I hope my comic really speaks for its self. Today the students in my prac class used the website makebelief comix, all but one student was highly engaged. In fact all were concentrating so hard on their stories that the teacher reminded them they could discuss their ideas if they wanted too! Comics are a great text type and they get students to think creatively, using langauge and telling stories.  

So far most of my blogs have been about the possibilities and opportunities in ICT.  However I just read Cathie’s blog Are Children safe using online blogs?  And it made me think about the negatives of using the internet and especially the safety issues.  In my earlier blog “Blogging possibilities”   I mentioned students could use blogs as a journal, teachers need to be careful that students understand that this is in a reflective manner on their learning or if it is a journal that they do not identify themselves or their family and be careful about giving out too much information. It is obvious that this is a very important subject that students need to learn about.  Internet safety and manners should be a compulsory part of the primary curriculum.  I found a website I liked about internet safety for children called nettys world and cybersmart kids online, as a teacher i think it would be important to dedicate several lessons to issues of internet saftey.

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Websites are often used in education or by students but are often judged on little more than the aesthetic aspects, others are  designed purely as sources of information.  Jose Gomez Galan, in Design of Educational Web Pages warns that many are based on the behaviourist model of teaching and often very pre-programmed and do not allow for creative thought process.  He recommends considering three basic points when assessing the educational value of a webpage

• Accessibility-simple designs which are esay to  which leads to a logical and easy access to the

contents);

• Range of sources and languages
• Level of student interactivity

Overall clever, interactive websites can provide a strong basis for motivating and enriching learning but everyone should be aware of educational pages that are little more than great graphics and bright colours.