The Adventure Continues-- Digital Citizenship 5131

This week we read chapter 4 of Boyd (2014) It’s Complicated. An aspect that I found particularly interesting was the exploration of what privacy is and how individuals can have a different definition of privacy and strategies to maintain their desired level. We live in an age that information is more public by default than private by default. (Boyd, 62). I found this chapter particularly interesting because it offered perspectives different than my own. It shed some light onto some ideas that some of my students share. The issue of privacy is especially important when working with students who are extremely vulnerable both on and offline. It feels impossible to fully and properly equip students to face all the possible dangers of the internet and other personal technology (yes, that sentence was the dark side talking). I think the first thing to note is that it is important to be informed and be able to look at concepts like privacy with different perspectives. While adults often...

This week we were challenged to track our cell phone usage. I did not do well with this. I kept forgetting to mark it down, and when I did remember I was supposed to be tracking my usage, I intentionally tried to limit it. When I read the statistic that on average we check our phones 150-200 times a day, I immediately thought, “No way, that is not me.” However, as it turns out, I am likely not an exception to the statistic, as difficult as that is for me to admit! Though I am not very active in posting on social media, I do consume it more than I would like. In her TED Talk, Allison Graham challenged us to unplug for an hour a day. I do find it refreshing to take a break from my phone. I have taken that challenge and am going to continue to try and do so. I have found that I primarily use my phone for convenience and out of boredom to pass a few minutes (or sometimes longer.. oops!). In attempts to change that habit of looking at my phone when I have a passing moment of bo...

I was surprised by the relevance of Virginia Shea’s Netiquette rules that we read about this week. They were all still applicable, but the first two stuck out to me the most. This got me thinking about how I approach my role. I aim to take a holistic approach. A large part of my job is knowing my students as individuals and working with a team to create and implement programming in the best interest of a student. The following two netiquette rules stuck out to me the most, as they are areas on a broader scale that are especially important for my students and are applicable in more than netiquette, but across settings.         1. Remember the Human         2. Adhere to the same standards of behaviour (Shea, 1994) As much as it may seem that these should be common sense, I have seen many discussion forums and online comments that show that it may not be! Many of my students have difficulties understanding and creating boundaries in general. Having...

This week we began discussing the dark and light sides of technology. There are things I like about living in a technology saturated society, there are also aspects that I don’t like and am weary of; however, I have never really considered the dark/light perspective. It prompted me to think about how I represent technology in my day to day teaching. As we are just embarking on this journey, I thought I would reflect on where I am on each side in my teaching practice. Let’s start with the dark side… What happens on social media outside of school significantly impacted how our class time would go this year. I had a small group that I saw daily and much of what we ended up spending our discussion time on was problem solving things that had happened somehow through social media. While I don’t mind doing this and part of my job is to help my students navigate the unwritten rules around them, it took away from a lot of other things that were just as valuable and it never felt like we were ...