e-Portfolios are becoming increasingly popular in schools: they allow learners to showcase their work and achievements to their peers, and gives them a permanent account of their learning path. Crucial when students start applying for jobs – and ideal for parents who want to know what their son or daughter did at school during the week.
Webanywhere’s Student Jotter has been a highly successful e-Portfolio within schools around the world – and now, it’s being relaunched and rebranded: as Learner Journey.
It’s the next generation of e-portfolio, with new features including a re-organised user interface, making it easier to use, integration with Google Apps (so you can embed documents and YouTube clips), and android/tablet compatibility (including an instant picture upload option).

Learner Journey also promotes collaborative learning: the Collaboration page is where students can share work, and actually edit it at the same time from different computers.
Learner Journey will be officially launched at this month’s BETT Show. However, Webanywhere will be hosting a special, one-off pre-launch event at our offices. We’ll have a guest speaker, Jeff Haslam from SWGFL, who will be talking about the new Ofsted e-safety requirements, how your school can protect teachers and pupils from internet dangers – and also provide you with some useful resources. You’ll also have the chance to try out Learner Journey yourself – and there’ll be a £200 discount for any school that signs up for Learner Journey at the event.
To register for the event, click here. For more information on e-Portfolios, and how they can also be integrated into the flipped classroom technique, click here.

Teachers are becoming open to the possibilities for social media tools in the classroom. In the hands of the right educators, they can be used to engage in creative ways and inspire discussion among even the softest-spoken students. However popular social networking and content sharing sites such as YouTube, Facebook and Twitter are often blocked by schools because its content can’t be moderated – even though they can be a good source of high-quality teaching resources.
Student Jotter is a system for e-portfolios and secure social networking that enables teachers to incorporate safe, secure social media into their lesson plans. Teachers can share their lesson plans, quizzes, videos, podcasts and other resources in a shared library. A community section allows teachers and students to network and collaborate with other members who share the same educational interests.  Class discussions are no longer intimidating for some students to participate in.

Everything is hosted in the cloud for free. Some great tools are included:  An online gradebook, customised quizzes, secure messaging, classroom blogs, the ability to track assessment and a customised profile page.  Student Jotter also enables students to easily share their work projects with classmates.
The interface is easy to navigate and teachers can monitor and edit any of their students’ messages and blogs posts. They can also control how private they want the e-portfolio to be; student-and-teacher only,  allow parents to log in with a password, or make them publically available.
In summary, School Jotter is a better way for teachers and students to organise themselves, and a place to put their work.
Is your school using social media for teaching and learning? What resources do you use? Let us know by leaving a comment below!

It is called sharenting!!

That is a big word for those parents who innocently share too much information about and images of their children. Even the posting of a sonogram to your social media account can provide too much information to strangers who should not have that data.

The result is what many schools have been warning parents about- the danger of cyber bullying. Too much sharing can lead to a myriad of abuse from their fellow classmates as well as other children who gather on those websites designed for students to hang out.

According to the schools, this oversharing can put your child or children at risk of harm through mugging, theft and other bullying options.

What Are The Dangers Of Sharing Pictures Or Videos Of Your Children On Social Media?

The biggest danger will be exposing your children to predators. Even when you have strict privacy settings on your social media account, those privacy settings do not stop close friends from sharing your information on their not-so-strict social media accounts.

That sharing can lead to many dangers for your children. Plus, even strict privacy settings can be hacked by expert hackers who will use the information you post for nefarious schemes.

It is possible that oversharing can lead to identity fraud later on in your child’s life. Most likely, the exposure of your children to the public can lead to cyber bullying that brings devastating results.

What Is Cyber-Bullying?

Cyber bullying is more digital than physical. While it leads to physical results, cyber bullying takes place solely online using a phone, laptop, tablet or PC. It is where one or a group of individuals share false information about the targeted child.

This activity is done just about anywhere information can be shared online. Gaming rooms, texts, apps, social media outlets and more. Plus, the content is designed to harm another individual through negative, harmful, false, or mean content.

Even e-mails are not excluded from being a format used to cyber bully someone else. That negative content is not just written but can be done through altered or unflattering or embarrassing photos and videos.

Cyberbullying takes place in almost all online activities with just about any type of data possible.

How To Deal With Cyber-Bullying?

One of the most important steps you can take is to check your local laws. There may be some anti-cyberbullying laws that will guide the school in what action they can legally take.

Also, the school can develop its own policies directing teachers and the administration on how to respond to cyberbullying. These policies can lay out the discipline to be used or if expulsion is appropriate to stop students from being cyberbullies.

Also, schools can create a safe atmosphere that allows bullied students privacy to report cyberbullying. Encourage students to find someone they trust to share what is going on. Those trusted individuals can be parents, a teacher, school counsellor, and even a privacy contact page on your school web design.

One of the drawbacks to fighting cyberbullying is that only the targeted student and those the messages are meant for know it is taking place. Most often parents and school officials and teachers have no idea what is going on till a child becomes brave enough to talk about it.

How To Protect Your Child From Being Cyber-Bullied?

There are several steps you can take to help protect your child from being cyberbullied. Here are a few suggestions to get you on the right path:

– educate your children to identify cyberbullying and then teach them not to respond in kind. Instead, teach your children to be respectful to others whether in person or online

– teach your children not to respond to cyberbullies but keep the information saved as evidence it is taking place. Also, instruct your children to block cyberbullies

– set boundaries- this is where you create rules for internet and phone use as well as what internet sites they can go to and which ones are off limits.

– help your child create privacy and location settings and instruct them that participating in cyber bullying is wrong and unacceptable if they participate in it

– monitor your child’s online activities and know how to identify cyberbullying

– document everything- take screenshots, record dates, times and the nature of the cyber bullying and other documentation so you have evidence if needed.

When you need guidance in this delicate issue, contact our company. One of our priorities is protecting children from cyberbullying.

The press is increasingly featuring stories that warn of the negative impacts of social media on school age children. Popular public social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook are regularly blamed for sinister activities including cyber bullying, stalking and even gang violence.
Many believe, however, that the long-term educational benefits of social media far outweigh the risks. Most schools already use the Internet for teaching, and social media concepts are already essential elements in the lives of most students of Key Stage 2 and above.

Schools are already beginning to incorporate ways of using Facebook-like tools such as discussion forums, photo albums, blogs and secure messaging to develop subject learning through closer collaboration and knowledge sharing.
Safe Social Networking Tools are Available!
What’s required by schools is a means of controlling the perceived risks associated with social media. Banning is one solution. The other – dare we say more productive! – option is for schools to incorporate purpose-built internal social networking software as part of their ICT portfolio.
Webanywhere has developed Student Jotter as a way for students to share their work with peers within their social network, turning academic work into fun. Student Jotter avoids the dangers associated with social media use at school. Teachers can monitor and moderate everything that students post online, and third party influences by advertisers or other sources of inappropriate content are completely eliminated.
Social media used for teaching enables students to comment and critique each other’s work, collaborate in teams, and to securely send messages to each other and their teacher with queries or to start a discussion.
There are undoubted dangers in children using public social networks and schools cannot afford to take these risks lightly. However safe internal solutions are now available that schools can entrust to their students, providing them with familiar cutting edge technology and creating controlled social learning networks within the classroom and at home.
Visit the website of Student Jotter, our innovative system
for e-Portfolios and Secure Social Networking to see how it can benefit schools.