Week #5 - Documentarianism

Today I'm looking at two documentaries - Digital_Nation and Generation Like and answering some questions for my class. The first documentary is about how the proliferation of technology is affecting the population. It discusses multi-tasking, social relationships, gaming, virtual worlds and learning. The second one (as its title suggests) is more about the use of social media by the population. Not just technology - it's looking more at how the Facebook craze of 'likes' affects corporate activity. So there's the brief overview, here's the questions:

1. Compare and Contrast each documentary. What was similar or different from the first one Digital Nation filmed in 2010 to Generation Like filmed in 2014 ?
So, the first documentary is really looking at the technology that is up and coming - video games, social networks, virtual reality, etc. It examines how schools, the military, corporation, etc. are using the technology. While the second video assumes the technology is in place and focuses on the social media only. Facebook, twitter, instagram and others are all the focus of the film.


2. Your thoughts on multitasking. Do you agree? Can you multitask? Do you disagree with the video on the topic of multitasking? What do you think our students think about multitasking today?
I do agree with the idea that multitasking slows you down. While I can multi-task, I realize that it's not the best way for me to be productive. For this blog post, for example, I have turned off the TV (which was only playing music), I disconnected from Facebook, I even made sure my dog wasn't bothering me. All because I wanted to produce better work.

I don't think the human brain is any different now than it was 30 years ago, so I don't think teenagers are any better at multitasking now then I was when I was a kid. I think they believe they can and they use that as an excuse to diminish their own potential. They see the work that their producing as quality work when it's not. "A" students are becoming "C" students because they think that the "C" work they are producing is the best they can do because they are doing it while they are multitasking.

How many things can we accomplish at once?

3. Is there an addiction happening in society today with technology or is it just a new way of living? Should we be concerned?
I believe children are addicted to their cell phones. But not the device itself, but rather that feeling they get when someone responds or likes or re-tweets their ideas. Its sort of like the basis of drug addiction. The drugs are altering their brain chemistry to make them feel happy or relaxes or whatever. Children are getting good feelings from their social networks. Its almost Pavlovian. Should we be concerned? I think we need to keep an eye out for signs, just like any addiction. For the two students from the first documentary that died after a video game binge, there should have been signs, but they were ignored. Or this precious human being who starved his own child to death because he was busy playing games. We need to be aware that the potential for addiction is there and keep our eyes open for it.

4. Do video games serve a purpose in education or are they a waste of time?
I believe they can serve a purpose because it allows students to see things in action. To see how these things respond to their actions. Virtual worlds are much cheaper than real worlds. So, I might have students play a game to examine the effects of mining on an environment. I can't really have them mine, but these games act as models for them to see what may happen. There are even some studies that say they may help improve motivation.

5. How did what you watched in the two videos support your feelings about technology or how did it change your views?
I had seen parts of the first video previously - so I already shared some of the beliefs that they expressed. I often have the conversation in classes with students who claim they can multi-task, but I can clearly see their work is sub-par. Generation Like really supported my thoughts on how Facebook and social media influence these students. It really makes me think that using social media for education may be the way to go. My previous blog posts about Edmodo, for example, may be more important to my future as an educator than I thought.

6. Are kids and adults today ruining their digital footprints by sharing too much information online without realizing that it may be detrimental to their future? Should they care? Are they focused on too much of what others think?
As the second video really expressed, the social media craze is all about what other people think. Students can become members of groups that are spread across the country and across the world. They can get their 'empowerment' from anywhere in the world. They are becoming more social and less social at the same time. One of the problems I think they might run into is that they are lacking experiences that they might have had if they hadn't been so focused on the one or two ideas/topics. As the generations change, I think the digital footprints will become less egregious. As these students grow up, they will teach their own children about good digital citizenship and their experiences can be passed on to a new generation of digital natives.

7. What do you feel are the dangers of technology use? Are there any?

I don't think technology is inherently dangerous, I think is up to the individual to use the technology wisely. I mean, I could bully any number of students on Facebook, but I'm an ethical and moral person. Technology can be used for good or for evil - it's all about what we teach our children to do with it. 

Overall, I enjoyed both documentaries. Though I had seen parts of the first one, I enjoyed seeing the rest of it. I like to see material that is based in science - the study on multi-tasking for example. I can use this very documentary in my classroom to help students understand their own potential. The second documentary, I enjoyed, but it was kind of depressing. It shows how children are being manipulated by the corporate monster into advertising to themselves at no cost to the corporation. Media is having a bigger impact on students lives than teachers are it seems and that makes me kid of sad. 

And now the final piece of this week's assignment - the Podcast! Yes, you get to hear my voice when you hit the play button. It's not funny, but it's not boring either. I hope. Enjoy!

listen to ‘Midterm Review’ on Audioboo

Week #4 - Oh, say can you Skype?

Digital Citizenship. What the heck is that? Well, to put it simply, it's the responsibility of someone to treat digital media in a respectful way. There are 9 basic tenets to the idea of digital citizenship. Feel free to read them, I'll wait.  Done? Good - it's a good read and I'm glad you did it. So, now that you know what it is the next question is - who's job is it to teach digital citizenship? Is it mine? Is it yours?

Well, the answer (in my humble opinion) is - it's everyone's.  When we teach good citizenship (analog), it falls to the community to do so. The parents, the neighbors, the teachers, the peers, etc. If you walk into a Wendy's, you don't reach over the counter and take money from the register. Why? Because our society has dictated that to be a bad thing. We put those people in jail where they are supposed to learn to be better citizens (supposed to be - this is not a rant on the jail system). Digital citizenship falls to the community as well - it's the bloggers and the web gurus and the parents and the teachers and the peers that teach it. For the parents and the teachers, it's often a struggle to understand the rules at all. But there's hope! There are articles like this and websites like this that help parents and teachers learn more about how to teach our children how to be good citizens in the digital arena.

Children need to be fed, even digitally.

Good digital citizens are not born, they are crafted. Here is a lesson from the Teaching Channel for elementary students. It's about 7 minutes long (in case you're planning your day).

So you can see digital citizenship should start young. Some argue we should start younger - as soon as they receive their first piece of technology. When does a student get their first cell phone? Children are not born knowing how to use them.  They have to be taught. You don't hand your ten year-old a chainsaw and say "Go!"  You instruct and demonstrate, you create a good "chainsaw citizen" as it were. Now, clearly you wouldn't give a chainsaw to your 4 year old. Well, you might, but that's another story.

Not all elements of digital citizenship are created equal. For example, I don't think we should teach digital commerce until children are in their early teens. But rights and responsibilities should be taught as early as possible. But again, it's the responsibility of the community to teach them. We must all make sure that the standards we want are the standards we live by.

Week #3 - Part 2 of 2 - A WebQuest by any other name . . .

. . . is just a worksheet. No, really. It is.

So, for my Learning through Technology class I will be creating a WebQuest. What is a WebQuest you ask? Well, you can think of it this way - it's an assignment where our brave heroes (the students) wander the wilds (the Internet) looking for knowledge (the lesson objectives). There's a better definition at WebQuest.org. Or you could watch this video.

So the topic I'm choosing for my WebQuest is genetics. Genetics is one of the hardest topics that I teach. Waaaaay back in my undergraduate days, I struggled with genetics. My students aren't in college so I can only imagine how hard it is for them. One of the most important things to understand is the basic structure of DNA. If this were a bridge, I could show them pictures and have them build one out of toothpicks using the basic laws of physics. For DNA, I can show them pictures and make them build models, but that really doesn't give them the extent of what the molecule is all about. High school students (aged 14-16 for my classes) learn in a variety of different ways (multiple intelligences) and using a WebQuest will allow them to explore the topic on their own and learn in the way they find easiest.

What does it all mean?

Here are a couple of WebQuests related to genetics and the cell in general just to give you an idea of what I'm trying to do. All of them came from Quest Garden - a huge library of WebQuests created by teachers all over the world.

• The Life Inside of Cells
• Genetics WebQuest
• Exploration of Cell Division
• Genetic Engineering

The DNA Learning Center is the main website for my WebQuest. It has a lot of 3D animations of the molecules and processes with both basic and advanced topics. My hope is that students will go to this website (among others) and dig deep enough into the structure of DNA that when they build a model, they have a much greater understanding of what they're building. Instead of them seeing blue and green plastic pieces they will see adenine and thymine. I think one of the best ways to do that is to have the students create an animation of their own. My classroom does animation using PlayDoh and stop motion photography for a couple of different topics. However, I have recently learned how to do animation with PowerPoint! So I think I will have them wrap the whole project with their own animations.

So there you have it - the beginnings of a WebQuest. I look forward to showing off the results as the process is completed.

Week #3 - Part 1 of 2 - The Blogger hunt!

This week I look at three different educator blogs. Here's the first one:

The Blog of Angela Maiers

The most recent post from Angela's blog (June 28th) is a short one about a book called A World Gone Social (Coine & Babbitt). Angela did a recap of the major points of the book and linked a video interview she did with the authors. One of the major points is that we are not in a technology age, but rather in a social age. They explain that it's not the technology that's changing our world, but rather the ability that technology has given us to "connect and be productive". One of the ideas that I really liked was the idea that the role of the educator has changed along with the age. The blog doesn't expand on the idea, but I think that it's fundamentally true. With student's abilities to communicate on a global scale, we are changing how they work and how they learn. The authors believe that companies have to adapt to this style of environment and thus as educators we have to prepare them for that.

I like this blog overall. It's short and precise without being to wordy or technical. One of my pet peeves is buzzwords and she stays away from them for the most part. One of the things I don't like about the blog is the volume of "other stuff". I understand some people use their blogs for an income so ads are necessary and I understand the desire to display one's credentials, but the combination of the two makes the site look busy and over done. I'm not sure how this blog can help me better understand technology, but it does has some excellent ideas about education. Between the blog posts about specific events, she discusses things like collaboration and how to engage students. There was an interesting post about the 2-5-2 method. Stuff like that I find interesting - it's stuff I can use immediately without going and doing my own hours and hours of research.

The second blog that I looked at was:

The Blog of Darren Draper

Darren is a doctor of education (EdD) and the director of education technology at Canyons School District. Plus, he's an awesome blogger. I really enjoy his writing style, it's engaging and thoughtful plus it includes all the background material he draws his conclusions from. Now, this may be because I agree with him on the posts that I read, but I think he's brilliant. I don't find any negatives about this blog. It's well constructed, there are good tabs and excellent post sorting techniques. It flows well and its easy to read. So, I guess, you might say its' too good?

One of the post I enjoyed most was his post on cell phones for children. It's a great look at how students learn technology and how they adapt to it. Like anything, they have to learn how to use their phones. I would love all of my parents to read this post because it has some excellent insight on how to introduce and teach children about this ubiquitous piece of tech. This really leads me to think about how parents learn these things. They are coming into this technology in a very different time in their lives. Do we, as educators, need to educate parents? Would a one night seminar help parents navigate these waters?

Can she handle the technology?!?

The third blog I looked at was:

The Blog of Kathy Schrock

The first post I read was a review of a piece of technology. Very helpful! She has used and tested out this device and even goes over some of the finer points of it. For a technology blog, it's a great post. For an education blog, not as great, but the second post was fantastic. I don't think it's necessary for a great blog to hit both education and technology in every post. And the second post (about PowerPoint) actually taught me a valuable technique in animation. Here's the video on the basics of how to do it. It's narrated by a student, which I think is fantastic.

Over all the blog is good. Visually it's a little sterile for me, but she includes images and links in her work efficiently. The blog has an excited feel to it. As I was reading it, I felt like Kathy was super excited about this topic and sharing it with everyone. That makes me want to keep reading her work.

Okay - there you have it. The Great Hunt for the Blog has resolved and these three fine resources are at your disposal. Good hunting, my friends! Part 2 to follow.

Week #2 - Socializing with our students. . .sort of.

http://mass.pbslearningmedia.org/resource/07cd19f9-6b03-4e78-9d36-95100937032c/lets-get-social-how-to-effectively-incorporate-social-media-into-your-classroom/

Are we getting social? Well, the webinar above would like us to. PBS hosted a webinar entitled Let’s Get Social! How to Effectively Incorporate Social Media Into Your Classroom. The webinar was split into two parts – the first was hosted by a marketing specialist from Edmodo (Lucia Giacomantonio) and the second half was hosted by the PBS moderator (Mike Gormanhttp://21centuryedtech.wordpress.com/). 

Mike Gorman & Lucia Giacomantonio

As you can imagine the first half was all about Edmodo. Edmodo is a social media website for teachers to engage students in an alternative way. In her part of the webinar, Lucia discussed some of the basic functions of the site.  The site has similar functions to Facebook, including postings and groups, but it also has a number of functions dedicated to the educational side of social media. The site allows you to quiz your students and track their progress as well as store files of various types to be used later. All in all, Edmodo has a great deal of potential for helping build an online experience for the classroom.

In an effort to validate that last sentence, I went to Edmodo and created an account. It’s remarkably easy to do and the site doesn't ask for a great deal of information (unlike Facebook and other social media sites). I created a group and explored the site – even though the webinar was from October of last year, the site remains remarkably the same.  I created a group for my (future) biology classes and explored their links to the common core (which my school system is switching too in 2015, I think).  There are quite a few teachers that have already created projects/quizzes that they have shared through the Discover section demonstrated by Lucia. It has a great deal of potential. I currently use a wikispaces website (DHSAPBiology) for one of my classes. Its a bit clunky, but it does the job I need it to do. I think I might migrate over to Edmodo next year - it has more visual appeal for the students and may seem more familiar to them. Familiarity leads to comfort and I would love to have discussions with students initiated online! 

Online Learning is just one path

The second half of the webinar was a general overview of how to use social media in the classroom. The moderator reviewed some basic guidelines to stick to and things that we as teachers should do to help students learn. One of the first things that he shows is a list of available social media tools – not just Edmodo, but also Kidblog, Classchatter and Schoology. Along with the list Mike reviews some basics of creating an online experience for your students. These are simple things to keep in mind that we as teachers might take for granted. I've often had an experience of trying to create an online resource only to be frustrated by the process not going smoothly or not having all of my ducks in a row.  I found the list of tips to be just what I needed to make the process more fun for me as well as the students. One of the basic tips is "Learn the Ropes", understanding how the product you're using works is extremely helpful! Our students are often afraid to try things out - they just want to be told how to. If I don't know how to do it, we all get frustrated and then the lesson is one in how to use Edmodo instead of how muscles work (for example). 

Mike also gives a helpful document he refers to as a "white paper". The white paper is a PDF of the information that he covers in his half of the webinar. It includes the websites, tips and 10 ideas for improving academic use of the internet. One of the things the list reminds us of is that online discussions are not social media - they are academic forums. As such, students should behave appropriately, following ground rules laid out by the teacher and strictly enforced. For our students to learn good citizenship, we teach them how to act in society. One of our new challenges is to teach them good digital citizenship, how to act in a digital society. 

Use of social media continues to grow. A recent study showed that higher education faculty use mirrors the general populations and that more than half of them use social media in a professional context. Still, only about 41% of them use social media in the classroom, but the study suggests that this number is growing year by year. If our colleges are starting to use social media, we have to start using them with our students. My classes all end in CP1 - College Prep. I want them to have all the preparation they can for college and it seems like it must include proper use of social media. 

We are facing a dilemma however. I pulled this image from the same study above: 

Are we really so conflicted?

It really speaks for itself - we as teachers are trying to embrace a technology that we fear will destroy everything we work so hard to provide for our students. We are creating better learning environments that are more distracting than helpful? What the what? 

All in all, I found the webinar very informational. I choose this particular one because of its source (PBS) and because it relates to a topic that I find fascinating. Children are being bombarded by input from all angles these days (TV, YouTube, mp4 players, Google, Spotify, etc.). This technology has erupted in less than a generation. They have no idea how to manage it all and frankly, neither do we as teachers. I have often wondered how such an overwhelming input of information affects their learning process. I think that might have been a question to bring up in the chat box if I had been watching the live webinar. I suspect being involved live provides a lot more opportunity for people to interact with their fellow attendees as well as the speaker and moderator. 

So, since this is an assignment I have to include some learning objectives. If you're not my teacher (or a fellow student), you may wish to end here. Here are the learning objectives I accomplished by watching this webinar and creating this post: 

1. Learn ways to promote student reflection using collaborative tools to reveal and clarify students’ conceptual understanding. 

I believe the over of Edmodo helps to accomplish this learning objective. Because I have a basic understanding of the tool, I can use it in the future the help guide my students in a collaborative discussion and use the same to to assess their understanding. The reporting power of edmodo's online quizzes can then allow me to address any misconceptions in class or online (or both!)

2. Demonstrate an understanding of safe, ethical, legal and moral practices related to digital information and technology 

Because one of the focuses of this webinar was proper digital citizenship, I think it allowed me to grow my own ideas of what that means. It allowed me to reflect on how students use social media and what I can do to help them develop skills to navigate the online arena properly.