Parents' Information Evening

Thank you for coming this evening, and for those unable to come, below you will find links to the presentations.

Ms Sue's Presentation (English)
Ms Sue's Presentation (Vietnamese)
Mr Ian's Presentation (English)
Mr Ian's Presentation (Vietnamese)

Using Technology as a Communication Tool

The internet has changed out lives in many ways in a very short space of time.  The number of users has increased over the last 15 years as this graph shows:

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Internet_users_per_100_inhabitants_ITU.svg

What do we do on the internet?
We use the internet to socialise, to shop, to communicate, to store photos, to get music.  A lot happens in one minute on the internet:

http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/communications/internet-minute-infographic.html

204 million e-mails - that is approximately one email for everyone on the planet every hour.
$83,000 to Amazon
3000 photos added to Flikr - 20 million views
The numbers are astounding.

How are we getting we this information?
This survey of digital consumers in Hong Kong gives us an idea about how people are getting the information and how they plan to in the future.

Notice the numbers of people planning to acquire mobile technology this year. 

Jeff Utecht is a teacher, author and ICT consultant.  He spent some time with the TX staff in August.  He identified 4 groups of people:

Born before 1977 - Digital Immigrants
I am in this group.  As a child I had to stand up to switch channels on the TV and turn a dial to make a phone call.  I was an analogue child.
Born between 1977 and 1991 - Digital Natives
In 1977 the Apple 2 and Commodore Pet computers went on sale.  This marked the beginning of home computing.






Born between 1991 and 2007 - Web Generation
The rapid growth of the Internet since 1991 means children now have difficulty understanding that you used to have to go into a shop to buy music.  


Born after 2007 - Mobile Generation
The iPhone changed everything when it was introduced in 2007.  Almost everything we could do on a PC at home can now be done on the move with an smart phone or a tablet computer like the iPad. 




We have a responsibility to ensure that our children have the knowledge, skills and understanding to learn and grow in a society that is increasingly dependent on technology.  The challenge to educators and parents alike is, how are we going to respond?  

During the vacation, over $750,000 has been invested by the BIS in new equipment and improvements to the infrastructure.  As a school we are looking to not only to respond to the changes in society, for example, the BIS has its own Facebook page, but to take a lead in how we educate our children.

At TX we have created learning journals for all the children in EYFS and Milepost 3, and are in the process of doing the same for Milepost 2.  For the younger children, this will enable us to share their progress with regular updates, posted by the teacher, on to their own 'Blogger' page.

Further up the school.  The children will take responsibility for their own blogs.   This will give them the opportunity to reflect on their learning.  Also, parents will be able to get a clearer understanding of what the children are learning.

By 'Following' the blogs, a message will be sent when new content is added so parents will be informed of new posts without having to check every day. The 'Translate' tool will provide a rough translation into many languages.  This translation may not be perfect, but hopefully will give an outline of what has been posted.  The blogs are not a one way communication tool though.  There is an opportunity to comment and ask questions if you wish.




Please feel free to click on 'Comment' below to let me know your thoughts.