Thing 18: Digital Tattoo & Digital Citizenship

This is another topic where I feel we are failing our students.  I first heard the term Digital Footprint a little over a year ago...from Paige Jaeger and realized what an  important lesson my students need to be taught!  After speaking informally  with  my high school students I realized how clueless they are about digital citizenship and how the life they lead online will follow them in the "real world".  I love the term Digital Tattoo - it seems a little more permanent and I believe the students can relate to it.
I did start with searching myself on Spokeo and other such sites and was shocked at the detail and how many years back these sites went with my personal information.
There is so much information out there on this topic it is staggering and yet we have students that are living their lives online not realizing the full impact...their online sharing will have on them.
The presentation I created for my upcoming 9th graders included:
A great video on youtube....Youth & Media  Digital Dossier....it is a quick 4 minutes video that opens their mind to have is put out there and how it is used.
I also referenced an article in Time Magazine about Data Mining - Your Data for Sale  March 2013.  Some students were shocked to find out that their information was for sale...and that Facebook made 3.2 billion in advertising revenue.
Two books I found helpful were Digital Citizenship in Schools - Ribble & Bailey  and  Born Digital - Palfrey & Gasser.
I reviewed with my students some of the fine print details of what they are agreeing to when using things like Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat and other apps.
We also reviewed the Stephentown House Party last August that made the news because of pictures that were posted on social media sites.
Students were shocked to find out that employers and colleges want full access to Facebook!  For many students this was the eye opener!!  Or the pictures that they send via Snapshat that are supposed to be only viewed for a few seconds are never really "gone".
We touched on cyberbullying and the shocking statistics of students that have taken their lives because of such activity.
There is such a need here that I feel we are missing the boat on.  Our students are living their lives out on social media with blinders on.  We as educators need to fit this into the curriculum....somewhere between the common core and testing....   Many of the teachers believe someone else will cover it with the students and instead we are doing them a huge disservice.
When I did my lesson with my 9th graders some of the teachers were shocked at some of the information I shared and were unaware as well....so I think my next move is creating some inservice class for my teachers.

Thing 17 ....Coding

In my opinion, coding is like learning a foreign language...it is so much easier to learn the younger you are!  I was very excited about the Computer Science Education Week December 9-15.  There is a newer math teacher in our district that started offering a beginning computer programming course and I was happy to support him in this venture.  During the computer science week we asked teachers to please show the 5 minute promotional video from the code.org website.  We then picked a day during that week to close the library and open only for students interested completing an Hour of Code.  We had a great turn out....some teachers even joined in during their lunch and prep times.  I worked on quite a few but had a bit of frustration the longer I worked.  I tried  Angry birds, Lightbot, the Dog and the ball.  I truly believe we are missing the boat when it comes to computer science and our students!   I was thrilled with what code.org offered through their website.... http://learn.code.org/   - it is  a k-8 Computer Science class for 15-25 hours.  I wish I could offer it as a class.....or maybe as an after school program....the wheels are turning.  The computing occupations are among the highest paying for new graduates but fewer than 3% graduate with a degree in computer science!

An interesting article:

http://www.economist.com/news/international/21601250-global-push-more-computer-science-classrooms-starting-bear-fruit

Thing 15: App-palooza!

I LOVE the idea of "Library in your Pocket".  I am in the process of creating my list to share with students and staff but I feel like every day I come up with something new to add.  I have decided to do an APP of the week!  My staff at the HS is so excited with new Apps...almost as much as I am...my students...not so much.  They want to stick to Tumblr and Twitter - they are a hard sell...so far!  I have added to my "Library in your Pocket"  YALSA's teen book finder, StudyBlue for flashcards & study tools, Teen hotlines, Shakespeare in Bits, EasyBib, Videolicious, MyCongress which allows studetns to follow closely what is going on in Congress...links to each member's website, news articles, Twitter  feeds.  That is just a start!

I believe this will be much more productive when all of the students have ipads which is what we are all hoping will happen in the near future.  The teachers were given ipads this September....and there has been quite a learning curve for some of us.  There are so many Apps out there - I feel like if you have an idea...just look online there will be an App for it!  Kathy Schrocks Bloomin' Apps and Ipads4education are just amazing resources as well as OVERWHELMING!!! I love the graphic of different Apps which support the different aspect of Bloom's Taxonomy.  So helpful when planning lessons and wanting to implement technology.

I tried out the speech to text apps...they come in handy for classnotes etc.. but I have been on a search for a text to speech App...something free as we are not allowed to purchase Apps on school ipads...we are still working out the kinks on that!!

I did spend which a bit of time on the Apps in Education Blog.  I wish it was better organized...scrolling through loads of stuff got tiring but there was some great information...I loved the writing prompts, the art and music app suggestions were great as well.

There were some apps used as icecreakers that I thought my HS students would love...plinky, socrative, polleverywhere.  I can't wait to try them out...One of the teachers was looking over my shoulder asking what I was doing....so I quickly explained Plinky.  Her thought was too bad they kids don't have ipads so we could use this...many teachers don't realize that many of the apps that are available today can also be used through a web browser!  Let the apps continue!