We need to talk about...

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I'm really happy we started talking about digital footprints, more specifically the benefits of a digital footprint. I remember talking about this problem in course 1. I still am confused why we aren't giving students a larger say in our "Empowered Use Policy".  As a school we are still using an Acceptable Use Policy, and like the article mentions the fear mongering behind what that means. Sadly with some of the points in our Acceptable Use Policy I feel like we are making students scared and are making them fearful of technology.

This past year I have been focusing on a "Positive Digital Footprint" or what I call (I stole this from somewhere but it was so long ago I forget) "Positive Media Presence".  By empowering students and showing them the benefits of a Positive Media Presence" we encourage them to make good choices and dig deep into what the internet is for, and how we can use it to make our lives better.

So, when should we start talking about digital footprints? As soon as possible I would thing.  At our school students are creating showme presentations as young as Early Years, which means these students need to know that other people can see their work (even if it is not tied to their accounts).  Obviously we don't need to do this in a negative way, but we can start creating excitement for what it means to be a contributor to a larger discussion.

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We shouldn't stop talking about digital footprints either, or a positive media presence.  One of the reasons I signed up for COETAIL, was to continue improving my media presence, to make me more connected, not just to promote myself but to make those connections that are so necessary for success (not only mine but collaborated).

I completed the facebook analytics and looked at my media presence through the calculators provided, but didn't see anything out of the ordinary. I just know I want to continue to improve and make connections with like minded people who want to enable students to have a larger voice and continue to create in our world.

Sustainability and Technology

This is one of my biggest concerns, and finally I read about it on Edudemic.

I'm not really sure how I feel about this though.  While it does talk about rare earth elements and how important they are, I guess I was hoping for more about the how and the why to teach it.

Many tech teachers (well the ones that I know) all feel this is important, but with limited explicit tech teaching time, we may miss out on these opportunities to talk about recycling products that have things we desperately need if we are to continue this style of life.

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While I think it is great that companies like Dell (above) and Apple (when you search for it) have recycling programs, I think we have to move beyond that for tech.  By making producers responsible for the goods they create, making the source responsible for recycling, upcycling, repurposing whatever we might be better off.

For those tinkerers and people who want to mess around with the device, they can pay a premium to own it, but other than that, I think our devices should be rented, returned, upgraded and then brought back into our hands, or our classrooms or whatever.

Here in Cambodia, we can't access these types of recycling programs, so we are just contributing to massive waste by living in a place with no access to these programs (I do go to Singapore often, and would bring my products there, but it seems like a hefty price to pay both with engine fuel and cash to recycle something small like an iPad).

Awhile ago I read in the Big Issue that many Australians have extra mobile phones just hanging around the house, so all of these rare earth elements can't be extracted. If producers were responsible, I'm sure it would cut down on this type of waste.

Not really sure where I'm headed with this, but how can we teach about sustainability while using technology, any ideas?

What does it mean to be a digital migrant?

For our unit of inquiry on migrations these past two months, I wanted to add a digital citizenship component. We've talked about migrations before, but I was thinking about how often we forget about moving around between the digital world and the "real" world.  We have some different rules online, different expectations, and at times it can be hard to understand tone, etc.

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  I worked with the teachers (in my role as tech coach) to start blogs with the students.  We discussed what we knew about migration, we interviewed our parents or grandparents about migration and posted this on our blogs, and then talked about digital citizenship and what it means when we migrate online.


Luckily I was taking this course while our unit was going on, we changed a lot of things, and have a better plan for next time we do the unit.  What was great for me, is that every teacher has now adopted blogging as a form of reflection, and they have asked to use blogger as their digital portfolio.  The students had people commenting (not just other students) on their blogs and were enthusiastic about the reflection process. It's been a great first unit in COETAIL, I learned a lot, and I'm looking forward to using my network to help me and my colleagues imbed tech a little more authentically.

Always wanting more

I feel like I have been trying to do this for awhile, and it is so difficult to get to where I want to be with global collaboration. As a technology coach I have heard teachers often say they have no time. 

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This is always frustrating for me because I feel with technology we have the option for asynchronous learning, so we don't actually need common shared time we can use whatever time we have. 

In Davidson's article Collaborative Learning for the Digital Age  I often feel like she did when she saw the gorilla (and I think many of my students feel the same way).  Instead of having a legitimate reason for not really paying attention to the assignment, I feel like trying to focus on just one thing (counting the passes) makes us miss out on the larger systemic issues that might be happening.  If we are paying attention to something too closely we can miss out on other learning opportunities.  What we need to do as teachers (connectivist teachers especially) is to link our learners up (either digitally or physically) with people who see the world a little differently. 

The crowdsourcing idea for grading and learning and transforming learning makes so much sense to me, why should I be in charge of what is "good" or "passable".  Students might take assignments more seriously if their peers, or someone they looked up to were judging them. Again, like Clarissa says “It’s something I can do in my spare time, be creative and write and not have to be graded,” because, “you know how in school you’re creative, but you’re doing it for a grade so it doesn’t really count?"

Personally, I think it's pretty inspiring that companies like Apple work with schools and let school communities repurpose their apps and technology. I love the idea of App Smashing especially when thinking about how to collaborate.

Our Collaborative Plans

At our school we have been trying hard to work with other schools. We have worked with other schools on our blogs. It has been a decent journey so far, we have people communicating with each other, asking questions and slowly digging deeper. But I would really like to "prosume" with another school.

Right now I am working with an environmental educator Ranger Ridley to work with Ontario schools for our units on Sharing the Planet. Like Andrew Marcinek mentions in his article the purpose of using social media, or blogs should go beyond connecting, which leaves me always wanting more. I am doing okay at connecting students, but how can I reach the empowerment stage?

So our success doesn't look like this... 

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