FOCUS ON LEARNING
Reminder: This summer’s district technology and educational training dates are scheduled for:
- June 4-6 (Monday – Wednesday)
- August 20-22 (Monday – Wednesday)
Digital Safety
Ready for this fun fact? More people own cell phones today than toothbrushes! Whether the children you see on a day-to-day basis are your students or your own children, you want to keep them safe, right? This blog post includes descriptions of ten apps that teens (and even pre-teen!) can be drawn to, and explains the concerns. The blog post: https://appsolutelyapril.com/2018/03/21/10-apps-teens-are-using-that-parents-need-to-know/
Ten apps to watch out for include: Hot or Not (Rating of other people), Calculator% (looks like a calculator, but stores photos secretly), Burn Book (anonymous rumor messages, texts and photos), Omegle (free anonymous chat), Yubo (Yellow) (like Tinder – for flirting), and many more. Note that these apps change continually – but just a quick search in the App store locates many, many more.
Jove: https://www.jove.com/
Science teachers will LOVE the video journals and blog posts on Jove. This site gives students the opportunity to see cutting-edge science! World-renowned experts share their experiments on video and give intricate details along the way. They cover biology, chemistry, environmental studies, psychology, physics, and engineering. The videos are peer-reviewed and fascinating! As an example, I watched a few on cancer research and another on immunology and infection. If you are interested in science, especially at the higher levels, check them out today!
April is Poetry Month!: https://goo.gl/XD2mBG
Don’t miss out on one of my favorite April activities: poetry! The blog post above details many great interactive classroom activities related to poetry, including Poem in Your Pocket Day, and http://www.poetry4kids.com. If you’d like to do a collaborative project with a classroom somewhere around the world, please let me know. I know of some teachers looking for poetry partners!
ELM eBooks in Other Languages: https://z.umn.edu/LOTE
This collection includes a lot of very hard to find Ojibwe titles, but also Hmong, Somali, Karen, and a few Spanish titles. Simply click “Read This” and the book opens on your screen. These are awesome for sharing on your SmartBoard!
There are many additional Spanish language books in the eBook collection of ELM. You can find these by going to https://library.biblioboard.com/categories/. The categories will appear, and you can browse for any type of book you want.
These eBooks are FREE for Minnesotans. They open EASILY in any browser, or can be read on the Kindle or iBooks apps. These are a MUST for every classroom!!
ClassFlow Activities: https://classflow.com/teachers-use-classflow-activities/#feb2018news
ClassFlow website: https://classflow.com/
If you haven’t tried ClassFlow yet, there’s no better time to try it out. ClassFlow allows you to set up interactive activities with your students on their devices: quizzes, polls, activities, and wonderful ways for students to collaborate! And ClassFlow is FREE, and if you don’t like logging in you can use it without creating an account.
ClassFlow Activities are fun and engaging resources that are created in the ClassFlow Activity Builder. You can find ready-made activities in the ClassFlow Marketplace or you can customize your own with 10 different types of activities in the Activity Builder. With so many choices available, below are a few examples of how teachers use activities in their classrooms, with a focus on categorize and matching activities.
There’s a lot of stress right now about Facebook privacy and security. The following was shared by Jen Legatt, Hopkins North Junior High, and she said I could share it with you. Thanks Jen!
You don’t need to delete your Facebook page to keep your digital life *more* secure. Remember, like we tell our teenage students, you’ll never be completely secure if you’re sharing on the internet. There’s a lot you can do with your Facebook profile settings to improve your privacy. Some tips are below. These are some setting changes that I’ve made/updated on my own account.
The steps below are for the Facebook App on the iPhone for iOS 11. The steps will be slightly different for other devices.
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Post Privacy
Bottom right corner: 3 lines
→Settings
→Account Settings
→Privacy
Step 1:
- Limit who can see past posts -> Limit Past Posts
- Who can see your future posts -> Friends
Why? This turns off any posts you may have set to public in the past. They are now set to be shared with friends only. If you want to go back and change a certain post, you can do that.
Step 2:
- Who can see the people Pages, and Lists you follow? -> Only me (or Only Friends)
Why? The information on your likes for Pages and Lists would be information easily used to profile you. I have it set to Only me, as I feel no one really needs to see this info. Only Friends would also be a safer setting.
Step 3:
- Who can send you friend requests? -> Friends of Friends.
Why? I have this set so that people who have mutual friends with me can connect. I still need to approve the connection.
- Who can see your friends list? -> Friends
Why? Only people that I have approved as my friends need to see my friends list.
- Who can look you up using the email address/phone number you provided? -> Friends
Why? This is the most restrictive setting Facebook has. Once people are my friends, I assume that I can trust them to contact me via email if needed.
- Do you want search engines outside of Facebook to link to your profile? ->
Why? Google and other search engines do not need access to your profile data.
In the past, saved Cover photos remained public. After going through these steps, only my current Cover photo is viewable from someone looking at my profile.
NOTE: After these changes, if a friend is tagged in a picture/post of yours, his/her friends can see this picture/post of yours. This happens even if you are not friends with the one viewing these posts.
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Groups
Check which Groups you are enrolled in. If the group is listed as a “Public” group, it is visible on your profile to people who are not your friends. If you do not want that Group to represent you, you can remove yourself from the group:
Bottom right corner: 3 lines
→Groups
→Tap the Group
Look under the name of the Group. It will list if this is a public group.
To remove the group, click the down arrow after the name. Choose Leave Group.
Clean out any old Groups that you may no longer be affiliated with at this time.
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Login Location
Check where you are logged in:
Bottom right corner: 3 lines
→Settings
→Account Settings
→Security and Login
Where you’re logged in:
The devices where your Facebook account is logged in are listed. If you are not currently using a device, click on the three dots—- and choose Log Out.
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Timeline and Tagging
Bottom right corner: 3 lines
→Settings
→Account Settings
→Timeline and Tagging
- Who can post on your timeline? -> Friends
- Who can see what others post on your timeline? -> Friends
- Who can see posts you’re tagged in on your timeline? -> Friends
- When you’re tagged in a post, who do you want to add to the audience of the post if they can’t already see it? -> Friends?
Why? The least restrictive I would make posts is at the level of Friends only so that if you’re tagged, only your Friends would be the audience.
- Review tags people add to your posts before the tags appear on Facebook -> ON
- Review posts you’re in before the post appears on your timeline? -> ON
Why? This gives you the chance to approve or not approve any time you’re included on a post that has your name attached, giving you the opportunity to remove yourself before the tag appears.
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Note: I found one problem with tagging/mutual friends. Let’s say you have a mutual friend with your ex, John Doe. John can see mutual friend Tim’s Facebook page because they are friends. You are also Facebook friends with Tim. If John searches your name, any of Tim’s posts or pictures where you are tagged are open for John to see. Unless someone else can find a setting that hides these, I believe this is how the system works. To make it so that your ex John Doe can not see your tags, you will need to Block John Doe. Honestly, you may just want to block John Doe anyway. (This is hard for me to test without a handful of accounts to see what can be seen and what can not.)
Bottom right corner: 3 lines
→Settings
→Account Settings
→Blocking
→Add to Block List
The setting states: Once you block someone, that person can no longer see things you post on your Timeline, tag you, invite you to events or groups, start a conversation with you, or add you as a friend. This doesn’t include apps, games, or groups you both participate in.
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Connected Apps:
Bottom right corner: 3 lines
→Settings
→Account Settings
→Apps
Some of the articles out there right now are suggesting simply turning off Platform in this section. BEFORE YOU DO THIS, I suggest you stop and look at the accounts that you have linked.
One friend of mine had 100 linked apps. I suggested writing them down or screenshotting them. I don’t know what happens to accounts out on those other sites if you just shut off Platform. I suggest that you may want to delete those other accounts if you no longer use them before disconnecting Facebook, especially if they also contain private information. It may take a while to work through the apps, but if we’re going to be safe, then you may want to consider going through this process too.
You may choose to just go down to a few, trusted Apps.
Or, if you are ready to disconnect Apps…
- Platform -> Off
Why? This un-authorizes apps from using your Facebook account. What the Settings say if you try to turn Platform back on: “Turning Platform back on resets related settings (such as your “How people bring your info to apps they use” setting) and allows Facebook to receive information about your use of third party apps and websites.”
- Apps others use -> Disabled
Why? The setting description explains it: “Use the settings below to control which of our information is available to applications, games and websites when YOUR FRIENDS use them. The MORE INFO you share, the MORE SOCIAL the experience.
Your name, profile picture, gender, networks, and user ID (along with any other information you’ve made public) is available to friends’ applications unless you turn off platform applications and websites.
Laurie Conzemius LLC 