App Generation

  After reading App Generation my biggest takeaway was the pros and cons with this generation, specially the effects of technology and its relation to the three I’s--identity, intimacy, and imagination.  Though there are different pros and cons of technology on identity, the most important one to me was individuality.  The pro is that people are able to curate an image of themselves and how they want to be portrayed.  The con to this is that this image they portray of themselves might not be an accurate depiction of who they are.  We all know by now that what’s shared online is chosen by the person who shared it, which means that we may only be seeing the ‘good’ image of someone, and not their whole self.  The next I is intimacy.  The biggest pro technology has in relation to intimacy is how it brings people together.  People can communicate with each other daily even if they’re on opposite sides of the world.  This communication can be between families, friends, and strangers.  The con of technology on intimacy is that people might be oversharing information about themselves and there’s no sense of privacy at all.  Finally, there’s imagination.  The biggest pro of technology on imagination is that because everything is available to everyone, they’re able to use this to inspire them to create something better.  On the opposite end of this is laziness.  Since everything is available online for everyone, people might not be inspired to be creative but instead are doing the bare minimum because it’s already there and done for them.  With technology being easily accessible to our students, we must teach them how to be good digital citizens and use technology as a tool rather than a toy. 
This directly impacts my practice because I teach the app generation--students who were born and raised with technology in their everyday lives.  In order for students to see technology as a tool, I must teach them how to be good digital citizens.  Teaching them to be good digital citizens allows them to use technology for its benefits rather than using it for its drawbacks.  I must teach students the impacts of technology on their identity and how they portray themselves online is important and they must also be aware that what’s posted online will be part of their digital footprint for life, regardless if they’ve deleted it or not.  In addition, I must teach students the benefits of technology in relation to intimacy.  I think a lot of them are used to using technology as a tool to communicate with others online, which is amazing but I have to teach them that they need to be mindful of what they share and communicate with others online.  Finally, I would teach them that the information and things they find online could be a great inspiration for what they can create.  They could use things they find online as an inspiration to create something better.  Technology has its pros and cons but what we do with those pros is much more important and beneficial than the cons that come with technology.

Net Smart

     My biggest takeaway from reading Net Smart is knowing how to navigate the digital world and effectively communicate with others digitally.  According to Rheingold, in order to navigate the digital world and effectively communicate with others digitally, we must know the five literacies: attention, crap detection, participation, collaboration and network smarts.  I think the most important thing for attention literacy is being mindful of what you pay attention to online.  This leads to the next literacy of crap detection.  When navigating through the digital world effectively, you must look through resources and websites as a process of investigation in order to know what’s reliable or what’s crap.  Participation is another important literacy in navigating the digital world.  The most important takeaway with participation is knowing the difference between participating and passive consuming.  Participating incorporates learning the norms and boundaries of online culture.  Participation then leads to collaboration in the digital world.  Collaboration includes engaging in casual conversations and making those rules and boundaries clear when communicating online.  Finally, there’s network smarts.  My biggest takeaway with network smarts is that it’s important to participate in diverse networks because it provides a richer variety of resources.
    These five literacies directly impact my teaching because I will be teaching students digital citizenship and how to navigate the online world.  Part of that lesson includes teaching them about the five literacies.  I will teach the students about the literacies and model what those literacies look like online.  Students must not only hear about it but also see it in action in order to fully understand it.  With technology being all around us, and even more in the lives of the children, they must know how to navigate the digital world and how to effectively communicate with others online. 

Copyright Clarity

  After reading Copyright Clarity, I definitely got some clarity on what copyright and fair use is but still have some blurred lines within both things.  My biggest takeaway from this book is that fair use gives us the right to use copyrighted material when the cost to the copyright holder is less than the social benefit of the use of the copyrighted work.  In order to determine fair use with something, it has to be transformative.  In order for it to be transformative, we must consider four factors: purpose of the use; nature of the work; amount being used; and market impact.  We must also ask ourselves questions like “am I creating new audiences?  Creating new interpretations? Creating new markets?” in order to determine if it’s fair use.  

    If we are mindful of fair use, we can use copyrighted materials to support and supplement our lessons and activities.  With technological advances, it is so easy to copy and paste something from a website, use and share information, and modify and repurpose information so we must be mindful of fair use when it comes to using copyrighted materials and resources.  Knowing this information directly impacts my classroom because I’m aware of copyright law and fair use and I’m able to use that knowledge to supplement my lessons and activities with copyrighted material.  Personally, at times I’m afraid of using certain things so that I don’t infringe on copyrighted material.  I’m now able to use Copyright Clarity to guide me with what I can and cannot use, how to use it, etc., so that there’s no copyright infringement.  By  having a guide to help me with copyrighted material and having clarity on copyright and fair use, I’m able to provide resources to my students that allow them to be future-ready learners. 

Information Diet

  After reading The Information Diet, I was able to reflect on my information consumption.  I reflected on how much information I consumed and where I consumed it from.  After reflecting, I was able to learn how to better consume information which directly impacts my practice. 

These are things I learned to be a better consumer: consume consciously, consume locally, have a variety of places I consume information from, and consume with less advertisements.  Consuming consciously means being aware of the kind of information I’m consuming.  I need to be intentional with the kind of information I’m consuming, in other words, what’s the purpose of consuming that information?  Consuming consciously also means being aware of how much time I spend consuming information.  It’s important to create a flexible schedule that allows for time to consume information as well as breaks.  It’s also important to consume locally.  Before looking to consume information in other places, I should consider consuming information from local places and communities I’m part of.  In addition, it’s important to consume information with low advertisements.  As consumers, we tend to get sucked into advertisements and brand loyalty when it comes to consuming information.  Finally, if I am consuming information, it’s crucial to be consuming information with diverse perspectives.  If I continue to consume information I already agree with, confirmation bias will be at play.  These are just some of my big takeaways from The Information Diet. 

Now how does this impact my practice?  The kind of information I’m consuming directly impacts my practice because it will get passed on to my students.  If my information consumption isn’t diverse, then I’m not providing students with information with various diverse perspectives.  In addition, if I’m not being intentional with the kind of information I’m consuming, then I could just be giving my students information that isn’t relevant, true, or important.  Knowing how to consume information allows me to model data literacy to my own students.  With this model, they’ll be able to be literate themselves when it comes to consuming information. 

Students as Designers

Students are designers is such a vital principle when designing lessons for students.  So far, we’ve learned how to be teachers as designers and how to incorporate tools and technology in our designs.  Now, we’ve got to consider how to design our lessons and activities to allow students to be designers themselves.  We’ve now shifted our lessons and activities to allow them to take ownership of their learning.  This is a great connection to Vygotsky’s ZPD.  After all that we’ve taught our students, we are now able to let them explore and learn on their own and guide them as needed.  

When allowing students to be designers, we must consider all that we’ve learned in this course in connection to Vygotsky’s ZPD and allow students to take ownership of their learning and support as needed.  We must model and coach students to be designers themselves.  We must model a creative spirit in order to develop designers who are flexible and perceptive.  As teachers as designers, we must consider all the approaches, processes, techniques, and technologies to allow students to be designers themselves.  Our designs for students should allow them to use their imagination, interdisciplinary, and creation-oriented.  If we do these things, we are doing our best to allow students to be designers.

This impacts my practice because it allows me to be mindful of what I’m modeling to students everyday.  In order for my students to be creative designers themselves, I must model a creative spirit that allows them to see what creative designers look like.  They’ll develop as flexible and perceptive designers if they’re given a model that does just that.  My teaching will incorporate opportunities for students to be in their ZPD.  As a second grade teacher, it’s challenging at times to allow students to figure things out on their own, especially when they get frustrated or upset.  I must model how to be a critical thinking and designer so students are able to do the same thing themselves.    

Affordance Analysis and Educational Technologies

  I enjoyed getting to learn about and use different educational technologies that can be used in the classroom.  One of my favorite educational technologies that I’ve had the pleasure to have and use in my classroom are the Lego Spike kits.  This is a favorite of mine because it uses a toy students play with and turns it into a tool they can use to show their learning.  Lego Spike kits allow students to build something and code it to show their understanding of a skill or standard.  For example, we have used Lego Spike kits for students to show their understanding of habitats.  Students built an animal and its habitat and coded it to do things such as pretend to eat things in its habitat, how it finds shelter in its habitat, etc.  Students can not only code their Legos to move, they can also code it to say things that they’ve recorded.  This is a great tool for students to describe and explain their thinking.  Lego Spike kits have a specific lesson on habitats but teachers are free to create their own lesson.  Though some lessons are available for students to follow, they are also able to use their critical thinking skills to create their own projects to show understanding of what they’re learning.  This allows students to take ownership of their work.  With Lego Spike kits, students work in groups and this allows them to communicate with their group members and collaborate to complete their project.  Though Lego Spike kits are an amazing resource to have, there are limitations and constraints to them, just as any technology does.  

Some constraints Lego Spike kits have are that their lessons are only geared towards science.  This limits being able to use the technology with other content areas.  Another limitation and constraint is cost.  Lego Spike kits are costly and not all schools have access to these tools, which means not all students will have access to them.  Even if your school may have one, it could be scarce and your students may not have an opportunity to use them.  A common limitation we have in classrooms is time--we don't have enough of it.  We need to consider that using these kits requires time to introduce it then use it.  Teachers may be hesitant to use the kits because they don't want to lose instructional time to introduce it and use it.  Knowing what these limitations and constraints are with an educational technology, allows us to think about the affordances that come with using it.  

In connection to affordance analysis, educators must consider the affordances with any educational technologies.  We must think about the limitations and benefits to any educational technology we use in our classrooms.  Just as we do with designing lessons, we must consider our goals and outcomes, tools we need, activities to implement, and the limitations and benefits when implementing that educational tool.  Knowing about affordance analysis will allow me to be intentional with the educational technologies I use in the classroom.  I need to think about the limitations and benefits the technology has and determine if it is something that will support my students’ learning.

Victorian Internet

    I enjoyed reading The Victorian Internet last week and learning all about the history of the telegraph.  I was able to make connections to the book which made it even more enjoyable.  The perspective they had on the invention of the telegraph is how many people react to new things, especially educators in education, with new curriculum, technologies, and ideas.  Though there are the possibilities of consequences and negative outcomes, it’s also important to focus on the positive consequences and possibilities new things can bring. 

This book taught me that it’s okay to think of the possible consequences and negative outcomes of new things, but it’s even better to focus on the positive outcomes it will bring.  Yes, there are negative things that occur because of a new invention, idea, etc., but for all those negatives are even more positive outcomes that benefit our society as a whole.  If we’re too afraid to accept, or even think of new ideas, then we’d be hindering ourselves from better things.  For example, educators are always apprehensive of new curriculum and new ideas in education, such as digital technology, but now that we have it, learned about it, and implemented it into our classrooms, we recognize that digital technology and all that it comes with, is overall beneficial to our students.  Yes, there are negative consequences to it, as anything in this world does, but there are lots more positive consequences that resulted from digital technologies in the classroom.  For example, digital technologies allow students with opportunities to express their learning in creative ways, which I believe is the best positive consequence of digital technology.  

Having a positive perspective on new ideas, technologies, etc., will directly impact my classroom because it will allow my students opportunities to express their learning in creative ways.  These new technologies will be taught and implemented in my classroom so students have a plethora of resources to use when it comes to learning.  With those new resources, they then can make a decision for themselves on what tool they want to use when they’re expressing their learning and showing understanding with a topic or standard.  This enables the activity to be student-oriented rather than teacher-oriented.  Yes, there will be constraints and students have to be taught how to appropriately use these resources, but once they’re skilled in that resource, they’ll be able to apply it now and in the future.  

This week’s reading taught me to focus on the positive, not only with new ideas, technologies, and etc., but with life in general.  Dwelling on the possibilities of negative outcomes requires way more effort than focusing on the positive outcomes and how that thing can benefit our society as a whole.