Month: November 2013

At my high school, it felt like every other week a speaker came to talk to us about the dangers of technology. We heard horror stories of people not getting into college because of their Facebook profiles, of people being sued for sending out suggestive photos of others, and of stalkers pursuing people through information found on the internet. Cyber security is vastly important, and that’s what my partner and I are trying to get across to our middle schoolers tomorrow. Firstly, choosing what you put online is key for maintaining a private life. Secondly, choosing privacy settings greatly affects cyber security.

Tomorrow, Sebastian and I are going in to a middle school math class. We plan to talk specifically about Facebook and its privacy settings. Using math, we will try to get the students to calculate their audiences for different posts. How many people can see your posts to “Friends?” Well, that depends on how many friends are on your friend list. But, how many people can see posts to “Friends of Friends?” My calculations amounted to some 827,000 people. “Public?” That could be any one of 1.15 billion Facebook users.

The thing I love about math is that it puts concrete measurements – numbers – on concepts. When math is applied to something like Facebook audience, it really sets in the reality of who can see my posts! I planned and created this lesson, and I was still affected when I calculated that almost a million people could see my photo albums that are set to “Friends of Friends.”

We read everywhere. Text messages, emails, Facebook and schoolwork; we’re always reading. Technically. Though there are textual words everywhere I look, and though my brain translates those symbols into meaning, media does not replace the act of reading. Sitting down and reading a book, scholarly article, poem or essay requires a different level of processing and results in a complex type of learning.

Many argue that books aren’t as necessary as before – because now we have so many other mediums for text! Right? But what do I learn from reading an email or a text other than social or personal information? Reading a piece of writing inspires thought, comparison and analysis that can be applied to form opinions or perspectives. Reading stretches the mind. Texting stretches your communication.

I think it’s somewhat of a setback that my generation doesn’t read. Yes, we can communicate to no end, but what do we learn? An obvious exception would be the individuals who read meaningful blogs, newspaper articles or research sites, and technology is an amazing avenue to be informed. However, though I have no actual data, I would say that there is a general trend in my generation of simply not liking to read. We have much faster entertainment now and are much more connected to each other than previous generations, but I really think we are missing out on something.

Real reading stretches perspectives and challenges readers to think and analyze. The vast, seemingly endless collection of literature contains so much thought and information that is available for readers to learn from. Reading enlightens and brings thoughts to a higher level of complexity.

I guess all I want to say is that I, and everyone, should read more.

This week we watched a documentary on new learning projects and programs that center around digital media. From an entire school that uses “gaming” as a base for its curriculum to an after school program for students to a motivated teacher who uses a GPS system to get his students out and learning about their town, people are embracing the use of digital media in the classroom. After all, it doesn’t make sense to continue to teach as if technology and the internet didn’t exist because they do exist. And students are going to have to navigate it in their every day lives. The classroom needs to adapt.

In my education, I can’t think of amazing ways in which teachers used technology in their lesson plans. I remember having projectors in my middle school math class where the teachers put clear pages over lights on the projector table. They they could write with erasable markers on these sheets and that would be projected onto the board behind them. I was the first person to have a laptop at age 12 (I was getting bad grades on essays because of my illegible handwriting…)… I even remember when my middle school got SmartBoards and none of the teachers knew how to use it! There are many ways in which technology was and has been a part of my education, but nothing to the extent that I saw in this documentary.

 

After reflecting a bit on my education and on the movie that we watched, I have a few different reactions. First, I’m relieved. I can’t help but be thankful that I didn’t have to design games, edit tons of movies and do all of my projects on a computer because, well, I don’t love spending time on a computer. Maybe I would like it more if I had had this type of digital education, but then I would be a different person. And that leads me to my second reaction – how is this education affecting these kids? Will they grow up to appreciate the outdoors? Certainly education helps shape who we are, and centering education (at least more-so than before) on technology changes kids. The movie seemed to be completely pro-technology without a second look; as if technology = good and education = good so technology = education. There is more room for speculation here. How does education incorporate learning about our physical environments, the species around us, and how we are affecting our planet? There is nothing like going outside, learning about ecology and connecting hands-on with that learning. I am not rejecting the value of technology, because I think it is an extremely useful tool that needs to be a part of the classroom, but I think that education is more than technology. Lastly, and I think it is necessary to include this reaction, I was very impressed with the ways that these educators were using technology. I especially enjoyed the “location-based” GPS technology. It seems like it would take a lot of programming and input of information, but once that is done the program is a great way to get students out there.

It’s the little things that change when a holiday season comes around. Clothes, decorations, advertisements, and the digital world. This Halloween, I realized more how the internet and different programs tailor toward the seasons. Advertisements on the sides of my windows fashioned pumpkins and other Halloween-related symbols. On my front page of Spotify I found a Halloween playlist ready to go for the special holiday. Facebook photos from all my friends and family around the world showed a great variety of costumes and festivities. Google, of course, had its ritual holiday home page variation. Buzzfeed tackled some hilarious Halloween themes, and I’m sure billions of Snapchats and Vines were zapping around the air featuring costumes, candies and parties.

The digital world has its ways of reflecting society. Whether it reflects trending debates, relevant current events or simply just the holiday in season at the moment, media spits out exactly what people are talking about. It’s interesting to think how whoever-is-behind-media-sites makes these decisions. How much of it is generated from the public? How much of it is decided to be relevant before people even care about it? I know that the day after Thanksgiving is over and the radio starts playing Christmas songs and the stores all start to advertise Christmas sales, it’s not coming 100% from consumers. It’s mostly pre-decided to be relevant for us.

But can I also apply this to aspects other than radio and advertising? News sites, to an extent that varies from site to site, decide what is important by putting different articles and different pictures in more prominent places than others. To another extent, publicity is generated from the public, but what we see on the internet comes from a mix of these two influences: the people who are in charge of the sites and us.