Pre-school Engagement Activities - Session 4

To create digital posters, we can use multimedia applications like PowerPoint  or KeyNote. Very often, we convert these "slides" into images/ PDF files as  static display. There are some online "poster" creation platforms that permits dynamic displays (which includes video clips). Glogster is one of them.

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1. Create a Glogster account using your SST account.

• URL: http://www.glogster.com/
• Click on "I'm a Student button" and then "Sign in with Google".

• Select your SST account when prompted which account to log in to.

2. Choose on "Create Your first Glog" and then choose the "Vertical" template

3. Identify from youtube a song that you like very much. Share the song - the video and lyrics in the poster; also include a paragraph to tell others why you like the song.

• Use the title of the song as the heading of the poster.
• You may use modify the template and insert other objects into the poster.

4. Save the glog. Click at "View This Glog". The Glog will be displayed.

Click HERE to view sample.

5. Scroll to the bottom and click at "Embed this Glog". 

Copy the code for "Blog size Glog 560x758".

6. Login to your blog. Create a new post entitled, "My Favourite Song".

Switch the posting mode to HTML and paste the HTML code there.

7. Switch back to "Compose" mode and the blog post should look like this:

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GSO Newsletter

“GO SAFE ONLINE” serves to provide a consistent call-to- action where users are reminded to take personal responsibility in protecting themselves against cyber threats. In that the best protection for infocomm users against cyber threats is personal commitment to infocomm security.

November Newsletter

 In this issue, we can learn about "how to dispose mobile devices securely"

Pre-school Engagement Activities - Session 3

In this session, we are going to explore the use of online stickies. Two commonly used platforms are Padlet (http://padlet.com/) and Linoit (http://en.linoit.com/).

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ACTIVITY 1: GENERATING IDEAS WITH PADLET

1. Login to Padlet and fill up the information as shown below

• Enter the title "Digital Citizenship"
• Add the description: Let's put down, in each sticky, word/ phrases that crosses your mind when we talk about "Digital Citizenship"
• Choose an image as your portrait icon. Alternatively, you may upload your own image.

2. To post on the wall, place the mouse pointer at the space and double click.
A sticky will appear. You may start posting your thoughts. Generate as many as you could and attempt to organise them into broad categories (as shown).

3. Click at "Share" (on the right) and copy the HTML codes under "EMBED".

4. Login to your blog. Create a new post entitled "Digital Citizenship - Random Thoughts"
Switch the posting mode to "HTML" and paste the HTML codes there.


5. Switch back to "Compose" mode and the blog post should look like this:

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ACTIVITY 2: ORGANISING THOUGHTS WITH LINOIT

1. Login to Linoit and "Create New Canvas":

2. In the new canvas,

• Enter the name "Good "Digital" Practices"
• For "Access to Canvas", choose "Show stickies to everyone"
• You may change the background colour.

• Click at "Create a Canvas" so that the canvas will be saved

3. Post each idea that cross your mind in a sticky. You may choose stickies of different colours to categorise your thoughts.

4. To copy the HTML codes, click at "i" to display the different options display options.
Copy the HTML codes in the third box, "Embed Lino".

5. Login to your blog. Create a new post entitled "Good "Digital" Practices"

Switch the posting mode to "HTML" and paste the HTML codes there.

6. Switch back to "Compose" mode and the blog post should look like this:

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Pre-school Engagement Activities - Session 2

In SST, blogs is commonly used as a communication platform. The Students Blog is where information is disseminated to the student community (announcements). Every class has a class blog where class activities and daily homework are posted there keep all (students and parents) informed of the happenings at the class level. Similarly, some subjects run activities via the subject blogs too.

You will be required to participate in blog activities quite regularly, as someone to comment on blog post, or as a co-author. It is therefore important for all to be familiar with the features of the blog.

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To access to the blog,

• Log in to your email
• Click on the Apps launcher, click "More" to display the dropdown menu.
• Select "Blogger"

*Note:  Alternate to logging in your email every time to launch a Google app, your might want to consider "installing" the Google Apps Launcher for Mac and add the apps from the Google Chrome Web store.

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ACTIVITY 1

1. You will be prompted to login again. The following will be displayed.
Choose "Blogger Profile" (on the right) to create a limited Blogger profile.

2. Enter your FULL Name in when prompted to update the Blogger profil.

3. Next, you are ready to create your first blog.
Click at "New Blog" (on the left) to begin

4. For the first blog, give the blog title, "My SST Journey begins here".
Create your own blog address. You are encouraged to name it with "sst-" before your full name (e.g. sst-chuawaitan.blogspot.com). 
Choose a template before clicking at "Create blog!" at the bottom right.

5. You are now ready to blog. You will be "brought" to the dashboard where your blog is.
Click at "New Blog" to start blogging.

6. Submit your blog URL in the form below.



Click HERE to view the list of blogs submitted to-date.

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ACTIVITY 2

1. In your first blog post, you are going to do an introduction about about yourself.
Who are your target audience: Your Form Teacher and Classmates

• Blog title: About me (I)
• Insert image of an object that you would like your peers to associate you. 
• Give a brief introduction about yourself. It should include...
• Your name, how you would like your peers to address you
• What are some things you like to do (i.e. your hobbies)? 
• e.g. Are there some sports you enjoy doing? 
• e.g. What are your favourite pastimes?
• Your personality and behaviour that you would like your peers to take note of
• e.g. Do you enjoy talking to people? 
• Do you tend to quickly get into action?

2. Make an attempt to change the size, font and colour of the text and even highlight some key words that you would like to draw others' attention to.

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ACTIVITY 3

Embedding "stuff' in a blog post

In session 1 on Google Maps, we have created a custom map and named it "Places I like to go in Singapore". We are going to post this map in a new blog post.

1. Create a new post entitled "Places I like to go in Singapore".


2. Retrieve the map (from Google Maps - place the cursor in the search box and choose "My custom maps".) In Google Maps Engine, click on the folder icon and choose "Embed on my site".

3. Copy the embed code.

4. Return to the blog post, switch to the "HTML" mode and paste the code in the space.

It should look like this:

6. Switch back to "Compose" mode and the post should look like this:

7.  In the same post, describe some of the places that you like to go, and why you like to go to those places.

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Embedding a Video Clip (from YouTube) into the blog

Similarly, we can embed video clips into the blog so that we can watch it together with the accompanied text.

1. Create a new post entitled "A video clip that caught my attention".


2. Identify one video clip in "Youtube EDU" (http://www.youtube.com/education?category=K-12) that you find interesting and would like to introduce it to your audience.

3. Underneath the video clip, click at "Share" followed by the "Embed" button.

4. The HTML code will be displayed. Copy the HTML code.

5. Return to the blog post, switch to the "HTML" mode and paste the code in the space.
It should look like this:

6. Switch back to "Compose" mode and the post should look like this:

7.  In the same post, add the following:

• Title of the video clip 
• Briefly what is the content of the video clip
• In 3 bullet points, describe briefly what you have learnt from this video clip?

Pre-school Engagement Activities - Session 1

Dear Y2014 Sec 1 Students

In December 2013, the ICT Department will be rolling out a series of web-based activities to prepare you for the ICT-enabled activities that you will go through in the new academic year.
Note: As you will be using web-based applications only, you can carry out these activities using any computers that are connected to the internet. It is not necessary to do these activities with a macbook. 

You will be required to do blogging on the 1st day of school (2 January 2014).

Starting from 7 December, the activities will be posted up in the Students blog. If you miss anyone of them, simply refer to the left panel and filter the blog posts that come with the label "Pre-School Engagement Programme". The related posts will be displayed.

Look out for new activities on the following days:

• #0: 5 December 2013 (Thursday) Overview
• #1: 7 December 2013 (Saturday) Google Maps
• #2: 10 December 2013 (Tuesday) Blogging
• #3: 14 December 2013 (Friday) Padlet and Linoit
• #4: 17 December 2013 (Tuesday) Glogster
• #5: 19 December 2013 (Wednesday) Popplet and Mindmeister

We will start with Google Maps Today!

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Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Maps

Google Maps is a web mapping service application and technology provided by Google, that powers many map-based services, including the Google Maps website, Google Ride Finder, Google Transit,^[1] and maps embedded on third-party websites via the Google Maps API.^[2] It offers street maps and a route planner for traveling by foot, car, bike (beta), or with public transportation. 

It also includes a locator for urban businesses in numerous countries around the world. Google Maps satellite images are not updated in real time, however, Google adds data to their Primary Database on a regular basis^[3] and most of the images are no more than 3 years old.^[4]

Session 1 - Fun with Google Maps

ACTIVITY 1

The new Google Maps interface should be enabled for your SST account. If the interface you have in Google Maps is somewhat different from the ones you see below, you might have to refer to last year's activity on Google Maps.

1. Log in to the School Email Account. Click at the App Launcher icon, then click on "More" and choose "Maps"

2. Place the cursor in the search box. You will see a "Make custom maps" card. Click on "Create" to create a new custom map. 

3. In the new map engine interface, click on the title "Untitled map" to change the title to "Places I like to go in Singapore". 

4. Search for SST in the search box. Click on the green place marker of SST and click "Add to map".

5. Search at least 5 other places and add them to your newly created map.

6. Click on the green "Share" button on the top right-hand corner. Copy the link to share.
Next, change the access setting from "Private" to "Public on the web" - "Can View".
Click "Save", and then "Done" to save the setting.

7. To retrieve your map, paste the copied link on the address bar of your browser.  In the new Google Maps interface, place the cursor in the search box and click "My custom maps" to access your map(s).

ACTIVITY 2

1. In your map, search for the nearest MRT station to your home. Click on the "Directions" icon.

4. Now, we are going to get directions to travel from the SST to the  MRT station. 
Enter "School of Science and Technology, Singapore" in the empty field. Upon choosing the correct suggested destination,  the suggested route will appear. You can choose to display the route by car, MRT or foot.