When are things actually private

 Some rights reserved by nitot

It's been interesting this year talking to students and other teachers about what is private, and how things are private. 

One of my teachers wants to share more of her work.  She is doing pretty interesting things and wants feedback and ways to share her knowledge.  She is however afraid that her ex will follow her, and she doesn't want anything to do with him.  She's worried about what it means to go public and if sharing is actually worth the stress of knowing he is still watching.  I totally get that, I mean, it's obvious (at times) to see who is watching and when, but if you go public it can be hard to stop specific people from accessing. My wondering is how important is it, I mean as long as there is no harassment, who really cares and if there is harassment we can block and go to the police, however, she feels much safer not publishing. 

One of my students email was "hacked" he was telling people about his personal account, and someone accessed it and sent some not nice email. I guess firstly I don't believe it was hacked, but if it was, that's an interesting story, we keep using the common sense media image where we protect our private information, but that is difficult for younger students. 

My wondering most of this week is, as we continue to be more connected we are less private, and I don't know if we are teaching how to actually be safe to students, or how to live safely in a very connected world. 

Systems and code

 Some rights reserved by kjarrett

This past year we've tried to be more active with getting coding into the classroom.  There has been some great successes, and a fair amount of indifference, but I think the most confusing part for me is the conversations with teachers. 

We talk (the teachers and I) often about empowerment, like how do we actually help students be successful in the future.  We talk about the types of skills that might be needed.  Our biggest difference is I believe coding will be one of the only skills required for Digital Literacy.  Most of us navigate the internet as illiterates, we can converse, but we can't actually make a change or look for deeper meaning.  

When people who lead countries can change the idea of what "fake news" is and people are only trained to consume media, mainly the internet, I think we are in for a scary future.  However, my teachers think that there are different necessary skills (which I also understand are important, just not as crucial). 

Moreover, I guess, I wouldn't teach anything (especially coding) in a static environment.  For real challenge based, or problem based learning (looking at the system) we need to have coding embedded into may summative assessments, many daily learning engagements, so we're not just coding, we are solving a problem (hopefully a systemic one). 

Anyway,  I believe that all people can code. We just need to find a way to get them doing it purposefully, and in a way that the teachers easily see the value.

Focusing different

 Some rights reserved by ĐāżŦ {mostly absent}

I was reading this article the other day and really liked the idea of "other focus" when on screens. 

There is a lot of talk about screen time and how it may be damaging or even may be good, but I think we often think just about the person who is consuming the screen time and how spending time on screens effects them.  

Like most things we need to look at the broader impact.  How does this effect our relationships, the environment, what is the broader systemic impact? I want to start focusing on this with students, start talking about different options for interactions, and how to keep things positive.