My Digital Footprint

My Digital Footprint

When reflecting upon my digital footprint I really had to take a look at what exactly my digital identity is. What kind of person do I percieve myself as online? As an experiment I decided to google my own name and see what sorts of things people have access to. It was shocking to see how much information is actually on the internet about my past experiences and current experiences. Some of the information I had put online myself, but there were many volleyball articles and write ups I was not even aware existed. Upon researching my own name I began to wonder if I am any different online then I am in real life. In real life I am a pretty social and expressive person. Am I like that online? I find I am actually a little bit less expressive online then I am in real life. Would I rather type out my feelings or say them to your face? The answer is easy, personal face-to-face conversation is a way better method for me. I was never one to post statuses on facebook and it wasn't until twitter that I truly began to express feelings, show quotes of interests. Interestingly enough, when looking at my digital identity I do have A LOT of pictures. Perhaps not so many words of expression but I do have over 1,000 tagged photos, some of which need to be erased from the internet. Harsh realization: once this pictures are online such a task is not so easy.  As a teacher we really need to teach our students about how easy it is to access information, whether its true information or false. Having a "What is your Digital Identity" class or unit for that matter would be a great start. What age? Well, students as young as grade 4 are starting to use  Facebook etc. SO YOUNG! 

Staying Organised Online

Staying organised online! Its interesting to think that being organised in your material life isn't enough, now we are receiving mass amounts of new ways to use technology, gather information and it almost seems as though it is an OVERLOAD. There seems to be a surge in social media website and other websites that in-cooperate a means to organised oneself. Whether it would be to organised pictures, thoughts, documents and videos. In a society that is extremely fast pace it seems only natural that we figure out the fastest and most efficient ways to receive and obtain our own information but also new information. How do I organize my own online life? Well, I am currently becoming more aware of things like DROPBOX, GOOGLE DRIVE and/or the fun more creative organizers like PINTEREST. If you are looking for a website, that initially seems to have one function (pure entertainment), with vast amounts of information organised then Pinterest is the way to go. I am not sure whether other education classes have used Pinterest to the degree we have but we have several different "Pin Groups" where people  can add and pin assignments, crafts, lessons pertaining to a particular subject area. For example there is an "english" pingroup where students are daily pinning great ideas to the group, making those ideas accessible to everyone who is part of the group. What a great resource!  Will I have my students use PINTEREST in my classroom? Perhaps. I honestly think its a great tool for collective ideas on certain topics, comparative to google but with more specific example. If a student is doing a project on Flanders Fields, they can look on Pinterest for craft ideas and poster ideas. They can also be encouraged to "pin" their own, final project to a group class pin. 

Just some #pinteresting thoughts!

This week we had to watch a very inspiring TED TALK video about a little girl named Martha who made a difference....

We have found ourselves another Martha Stewart... except she is 9 years old and merely began with taking pictures of her lunch. A girl from Scotland , named Martha, has made a difference. Basically Martha starts taking pictures of her lunch and starts a blog of her lunch and starts rating her lunches. People start sending pictures of their lunches to Martha and she keeps getting more attention. She even gets to go on a cooking show and talks about the quality of school lunches. Eventually she creates such an awareness that she starts a group called "Martha's Meals" and starts helping those (schools) who need more health awareness and nutritional information for their everyday health and wellness. This video really emphasized  how technology can help our world and how it enables us to be linked across the world. The role of technology in Martha's life made it possible for her to help others .

Essentially this video is telling us there are many Martha's in this world, so many young people that now have the outlet to make a difference. Perhaps we need to stop putting our entire focus on cyber bullying or sexting and just help our students realise they have the ability to make change. The presenter in this TED TALK said it perfectly:
               "If we want more Marthas we need to get rid of our fear and control of what our students are                         doing and focus on empowerment. We need our in school environments to be technology based                    places, give them access and advice and let them create!"

Honestly, take a second to think about it... How could you make a change? In what ways could you use technology to change something or affect someone in your life or furthermore in our world?

Lean on me... when you're not strong... ill be your friend... ill help you carry on...


YES that is technology singing to me...


Can technology be a teaching aid? After exploring a little bit I am at the conclusion that yes it can. I have always downloaded and used apps in regards to things of interest: volleyball stats, fitness management, nutrition calorie counting, games and it with these internet courses that I need to realise: APPS can help you in the classroom. I find I seem to be at a slight disadvantage in that I have not fully explored technology in the classroom because the majority of my teaching is done in the gymnasium. Using technology in a gymnasium is not easy, it is not really taught to us how to in-cooperate it as the main goal in a gym: is the be active physically! So what particular apps I should use in the classroom are somewhat foreign to me. Any help? English? Math? I know there are apps for math and how to make math more visual and more fun but I just am uneducated with what they are. Continuing on that math tangent... I am not good with numbers, decimals, dividing, EVERYTHING number related and honestly I feel comfort in the idea of an APP being able to assist me in teaching Math and helping me learn as well as teach the students. At King George every Wednesday we had "Mathletics" which is basically a math program that the students use their computers with and do math examples and problems with/against their classmates AND also students from the other side of the world.


 Its a challenging world in that there are so many different types of phones and different types of APPS that apply to only certain types of phones. How do we find an APP that generically works for all phone types? The presenter this week made an interesting point in that us as educators need to step out of the realm of "everyone learns the same" into different people have different learning styles and that can be applied to different learning APPS. The students need to learn how to use their device and hopefully reach the same learning outcome even if they are doing it differently. This was an interesting thought to me ...!


#mathleticsforlife
#apphelp

Okay so this blog is catching me a moment of pure frustration with the ol inter web. My current class, in which this blog is necessary, has suddenly decided to tell me there are tech tasks due. Now, if I had a hard copy of the course outline and proper explanations of what exactly is due I would have them completed. Instead we kind of have to do these on-line tech tasks via the internet (which I struggle to use) and I honestly have finally located the actual tasks but read the task without a hot clue how to even do them on the internet. I need to learn how to use the internet and instead of relying on visual hard copy mater representations of assignment: I need to learn how to see the documents up on the screen and understand them. It is a weird transition for me I think as I am a hands on learner: merely reading the tasks on-line do not really tap into my learning self.

ANYWAYS, the plan is to get my ducks in a row in terms of the tech tasks and figure it out. Also I forgot snack today.. that was the icing on the cake to my frustration. I do love technology but sometimes I just do not know how to stay on top of it. Which is why I am extremely happy to be in this class because I want to learn how to learn using the internet. On a side note I went 14 hours without internet yesterday and I felt uneasy the whole day... whats going on? Have I missed something on Facebook? On Twitter? What if someone is trying to get a hold of me... blah blah blah. Sure enough, I finally get reconnected and to my dismay: NOTHING. No inbox messages, no tweets, no emails... in 14 hours! Sooo moral of the story life can go on with out our dear friend I-web but its really not as fun or as creative.

#sorryfortherant
#feelingbetter

Digital Identity?




It's interesting... we currently live in a generation of self identification and expression. Who am I? What do I believe? How do I let the world know I am original, I am unique, I am me... whether you like it or not. So it only seems natural that the notion "Digital Identity" would emerge. People now have that outlet and tool to express the utmost best and worst sense of self. It is self expression to its greatest degree. Throughout one of my field placements I had the opportunity to teach grade 8 ART and I created an Identity lesson. Essentially the assignment was to chose a symbol, whether it be a established symbol or a self-created symbol, that reflected what you feel represent yourself and who you are. Some of the students dug deep and were able to really inspire and find appropriate symbols, whereas the majority of the class merely viewed themselves as part of social networks. I had students drawing facebook symbols, instagram symbols and twitter hash-tags. Enlight of this sudden realisation I changed the assignment in that the students had to outline their symbols in personal descriptive words that pertain to their personal symbol and then title their symbol. Now the students had to think, what is my digital identity in the instagram world? Now that I know this terminology I bet it would be beneficial to teach the students about digital identity and all things that create it.


What would your identity symbol be?




#volleykrahn

Hello hello,


Finding myself back in the forced upon blogger world and couldn't be happier... But actually, it seems a though blogs have taken off since last year when I started this blog. I decided to enroll in another class that teaches us teachers how to use technology with our students. I found myself at about 4:15 pm last week in a class, learning about Twitter. Yes, a Twitter 101. I have my own twitter account.. I would go so far to say that I am averaging about 2 tweets a week and only when something comes up that is tweet worthy. I think the further exploration of Twitter is going to be beneficial because whether we like it or not Twitter can be used educationally. It is a way of unifying and organising thoughts, feelings and classes together as one. Fast forward a few years... am I going to be tweeting things to me students? Who knows... that very well might just happen. If its educationally beneficial for my students and perhaps even the school staff. I haven't quite explored the group hash tags, like our class one : #I4E.. such a hash tag may just take off. Who would have thought the little symbol # could have become what it is today. People of our past generations will forever look at that symbol a different way then that of our youth today. Oh the hashtag... a way to be incredibly creative and descriptive. I personally love it, love being able to think, be creative and clever.


#bye


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57dzaMaouXA