understanding through repetition. The research supported the idea that homework should be approached not as an afterthought to the school day, but as a focused strategy for increasing understanding. It should be noted that both reinforcement of learning through practice and repetition is viable to procedural memory but may not support semantic, declarative or implicit memory when consolidation of ideas are needed in making conceptual ties. In essence when students are provided an extended time to repeat the learning experience rote knowledge will increase but may not be recognizable when applied to new learning situations.

• Students use a discussion protocol to analyze homework solutions, share ideas, build vocabulary, and refine strategies by learning from each other.

• Ask students clarifying questions to evaluate the cognitive direction of their ideas and understanding of the unit project.

• Monitor students as they debate ideas, clarify thinking, and make adjustments to their work.

Homework as Rote Rehearsal

"This rote practices of learning in the traditional senses has made its mark by having students engage in hours, if not years of rote rehearsal."² These exercises of rote rehearsal to a viable curriculum is more likely to fall into semantic memory where rote practices do not allow for performance assessments to measure the application of learning. Viability means articulated content and skills that are taught and measured within the continuum of essential learning goals as they are applied to timeframes available during the academic year. The rote practice is generally associated with a repeated definitions, or recalling an event in history and rarely enhances semantic, declarative or implicit memory. If consistent practice is one component linked to gains in student achievement, and it has been noted that homework provides such practice, then the practices should not be built in rote replication but on a more solid practice of elaborative learning. To better facilitate the learning process where associations are made between knowledge and application a truer form of elaborative rehearsal must occur.

Homework as Elaborative Rehearsal

Elaborative rehearsal encompasses a variety of strategies that provides the learner an opportunity to intricate their learning. Through elaboration the learner can express ideas more openly using multiple skill sets to compare new concepts with known concepts that hooks the unfamiliar with something familiar. This is usually accomplished by using similes, and analogies. For example, to build a solid set of mathematical skills and habits requires reflection in order to create understanding. These reflections do not have to occurred in isolation and could be more effective in collaboration, as long as the process for elaborative learning has structure. Reflecting on homework in small groups is one avenue to reinforce elaboration skills on the meaningful concepts. Providing time for students to review homework in small groups allows the practitioner to listen to and understand students thinking in a more efficient and fluid manner. The reflective practices of homework allows for a formative assessment process to take place as the practitioner synthesis the exactness of knowledge and address misunderstandings in real time.

Elaborative Rehearsal as Formative Assessment

Given the opportunity to provide feedback in real time is the second factor associated with elaborative learning, as it applies to practice. If providing feedback is directly associated in making a significant difference in student learning, then two elements of practice must be consistently factored, linkage between teacher comment to student answer and time associated to the reinforcement of confirmed learning. If learning occurs in isolation then reflections of learning is also on hold until engagement can occur. Homework or practice in the sense of the provision of feedback should take the form of a new protocol as it relates to the formative reflective assessment process. This process in practice can be articulated by the practitioner in the following way.

Creating an eBook on iPad

Learn how you can join the ePub generation by creating a text featured multimedia integrated mobile learning environment. In this presentation by Mike King, participants will learn different technology integration tools, like Google Docs, dropbox, Calibre, and Creative Book Builder to convert and store interactive curriculum materials for student learning. These new converted resources can be easily distributed over a network through scanning QR codes on mobile learning devices such as iPod, iPads, cell phones and tablets. The presentation will introduce the pedagogy associated with flipped classrooms while providing the tools necessary to create and store dynamic digitally formatted lessons. . 

To learn more about this presentation go to KGCT Convention

Part two of the workshop will provide illustrated information on how to embed within the text of a digital book, recordings, movies and illustrations to publish in iBooks or other mobile reading devices.  (PowerPoint Presentation on Creative Book Builder) 

A Rising Power to New Mediums of Web-Found Learning

Throughout the history of American education, classrooms have been self contained entities. Innovations in technology are giving rise to powerful new models of collaboration. Perhaps in the not quite distant future these classrooms will merge on a new venture. A venture while making profound changes in the way education is delivered to students.Students in Junior High, High School and college are now finding means to communicate through the use of social networking tools, such as blogs, wikis and chat rooms. Although these types of collaborations may not be school related they have become Americas youth pastime. While at the same time a majority of schools have yet to be exposed to future capabilities of these new technology tools.  

The reason being is that education has not recognized the full potentials of Web Found Learning.  This is not to say that new graduates in the field of education have not identify the capabilities, thus establishing a sizable gap for new understanding of the potentials of harnessing mobile learning opportunities. Secondly, more advance schools will begin to encourage Web Found online communities of knowledge gathering, while the less advanced thinking schools will take a back seat, wait and see attitude.  This new world of mobile begins now with a different school of thought. A thought that is embedded in the idea that text will soon be created on mobile learning devices that are generated by the teacher and selected by the student for extended learning opportunities. 

How to Create an eBook on iPad

How to Create an eBook on iPad

Flipping Your Classroom with Flip Books

Learn how you can join the ePub generation by creating a text featured multimedia integrated mobile learning environment. In this presentation by Mike King, participants will learn different technology integration tools, like Google Docs, dropbox, Calibre, and Creative Book Builder to convert and store interactive curriculum materials for student learning. These new converted resources can be easily distributed over a network through scanning QR codes on mobile learning devices such as iPod, iPads, cell phones and tablets. The presentation will introduce the pedagogy associated with flipped classrooms while providing the tools necessary to create and store dynamic digitally formatted lessons.  Part two of the workshop will provide illustrated information on how to embed within the text of a digital book, recordings, movies and illustrations to publish in iBooks or other mobile reading devices.  (Download a Free Sample eBook on "How to Create an eBook")

KGCT Convention

·         Location: Where: The Marriott in Overland Park Kansas

·         Presentation Date: Tuesday October 4, 2011

·         Presentation Time: 9:55 AM

·         Conference Web Link

How to Create an eBook

Over the past two months (July - September of 2011) I have been working diligently to find ways to publish e-Books for iPads. I had had two reasons in mind. The first was to support language developing students who attend my school. As a principal, over 75% of the students who attend the school where I work are Hispanic. I wanted to find a way to support language development through technology and have been inspired by the capabilities of mobile devices. What I needed was a way to help ELL (English Language Learner) students hear text while it was being read. This gave me an idea of exploring the possibilities for developing media rich interactive books. e-Books that talk and could be easily constructed by teachers. I was also after simplicity. The second reason for exploring the idea of eBooks for mobile devices was given to me as an intrinsic challenge to share.

I was attending a technology conference in July of 2011 when a colleague of mine, asked me to join him in a conversation about a new universal publishing format called e-Pub. During the conversation I explored many question as to the enquiry of what e-Pub was? Was it a program, or a format? The conversation lead to the idea that the ePub format may be useful for teachers when introducing content into a mobile learning environment. The objective was then established, the process for creating the eBooks must be simple, cost effective, should include embedded media and it would be easy to learn.

Returning home from the conference, I began to do extensive research on the e-Pub idea. Goggled, tweeted, e-mailed, called an apple representative,  inquired about it at the district level and monitored my hash tags on TweetDeck for incoming dialogs. I even began posting articles on my blog, waiting for comments, which got me nowhere. Then one day it happened, It was the one tweet I was looking for, information on a new iApp being released in beta form that could create an interactive flip book, one with embedded media. Up to that time I had just hit dead ends, for most of the software applications were too complicated, too rich for my pocket book or just too plain of an end product.

I quickly scanned the product features on  the iApp, entered my pass code and agreed to the purchase of $3.99. Within two minutes I was off to explore and test every feasible element of Creative Book Builder.    After a few weeks of trial and error, especially with ways to use iTunes to embed media I have been successful in rolling out "publishing" several eBooks. Each eBook was a little better than the other since I am working on the publishing design side. Yes, that is correct, I became a publisher.

In my first eBook "The Art and Science of Teaching" I included two demonstration videos and some hyperlinks. The second eBook "The ePub Generation; The Alexandrian Libraries of the Future" included audio recordings, podcast and video. My third eBook I explored the idea of digital storytelling as a form of a podcast, a read along e book for children entitled, "The Princess and the Crystal Mountain." In the read along book, I created narrated sound bites in audacity, transferred them into iTunes and exported the narrations within the text of the book. Spacing the text within the sound bite narrations takes some planning, as to the architecture of the layout.

Just over the last two days I have published one book on LuLu which is free and have uploaded all three of them to my wiki page, Tech N TuIt. What I have discovered, the more media you embed, the larger the size of e-pub file, something I will be working on, as I further research ideas on compressing files. If you are interested in exploring any of these titles you can select any of the following resource links. Here are some tips or what I call "Tricks or Tweaking" in Creative Book Builder. (Download a Free Sample eBook on "How to Create an eBook")

When Using Media

·         Use YouTube downloader

·         Convert to medium low quality iPhone format

·         Compress mp3 files to medium quality

·         To create illustrations use PowerPoint and convert to gif file

What I Have Learned

·         Use hyperlinks before using sound or video files

·         Make books small for short reads and lesson assignments

·         Plan your content in advance And in small chunks

·         Preview your book often in the production stages

·         Email gif files and use save to photo feature in your iPad

·         You can use the edit feature to create a PowerPoint slide show on your iPad

References

·         (Select this link to Download A Digital Story)

·         The Digitalsandbox Blogspot

·         My Free e-Books at Tech N Tuit

·         The ePub Generation

"The ePub Generation; The Alexandrian Libraries of the Future"

eBook Overview

The primary focus for educators should be on expanding the quantity and quality of ways in which the learner is exposed to content and context.  Educators should design extended learning opportunities in ways that immerse students in content by using various existing technology tools that include wiki’s, blogs, and multi-media interactive eBooks. The premise of  expanding educational delivery in ways to include Web 2.0 opportunities is  constructed around the idea that the more children can experience what they are learning and the more teachers immerse students in the learning process the more engaged students will become in interacting, listening, viewing and valuing their education.

In this interactive eBook you will find video , audio and illustrated text, edited directly from my iPad. The first chapter is fittingly named "The ePub Generation," since it was my first self published book using the ePub format, a term I learned from Kevin Honeycutt in July of 2011. Since that time I have been putting forth hours of additional time in research and development to create my first ePub publication, all for the cost of one App at $3.99. I would encourage  you to download the eBook and read it from iBook; just to get a feel for what might be the next generation of textbooks, created by teachers for students or even better created by students for students.

The eBook includes, twelve pages of text, five illustrations, one podcast, one audio recording, and two videos. Turn the pages , play the media files, enjoy the visuals, and read text. It truly is an interactive book which took one hour to create.

To download the free e-book for your mobile device go to  Tech N TuIT free eBook wiki page and select the download tab.

To find out more you can visit "ePub Generation"

Language Objectives

Language Objectives are the HOW of the lesson and articulates what students will be doing within the lesson in terms of reading, writing, listening, speaking and thinking. Like content objectives, language objectives should be stated clearly and simply in student friendly language.  Students should be informed of them in both writing and orally.  When developing a language objective for a lesson, the teacher should ask the question, "What are my students doing today to develop their language skills?" For example, a language objective could include interaction in the form of discussion (paired and/or cooperative learning activities).

According to Echevarria, Vogt and Short, "A wide variety of language objectives can be planned according to the goals and activities in the lesson. In some cases, language objectives may focus on developing students' vocabulary. Other lessons may lend themselves to reading comprehension skills practice or the writing process, helping students to brainstorm, outline, draft, revise, edit, and complete a text." Language objectives often accompany a content objective when teaching content areas such as math, science or social studies. An example of how a  content objectives and language objectives can be integrated within a lesson are shown below;

Content Objective:

The students will be able to use constructions to explore attributes of geometric figures and to make conjectures about geometric relationships.

Language Objectives:

The student will be able to use mathematical vocabulary to explain orally or in writing the attributes of geometric figures.

Content Objective: 

Students will compare and contrast the physical adaptations that whales and sharks have that aid in their survival.

Language Objective:

Students will write a compare and contrast paragraph, using vocabulary associated with the language function of compare and contrast after completing a Venn Diagram with a partner.

Vocabulary Objectives

Language objectives can also emphasize the vocabulary necessary for students to master the content objective. It is important for the teacher to recognize when important vocabulary words will be introduced into the lesson. In this case the vocabulary is extracted directly from the content objective; however, there may be some tier two vocabulary or background vocabulary that must also be addressed for the ELL student. Without the understanding of vocabulary the lesson itself may become fragmented within the learners mind and the loss of focus will distract the learner from making conceptual ties. Enhancing the students focus is an important attribute to teaching and the teacher should eliminate any distracters like lack of vocabulary development within the lesson. An example of how a  vocabulary objectives can be written for a math class are shown below;

Vocabulary Objective:

Students will use a specific list of mathematical vocabulary to describe the attributes of specific geometric figures.

Designing Highly Engaging Digital Lessons

Designing highly engaging digital lessons can be the catalyst for enhancing a school’s vision for the future,  strengthening its learning goals, and helping it to realize its mission. To be deemed successful, digital lesson design itself must weigh the relationship between technology investments and student growth. Technology integration  requires that teachers be willing to make substantial investments in time, resources, and support. Incorporating technology into the classroom effectively, teachers must use those strategies that are directly aligned to practices that engage students in higher levels of direct learning and the development of critical thinking skills.

Viewing technology lesson design as a process instead of an event requires two paradigm shifts in thinking and development. The first paradigm shift occurs when the stakeholders of the district realize the design process will result in more than simply purchasing technology. Ten years ago, technology investment focused primarily on acquiring computers and was simply a process of deciding what type of computers to purchase, how many, and where to place them. Today, new technology opportunities require technology designers to rethink the plausibility of technology in the classroom. The design process must address how technology will be used by students and staff, not just what equipment it will involve.

The second paradigm shift occurs when the technology design process integrates the technology into the curriculum. This paradigm shift allows the designing process to have an impact on student learning. For the technology planning efforts to have maximum effect on student learning, the process must be coupled with curriculum development and instructional lesson design. Since the goal of technology design should be improved student learning, this process begets questions that only classroom teachers can answer. Therefore, a collaborative effort between technology professionals and teachers will produce the most comprehensive and successful technology integration plan. Without this investment of time and effort, designing for technology will have little or no impact on school improvement.

Finally, the key to increasing student performance begins by providing formal teacher training. Through professional development, teachers will better understand the design for technology integration and realize ways to apply the essential strategies to instruction. When teachers understand the criteria by which technology integration will occur, the approach to the school improvement process in regards to web 2.0 literacy learning will become more effective. 

If you are interested in this topic join us at the Digital Sandbox

Checking for Understanding

Checking for understanding is made up of at least three instructional practices that formulate high engaging strategies that support  the formative assessment process. These three instructional practices include, using questioning to check for understanding, providing meaningful feedback, and reinforcing effort  through modeling and reframing of conceptual awareness. Although most would like to credit Marzano's research on the idea of reframing conceptual awareness through meta-cognitive principles in teaching, these ideas are to be credited back to Flavell.

Flavell is one of the pioneers in the study of meta-cognitive principles and in 1976 stated that, "meta-cognition refers to one's knowledge concerning one's own cognitive process and products or anything related to them." This emergence of thought on meta-cognitive principles sought others such as Paris, Lipson, and Wixson to do extensive studies on strategic thinking that lead Schoenfeld in 1985 to establish comprehension checks as an effective teaching practice.

We can only credit Marzano with a flashlight highlighting what was already know from the research, that to improve student learning teachers are to focus on how students think about their thinking processes and on how students feel about themselves as learners. Thus reframing the idea of checking for understanding is inconsequential in Marzano's terms since multiple instructional strategies play a role in the process for checking for student understanding.

What is known about checking for students' understanding of important ideas and concepts helps instructors gauge what students are getting from a lesson and what they need to work on more. Both are important in the meta-cognitive process, knowing what students know and providing intervention at the point when there is a disconnect to conceptualization. This is when providing useful feedback becomes the corner stone for the exactness of knowledge that challenges new ideas to form correctly while leading the learner to extract prior knowledge to conceptualize new learning.

This process of extracting prior knowledge to form new knowledge is based on the idea of constructivism.  To view the learner as a constructor of information is to support  learning in a way that allows them to create their own subjective representation of objective reality. In teaching we can construct this process through a formative assessment process known as checking for understanding, using prior knowledge as a background of inducing reflective thinking.

It is well known factor that when instructors check for understanding they feel more connected to their students' learning and have a better sense of what to expect from their students' in terms of assessment. To fully put into practice the required elements to ensure student understanding there are three main instructional strategies that must exist. These strategies for the enhancement of meta-cognitive principles for the development of critical thinking skills through a reflective process must include, (1) using questioning to check for understanding, (2) providing meaningful feedback, and (3) reinforcing effort  through modeling and reframing of conceptual awareness. It is the intent of this article to reframe these practices to demonstrate how these three simple included interactive practices will bring about student reflective thinking in a meta-cognitive enriched learning environment.

Resource: Checking for Understanding and Encouraging Metacognition

What is a learning objective?

What is an objective?

A learning objective is a detailed description of what students will be able to do when they complete a component of instruction. Robert Mager, in his book Preparing Instructional Objectives, describes an objective as "a collection of words and/or pictures and diagrams intended to let others know what you intend for your students to achieve" (p.3). An objective does not describe what the instructor will be doing, but instead the skills, knowledge, and attitudes that the instructor will be attempting to produce in learners. This is a very important distinction. Mager emphasizes the need for clear, precise statements of what students should be able to do when they complete their instruction. He believes that this should be done before any development work is started.

Teacher Practices

Teachers should establish mental set at the onset of the lesson by clearly stating the learning objectives. In the set, teachers should first focus the students’ attention on the concept or skill to be studied and then relate the learning to prior learning or real-life situations.

Selecting the Objective

Selecting the objective is a process of breaking down complex learning into critical parts, then deciding which part to start teaching (based on what the students know or don’t know) in an effort to ensure student learning. Teachers should select those learning objectives that are at or near the correct level of difficulty and complexity for the students. 

Examples

Bad: The students will solve addition problems with 80% accuracy.

Better: The student will correctly solve at least 8 out of 10 addition problems that require borrowing.

Best: Given two numbers not written in equation form, the students will place the numbers in equation form and add them together (some will require borrowing). Example Resource: Writing Objectives

Learning Objectives: Stems and Samples

Generally, learning objectives are written in terms of learning outcomes: What do you want your students to learn as a result of the lesson? Follow the three-step process below for creating learning objectives. 

After completing the lesson, the student will be able to . . .  

After this unit, the student will have . . .

By completing the activities, the student will . . . 

At the conclusion of the course/unit/study the student will . . . 

Resource: Learning Objectives: Stems and Samples

Setting Objectives through Learning Contracts

A learning contract is a working agreement between student and teacher concerning how that student will meet specific learning objectives. They can include such things as:

• What the student will learn.
• Time period for completion.
• What he/she will do to meet these objectives.
• How he/she will assess their own learning.
• How the teacher will assess their learning.

Resource: Best Practices Learning Contracts

Student Involvement

Both language objectives and content objectives should be clearly posted on the board for all students to see. Throughout the lesson the teacher may want to relate the objective of what students will learn as it is clearly articulated within the lesson. Also associations to content objectives could be made to support language development. The teacher can easily accomplish the learning objective as they clearly integrated the objective within the activity of the lesson. (See Video)

1. In the video how many different ways was the objective introduced?
2. How were students incorporated into the statement of the objective?
3. What other ways can you get students to participate in objective setting?

What Is LessonWriter?

What Is LessonWriter?

LessonWriter creates lesson plans and instructional materials for teaching English language skills from any reading passage. Use any content from any source and just copy, paste, and submit it on LessonWriter.com and in a matter of moments create a comprehensive lesson plan and student materials. LessonWriter will record what was taught in each class make recommendations about what to teach next.

Differentiated Instruction with LessonWriter

Increasingly, teachers are leading classes with students with diverse backgrounds, skills, learning styles, and challenges. Every lesson plan that LessonWriter generates offers suggestions for differentiating instruction and implementing the lesson. In addition, LessonWriter enables teachers to easily differentiate resources for students. Teachers can choose different content to meet the interests and needs of individual groups of students while teaching the same English Language Skills to the entire class, or keeps the content consistent while choosing to emphasize different skills and vocabulary.

Tips for Sharing Information with Parents on Cyber Safety

There are many different methods that schools can employ to share information about cyber safety.   Some information sharing ideas for communicating cyber safety in the home include providing tips in the school’s newsletter, providing a parent page on the school’s website, hosting an Internet safety seminar or designing an Internet safety brochure. Research shows that schools yield better results when they involve parents in issues of safety. When parents and educators are involved in collaborative endeavors to protect their children, they can develop a clear understanding of appropriate behavior for using the Internet at school and at home. For  resource information on developing school policy for Cyberbullying go to Wired Safety. 

Internet Safety Newsletter

By far the most effective method for communicating information is the school newsletter. In addition to providing needed information to parents about cyber safety, it also boosts the school’s reputation as a public information resource for the community. Professionals have found that of all the printed materials school officials send home, the school newsletter is most often read by parents. In most cases, it is the only regular source of contact that parents have with the school; therefore, they consider it to be an important resource. The newsletter also communicates to the parents that the principal and staff are committed to providing valuable information that can benefit their family’s safety at home. (See Internet Safety Newsletter) news-letter.pdf

Parent Internet Safety Webpage

Another way educators can establish ongoing communication with the public is to create a parent page on the school’s website. (See Design of Parent Webpage) The parent page should be designed in a way that allows parents to access links on cyber safety and safe surfing.  As with the links provided on the author’s webpage, these links should be checked and updated regularly to ensure they continue to be active. Since cyber safety is a concern, parents may not know where to seek information on the subject. Parents may feel their children are their only resource for cyber advice, but this source is not always accurate. The parent webpage is a reliable source of information that parents can assess. Several methods the school can use to promote the use of the school’s website including school newsletters, radio announcements and local media sources. web-page.pdf

Internet Safety Seminar

A parent seminar night is an efficient and effective method for providing clear, pertinent information on cyber safety and Internet use. It gives parents the opportunity to communicate their concerns and questions directly to the teachers and administrators and to receive immediate feedback regarding these issues. School officials can use Internet safety seminars to provide information about Internet-related goals and learning outcomes, as well as to provide online learning policies such as the school’s Acceptable Use and Copyright Policy. (See Parent Internet Safety Seminar Agenda) Many resources are available to help provide cyber safety information for the seminar. Brochures may be distributed to the audience, or local law enforcement officers may be invited to discuss cyber crimes or predators. The authors caution, however, school officials from only acknowledging the dangers of the Internet. School personnel should tell both sides of the story, mentioning specific details of how the Internet can be used in a positive and appropriate manner, both at school and at home.  parent-agenda.pdf

Brochure

A brochure about cyber safety is an appropriate way to educate parents, as well as gain their support for future online learning projects. The brochure should include information that will familiarize parents with the Internet, as well as terms their children may be using to describe its features and services. The brochure should offer guidelines for parents and students designed to minimize risks when venturing online. Finally, it should list online resources parents can use to find further information or to report problems or risks their children have encountered while using the Internet.  An example of an Internet safety brochure has been included in, while a checklist for brochure design can be reviewed in (Internet Safety Brochure). The brochures can be distributed during open house nights, parent organization meetings or parent Internet safety seminars. Additionally, principals can send brochures home with students or leave them in accessible place within the school or community for members of the public. They can also be mailed to parents and patrons, if individual requests are made.brochure-checklist.pdf