Technology Access
I have never looked at or used Twitter before, so this assignment gave me an insight into the website and potentials it has for use inside the classroom.
Understandably, an administrator would want to block the site because it is a social networking site. Most of the tweets or posts are not censored, clean, or appropriate for the classroom setting. Moreover, students also must have confidentiality and anonymity protection. If students post personal information, the site could be dangerous to them by attracting predators or other types of people looking to harm them. The student’s privacy must be protected. Furthermore, the parents may not be very understanding when they see their child on twitter doing “homework assignments” when they are supposed to be doing chores. Since twitter is a social networking site, some backlash may occur when used in the classroom.
In the account tab of settings on twitter, the website has an option at the very bottom to “Protect my tweets.” If the teacher and students all select this option, their tweets are protected from search results, and followers of their twitter must be approved. All the students would have to do is subscribe to the teacher and protect their tweets to respond. In addition, if students subscribed to their classroom peers, it would open communication and encourage or provoke thought. Twitter is more accessible in the sense that it may be access from any phone with text messaging service and any computer with internet access. So students have more time and availability to post and respond to tweets. Teachers could post a daily question requiring students to respond every night, or they could start a poll, or even start an informal, appropriate, respectful and clean debate.
Teachers would have to make sure that the students click on the “Protect my tweets” tab before students could respond. It would also have to be clear that students should not post any private or personal information on their profile or comments. To make sure this happens and it understood, perhaps a parent and child consent form would be signed to be positive students understand not to post their last name, name of the school they attend, their age, etc.
Dr. Tim Tyson: Closing Keynote
When comparing Dr. Tyson’s school website to the new school site, the differences are astonishing. It’s clear that Dr. Tyson did wonders for the school in the field of technology. Though the school tries to keep up with the high standards Dr. Tyson left behind, they fall a little short in making learning and reading fun. MabryOnline was appealing and visually stimulating to persons of any age.
I am very glad there is someone advocating “School 2.0″ with the passion and determination Dr. Tyson has. His story about Conrad and his project he wanted on itunes was enlightening and interesting. Opening children’s work to the entire world, pushed them into a different type of self-accomplishment. Sure, putting A’s on the fridge and giving projects to teachers to reuse year after year is great, but being able to show everyone in the world how hard they worked on a project and succeeding in getting their point across is a far greater achievement to strive towards.
After watching the organ donor video Dr. Tyson showed, the students creativity left me speechless. I think it’s amazing what a few 11-13 year olds can do when they put their minds to it. Who would have thought that a video made by middle schoolers could change the lives and choices of so many people in their community and world.
This learn by doing style of teaching is obviously effective and worthwhile for students as young as 11 or below. “In school 1.0 they take it in… in school 2.0, they give it out as a contribution to the world.”
Web 2.0
Piclits seems like it would have great potential for an English class. Not only is it fun and interactive for students, but it teachers them parts of speech such as nouns, verbs, adverbs, and adjectives. It also helps with sentence structure and creation of sentences. It could possibly be a story-type assignment using piclits. It’s a great way for kids to learn without even knowing they are absorbing information.
Scratch could be a very, very basic introduction to game design. It could allow students the opportunity to create something of their own and develop their personal artistic license. They could create an online mobile of the universe complete with animations and size relativity.
Voki is a speaking avatar. Students could create models of themselves. This avatar or model has speech capabilities, so they can attach their small version of self onto a blog or profile. In school, this person could possibly be added to a powerpoint, narrating the project for them.
BWP Ch. 6 — The Social Web
I think the internet, especially for the younger generations up until people in their 30s or 40s, is really used more for social networking than anything else. People have a need to connect to others, so whether it’s sending e-mails, logging onto facebook, blogging, or more, the internet is really multifaceted in that aspect. “The power of social interaction…is immense, and is being harnessed in all sorts of new and creative ways” (85).
Personally, I have never used Twitter before, nor have I even gone to the website to check it out, so reading about the new website is very interesting to me. Twitter really opens up mass communication by replacing the tediousness of sending text messages out to everyone. Though some people may use the site to document every daily movement, others may use it as a forum of sorts, or only post things that are important to them.
We’ve already delved a little bit into social bookmarking services in class, and I think that they are a very good idea. I own a desktop computer for home and a laptop for school, so my work is divided between the two. Sometimes it is difficult for me to remember exact addresses so I bookmark them at school, but by the time I go home, I can’t find the site again. An online bookmark is really interesting and relevant in organizing and making websites more accessable.
Website possibilities
Glogster – Glogster is a poster website. I think that the possibilities are virtually endless when it comes to this site. Students can use Glogster to make posters about books they just finished reading or movies they just watched. It’s a great project that won’t take a lot of time, and it saves the money from going to the store to buy poster board, glue, colored paper, markers, etc. Plus, it eliminates the possibility of their dog eating it. It’s quick, readily available, and best of all, free.
Gabcast – I think gabcast is an interesting website. It’s basically an audioblog that can be recorded from a telephone. This really opens the field of availability to students. There are some students that do not own a personal computer or do not have access outside of the classroom, but most families have a home phone, cellular phone, or business phone. It personalizes a weblog a little more, in the sense that readers get to hear the inflection and tone in the writer’s voice.
Wordle – I love this one. Though the possibilities in the classroom and a less than the previous websites, Wordle is enjoyable and very easy to use. It can be added to powerpoint slides, presentations, and posters. It’s just a fun way to spice up a project.
Museum Box — Museum box is very interesting. It would be a great poject for students researching a person with a lot of different aspects of their life, or places with a lot of history. It makes learning all the information fun, and it allows the students to look at a lot of pictures, breaking up the monotony of copying sentences from the textbook.
TimeRime – From what I’ve gathered, TimeRime is just an online time line. It could be used to document times in history or have events in a person’s life organized in chronological order. It would be interesting to attach to a biography.
Media Literacy
Our goal in viewing media is to process the information effectively so we understand our relationship with media. This enables us to be efficient information managers, wise consumers, responsible producers, and active participants. There are five core concepts that create an outline of the five key questions in media literacy: authorship, format, audience, content and purpose.
When we produce media messages, we control the content and have self-awareness, as opposed to consuming messages where we have no control. “All media messages are constructed. Media messages are constructed using a creative language with it’s own rules. Different people experience the same media message differently. Media have embedded values and points of view. Most media messages are organized to gain profit and/or power.”
Media literacy is about understanding our relationship with the media.
