Digital Citizenship

These five paragraphs are not so connected... I guess I really am a semi-digital native!

To start off this week, I Googled myself. I had never done this before and I was surprised to not find much. I thought that I might find some articles on the website for the college that I attended or links to my districts website. Of course, I found a link to Facebook. I thought that I had very good security settings, yet a Facebook search showed my age, where I live, and other things that I thought I had restricted to friends only. I don't even share my entire birthdate with my friends, so I'm not impressed that is out there! I will definitely be doing some more research here. 

I found the information about the gaming detox centers in South Korea very interesting. I still do not quite understand how gaming and being connected is so much more connected in that country but I understand how individuals could become addicted to online video games. I'm glad that the documentary included a portion about the social side to online gaming. I have family and friends that game online a lot, so I know firsthand that gamers are not all anti-social geeks. They do form real friendships and relationships online. Isn't it close to how teachers learn and collaborate together online? They're forming relationships in the same way, except through a hobby, not a profession.

There is one point that I disagree with that a few different places were talking about- multitasking. Last summer I took the course Theories of Learning and Cognitive Development. We read a book by John Medina that disproved the concept of multitasking. According to Medina, people who can “multitask” well can simply between different tasks quicker than others. They are not truly doing two things at once though. The study in the documentary just showed that those individuals could not multitask as well as they thought. I would like to know what that study learned about multitasking in general.

As for the NET-S and teaching digital citizenship standards to students, I think that if students are using technology at all in the classroom, then digital citizenship should be addressed. Not doing this would be like expecting students to perform group work well or get along well at recess without teachingsocial skills. Schools have begun explicitly teaching social skills to students because it is necessary. While things like social skills and digital citizenship should be addressed at home, some students won't have that opportunity. If our job as educators is to prepare our students for their futures, then we would be doing them a disservice by not teaching them social skills and technology skills.

For the next school year, I hope that I can plan and pace out the beginning of the year better. I feel as though with all of the routines and procedures I have to teach my students in their first month of middle school I had a hard time fitting in a lot of digital citizenship lessons. I had hoped to cover more digital citizenship lessons before allowing Bring Your Own Device to start in my classroom. However, it came time to start units which include lessons that I designed to use with BYOD. So, I started BYOD for the year even though I hadn't covered all the digital citizenship lessons that I had found and made. Of course I had planned to cover digital citizenship in steps through out the year, but there were some things that I wanted to cover before allowing students to bring in devices. I guess I just have to live and learn and plan better next year!

Animoto Video- My Munchkins

Midterm Reflection Part 2

listen to ‘Midterm reflection 2’ on Audioboo

Midterm Reflection Part 1

listen to ‘Midterm reflection 1’ on Audioboo

Week Five- The Textbook to Guide Us Away From Tradtional Textbooks

I have to admit, I was shocked that there was a required textbook for this class. All of my electives for my degree have been technology classes, and this was the first one that had a textbook. I did not look into it much but guessed that it must be something like a web 2.0 guide for dummies- exactly what I needed! Well, that is certainly not the case. This course has taught me that if I am having difficulty using a web 2.0 tool, I should try e-mailing someone or googling it first. This is very different for me! I feel that this textbook is a good bridge for those of us that are not ready to dive into the web 2.0 world and simply begin playing around with the tools.

I have learned a lot so far from this book. I really felt that the explanation and graphic comparing cooperation and collaboration were helpful. I had been hearing the terms PLC, PLN, and CoP a bit and found their definitions and examples helpful. I particularly liked the point about diversity within these groups; it has made me very thankful for the different people on my grade level team this year. It can be frustrating having differing points of view and approaches, but we are starting to get somewhere! I remember learning about the stages of collaboration before, but it is entirely different to think about it in an online context! I have also been enjoying the suggested tools in the book. Many of them I have already heard of, but the descriptions that the authors offer are very helpful to me.

Two things have stood out the most to me so far though. First is the discussion of relationships. It truly is different to build a relationship online and have the trust to collaborate. I am glad that the book addressed this and gave some tips, especially since I am a person who always tries to communicate in person instead of over e-mail or the phone. Knowing that I am not alone in wondering how to collaborate online is helpful in-itself! I also liked the reminder that web 2.0 tools should serve learning. I always need to keep in mind that I should be showing my students how to use the tools while teaching them content. I can often get caught up in teaching my students the tips and tricks of tools instead of teaching them the content and letting them work out the tools on their own- they are very capable of this!

Overall, our textbook is a guide. I like that it offers suggestions and encouragement to make it a hands-on resource.  I feel that the discussion in it is helpful as educators make the huge switch of integrating technology for students to be successful in their futures while simultaneously adjusting to new standards, grading systems and evaluation procedures. The discussion about why and how is very helpful and motivating to me!

Week Four- A Digital World

I enjoyed all the different places that this video visited. I also have often have the thought that too much technology is bad for students. They seem addicted and act out when they are not watching TV or playing video games. They appear focused on violence. This video made me think though that maybe there is a difference between passively viewing technology or engaging with it in a violent setting and actively learning through it. Being addicted to a game that encourages learning would not be a bad thing. 

I agree with what one of the instructors mentioned about students being more committed to their work when they know that people other than their teacher will view it. It makes sense! Their name really is attached to it and so of course they would want to do their best. I think that this also makes them more proud of their work and therefore happy to be learning.And enjoying learning is what students really need. They need to learn how to acquire information and how to enjoy it. As the video said, we are preparing them for things that don't even exist yet. How can we be doing that? I think that teaching them how to learn, collaborate, problem solve, and enjoy all of this is the only way that makes sense. 

The location based learning was very interesting to me and I will be doing some more research about it. It raised a lot of questions to me about how that works- mostly legal and logistical questions though, so I'll leave them out! I loved the sense of connecting the past with the present and getting students outside of the traditional classroom. It seemed like a great way to incorporate visuals that weren't always technology based into learning. I guess I am trying to say that I appreciated how the lessons brought the students into the real world and had them interact with people.

I love the museum story! I personally love museums but I know that children, even other adults, do not feel the same way. I can picture kids being captivated if there was an interactive technology piece to museums. Having a scavenger hunt could be just the beginning! Having barcodes to scan for additional information, wikis to share reactions, places to share photos, etc. I know that many museums have created virtual field trips but I think this would be a great way to increase engagement during real field trips. And just think, better attention = better behavior!!

I still have the same apprehension with all of this as with many things from this course. The places in the video were amazing. A center for high school students with technology available to them. A digital based high school. I wish that parents and taxpayers knew how important this is. I wish they weren't afraid of students using technology to learn. That much technology is a dream to my students and I. I wish that weren't so, but I do not know how to change it.