Technology in our classroom

What is poverty?

The World Bank describes it as “…a condition so limited by malnutrition, illiteracy, disease, squalid surroundings, high infant mortality, and low life expectancy as to be beneath any reasonable definition of human decency.”  This is called absolute poverty.  Nowhere in this definition is mentioned the income of the person.

Below is a list of those countries which have more than 50% of their population living on less than $1 per day: The first % is under $2 per day, the second % is under $1 per day. These countries don’t have the luxury of a government paying out social welfare or unemployment benefits.

Burundi

87.6 54.6

Central African Republic

84.0 66.6

The Gambia

82.9

59.3

Haiti

78.0

53.9

Madagascar

85.1

61.0

Niger

85.8

60.6

Nigeria

92.4

70.8

Rwanda

87.8

60.3

Sierra Leone

74.5

57.0

Tanzania

89.9

57.8

Zambia

87.2

63.8

Zimbabwe

83.0

56.1

Source:  Wikipedia

Yet many people living in industrialized countries including Australia would spend a dollar per day on lollies, chips, soft drink, comics or some non-essential item.  But we still have people living in relative poverty.   These countries work on a poverty line. This is the amount needed, per week, by two adults and two dependant children to supply basic living needs.  These are the poverty line amounts for Australia:

• 1973 – $62.70
• 1983 - $212.70
• 1993 – $383.90
• 2003 – $562.10
• 2006 – $663.10

Source: Poverty lines March 2008 quarter

Why do families in Australia need $663.10 per week to live on, while over 90 % of the population of Nigeria live on less than $2 per day per family member or about $50 per week per family of 4? 

What can we as a developed country do to help those people in absolute poverty?  This includes the indigenous aborigines of Australia.

I decided when I was in college, training to be a teacher, that I could easily afford $1 per day to help another person in need.  So since my very first pay check back in the 1970’s, I have sponsored a child through World Vision. I have helped children go to school, have clean water put in villages, allowed children to be immunized and helped women buy animals and plants to grow and feed their children.

Thinking about our schools, if there are 30 children in a class and 12 months in a year, if each child could donate $1 per month or $12 per year.  It costs about $360 per year to sponsor a child, imagine the number of children, families, villages we could start leading out of poverty!!

This post is part of Blog Action Day 08 – Poverty

• A question is asked  16
• Must relate to the topic  14
• Writer knows what they are talking about  9
• Been polite 11
• Given their point of view with reasons  16
• Adds information to my post  4
• Shows humour  3
• Must be positive 5

• Showing a different point of view.
• Proper grammar.
• Being very informative!
• Agreement or appreciation of a point in the post
• Perhaps when people continue the conversation between the commenters and author.
• Asking people to visit your blog
• The commenter knows what they are talking about…
• No bad language and writing that you can understand.
• You both know what your talking about and putting more posts on
• No mean comment although you can disagree with others comments and posts
• When the commenter can relate to your post.
• If they have a blog of their own, so you can go and visit it.
• When they ask a question and you can reply back to keep them coming back to the blog.
• Suggestions of where next or a different direction or……..
• Perhaps a comment or question to move the conversation on or get others responding
• Furthers the discourse and fosters community growth and connection.

Well we are now in the month of August and beginning our study on China and the Olympic Games.  But this week we have had students presenting their work on sumo wrestling that they have researched throughout this term.  Most decided to present using a powerpoint even after being reminded that this meant:

• the powerpoint was just used in the background as a reminder
• you don’t have lots of words on a slide
• you will have to give a talk in front of your classmates relating to the powerpoint

Students took out extra words, found more diagrams, wrote their notes on cue cards and for their first efforts, did a great job.  Presentation afternoon and out came the video camera -  the battery was not fully charged.

“Can we use our phones?”  Go for it. So we had about four budding camerapersons videoing the events. 

I was so proud of students who got up to present in front of the class for the first time this year; a student with a teacher aide organizing an interview as part of the presentation and another student whose powerpoint was run completely from the Smartboard without any help from me. 

But this is now where I have no idea what to do next.

“Do you know how to download from your phones?”  Cords were brought to school and hopefully tomorrow the talks will be downloaded. 

But readers, what do you suggest we do next?  How can we get these videos or powerpoints on the students’ own blogs?  Firstly, we will need parent permission, then do we use slideshare for the actual powerpoint?  But what about the videos? 

I have just visited the blog of another teacher at our school and she has created a quiz about the Olympics just to get her class into the swing of finding out information.  I’d like you to also visit her blog and write your answers to her quiz as a post in your blog, in a Word document or in your SOSE book.  The quiz is a page on her blog not a post so be careful where you find the quiz.

While you are on her class blog, you might like to make some comments to some of her students who have started to write their own posts ready to earn their own blogs.  Remember what it was like when you first began blogging.

Are you enjoying blogging?  Do you write fantastic comments on other students’ blogs? Would you be interested in taking part in a blogging competition just for students?  It would involve 10 weeks worth of activities, one challenge each week with some bonuses for those who want to go overboard.

Please fill in this form to register and watch out for a page called the Student blogging competition 2008 in this blog during the month of September.  Each challenge will be added ready for you to do.

 

I’m at a seminar at the moment and just learnt about a quick, easy way to give attribution to images. Visit this website which allows you to search for creative commons images.  It also gives you the attribution which you need to include with the image on your blog. You may include it with the photo or add it under the photo.

Original image: ‘Tassie devil’
http://www.flickr.com/photos/30805622@N00/351640307
by: Adam Tibballs

Released under an Attribution-NonCommercial License

Steps to follow:

1. Search for photo by putting in a tag eg sumo or Tasmania or fishing
2. Click on photo you want to use
3. Click on “edit image in-house”
4. Click on “Add attribution” if you want it included with the photo – see my picture on the right
5. Right click and “save picture as”
6. Follow normal instructions to add images to your blog

Be careful, though, when adding the attribution to the photo.  What has gone wrong with mine?

Students were asked to mention why they enjoy blogging, how it helps them and to give some hints for teachers new to blogging about to start with their own students.  I did this after a post by Sue Waters in The Edublogger asking for teachers to share their experience in blogging and tips for using with students. 

 I didn’t moderate student comments until today, so no-one could read the previous comments and get some clues about what to write.  I felt it was very interesting to see the words like fun, savvy and people appearing fairly large in the wordle.

Please also read the students’ comments here at http://wyatt67.edublogs.org/2008/06/18/students-what-does-blogging-mean-to-you/

Photo source