Digital Citizenship

The first article (Five Ways Facebook Owns You) did not give me any information that was too surprising. The story about the teenager who committed suicide was horrible, and I looked into it further and the story is just heart breaking. It is disgusting how people get away with such horrible acts, and Facebook needs to reconsider its privacy policy after such a devastating event. I'm sure Facebook did not think that anything like this would happen, but now that it has, Facebook needs to change the ads that come up. Facebook did ban the advertiser who posted that picture, but they need to go further with it.

In 10 Things Your Students Should Know About Their Digital Footprints, the first point was amazing. Obviously, we all know that employers and colleges look at our social media pages. But the fact that the one daughter's mother called the school trying to get her daughter in by making the other girl look bad was hilarious. Parents are crazy and I feel so bad for the daughter that did not get in because it was her mother that made the mistake. Anyway, the first daughter should not have put up such pictures for the chance of not being accepted. I liked the fifth point to make separate personal accounts because that has worked well for me in this class. I joke around a lot, and some things I say may come off the wrong way. Having a professional Twitter account like we do in this class allows me to keep things completely separate and professional on this account. Not that I post obscene things on my personal Twitter, but many friends seem to tag me in tweets about jokes I make, and I do not want anyone to take it the wrong way. Bottom line, digital footprints are everlasting. There is nothing that you can post that cannot be brought up in some way, somewhere, in the future.

I thought that the videos were cool because it explains how we are still finding the rules of internet etiquette because our parents and grandparents did not have to worry about these things until the same time that their children did. I also thought that it was crazy that there is an actual rubric for digital citizenship. That just shows how important it truly is. If you don't have anything good to say online, don't say it at all. Obviously, this should be the motto we follow all day no matter where we are, but we can at least start with something that will be there forever: the Internet.

In the end, we just need to remember that social media can be extremely beneficial in our lives. We can use it to communicate with people and to keep in touch with old friends, to find family members that you haven't seen in a while, to keep up with news topics, to create a personal learning network, to find jobs, and for countless other reasons. But we need to remember to keep our digital footprint clean, as this can change social media's beneficial attributes into detrimental situations.

We also need to stop being so addicted to Facebook......

Ed Chat for Dummies

In reading chapter 6, I really liked how the author pointed out that "It's tempting and easy to allow online spaces like Twitter, Flickr, and other social networks to become one big link-sharing party. But the real power of the social web is revealed when you have a plan and a purpose for how you'll build your network, reap its benefits, and then apply the knowledge you gain" (Nussbaum-Beach & Hall, page 92). So far, all I have been doing on my Twitter PLN is sharing links. It is easy for me to communicate in person, and I seem to have a hard time doing the same online. It is something that I need to work on and plan on working on during this semester.

The following video explains how to get involved with #edchat, and is a group of people talking through webcams like a Google Hangout.

This was helpful to me because I did not know how to really get involved with the ed chat that we have to participate in for class.

The most important things that I took from the book is to stay organized, have a limited amount of networks so that you do not get them mixed up, and to communicate with as many people possible.You also must remember that it is a give and take relationship, and that you must participate in your personal learning networks in order to get something out of it. This is something that I am still struggling with, but I plan on going on later tonight or tomorrow to find more networks to join and reach out to more educators.

I also decided to practice making forms from what we did in class next week. Click here to fill out my form.

My Start of Exploring my Digital Toolbox

I have enjoyed this class thus far because of the guidance that I am receiving through social media networking. I have already found multiple articles on Twitter that I have incorporated into my other classes, and some that I have found very helpful with the teaching notebook that I am creating. I am going to use this notebook to write down any extra tips that I have learned from class to make me a better teacher when I become one. One article that I found told me about 5 great apps that I can use as a teacher to keep in close contact with parents at all times (I won't go into detail now....I'm saving that for our APP SMACKDOWN!) The only problem that I have run into with Twitter is finding the time to use it, as I work two jobs and am taking five classes.

The most important part that I took from the following video from YouTube is that you must remember that a PLN is a two way process. You need to remember to bring your own questions and ideas to the table in order to create a PLN that will be successful.

I have also found Schoology to be very helpful because it is not as cluttered as Blackboard. It is more organized and easy to navigate, and everything is straightforward. I thought that the chat with Jerry was awesome, and I am excited to explore his many pages when I have a question that I need answered. 

Find me on Twitter so we can explore the process together! :)

@porterm33