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.