We watched “Odd Girl Out“, a movie based on Rachel Simmon’s book of the same title.  We analyzed the different ways in which the main character, Vanessa, was victimized using technology (cell phones, cameras, chat, website):

• posing – someone pretends to be you and says things to your friends that are hurtful or untrue
• excluding – creating online communities based on leaving someone out
• outing – sharing someones secrets…especially easy if those secrets are already typed up on caught on camera
• flaming – saying horrible things about someone or their work, with a disproportionate amount of hate involved. Often cloaked in anonymity
• bashing – a group of people ganging up on an individual, anonymous or not, to break down self-esteem

Students were divided on which of these types of cyberbullying would be most harmful, but we all agreed that when you add a few types together, it can really ruin someone’s life.

We agreed that the main character in “Odd Girl Out” would have had a tough time reporting bullying because it would have been embarrassing and would have made school difficult to face.  We decided that the pain an awkwardness of getting help would have been a better solution than the path she chose (hiding her pain and protecting the bullies).

Students ended by reminding each other that Facebook gives you the ability to block people and also to report bullying to the company.  With cell phones, you can block a phone number or forward a message to a parent or trusted adult.

We started by using emoticons to share our feelings about our tech journey coming to an end.  Some students felt and others or

Students shared their favorite technology experiences this year:

• writing and executing programs with post-it notes
• independent projects
• visiting technologists
• revolution vs. evolution

They also offered suggestions for improvements next year, ranging from school-provided laptops to more time in the lab.

Finally, our conversation turned to summer plans.  We talked about healthy screen time, concerns over cell phone over-usage and non-tech related summer activities.  The 6th grade is planning on an amazing summer outdoors – some activities they’ll be engaged in include:

• parkour summer camp
• dog walking
• swimming
• playing checkers and other board games
• tennis
• ultimate frisbee camp
• writing letters
• learning a new language
• basketball
• cooking

Thanks everyone for a great year, 7th grade will be even more amazing!

Our final guest speaker visited Friday and we had a presentation about how video games have shifted from text-based stories all the way to photo-realistic interactive movies. As always, students asked relevant questions and offered ideas for future products.

Towards the end of the class period our speaker showed off some amazing footage of their current video games.  Part of these clips were graphically violent and may be on students’ minds.  Some t-shirts and other give-aways were handed out, some of which depict these ads.  Here are a few questions you might consider engaging your student with:

What makes video games so much fun to play?

Do you think video games can affect your mood?

How do you know if you’ve been looking at a computer or tv screen too long?

Our speaker also talked about the need for families to have clear rules about how much game-play is appropriate.  His teen has a “1 hour per day” policy, but duration might be dependent on age, personality, exercise, school performance, chore completion, etc.

Does your family have guidelines about gaming systems?

Do you understand the video game rating system ( http://www.esrb.org/ratings/ratings_guide.jsp)?

Are you familiar with signs of video game addiction ( http://www.video-game-addiction.org/symptoms-computer-addiction-teens.html)?

Do your gaming systems use the internet to connect players to others around the world?

Do you have a clear plan for this summer (camps, sleepovers, trips) that creates a balanced environment beyond gaming and/or computing?

iPhone updates:
iPod touch with camera shows up in Vietnam
Apple loses a second 4th gen iPhone, new insights discovered
iPhone Finder Regrets His ‘Mistake’
Police Raid Gizmodo Editor’s House, Confiscate Computers

Facebook updates:
Facebook Users Plan to Quit the Service on May 31
Senators’ letter to Facebook
Facebook and Others Caught Sending User Data to Advertisers

Google Street View troubles:
Google faces U.S., German probes on data collection

• Who: Facebook and advertising partners
• What: changes to how Facebook shares their information about you (photos, videos and information)
• When: now & forever (unless courts or public advocacy shuts it down)
• Where: not just on Facebook but on the websites of anyone that wants to use Facebook’s info
• Why: benefit to Facebook and partners: money, supposed benefit to you: personalized experience.  It’s easier for Levi’s to sell you a pair of jeans if they have a list of 5 of your best friends that have already purchased them.  Levi’s can even tell you how much your friends spent and what size they bought!
• How: Facebook partners can store your information and share it with your network. There are currently no limits on how long they can keep the info or where they can use it.

To protect yourself from this new system, follow the screenshots below:

1. Login to your account. From the dropdown list under “Account” (top right corner), click on “Account Settings.” (screenshot below)

2. There are a number of tabs at the center top of the screen (settings, networks, notifications, etc).  Select Facebook ads. On the next screen, change “allow ads of platform pages…” to “No One” and hit “Save Changes”. (screenshot below)

4. Click on “Applications and Websites.” On the next screen (screenshot below) you’ll see “Instant Personalization” at the bottom of the list.

6. You’ll get a pop-up that tries to convince you not to uncheck this box.  Click “Confirm.” (screenshot below)

7. Head back to “Accounts>Privacy Settings” (step 3 above). Click on “Applications and Websites”.  From the screen, choose “What your friends can share about you” and uncheck everything. Click “Save Changes.”

Just because 7th graders are in the field doesn’t mean they aren’t experiencing technology. Students are using cameras to document their experience, and we used a map to plot out our week-long journey. Click on an icon to learn more about each location:

Also, a few photos have been sent home via MMS (cell phone multi-media messaging service):

The girls at their Tuesday campsite.

Passover Seder meal.

Mattel, the company that makes Barbie, is trying to improve her image by creating dolls that give girls a positive role model – mainly by creating versions that have jobs. There newest doll is the Computer Engineer Barbie, a coding woman with matching pink laptop, glasses and accessories.

Students – feel free to respond to this story and answer one of the questions below using the blog “comments” field.

Do you think that Barbie is a role model (good or bad) for young girls?

Do you think this Barbie is dressed for work? Why or why not?

Is this new doll inspiring, insulting, or something else entirely?

1. OK GO is a band that became popular through some awesome YouTube videos.  Instead of signing a recording contract and spending millions on advertising, they made a couple of low-budget, hilarious films and posted them online.  The videos were so popular that they got signed by EMI.  You can see the famous “treadmill” video (more than 49 million views) at YouTube because embedding has been disabled at the request of the record label.

The band recently made a new video  and posted it on their website for all their fans, but EMI (the record label) was not happy and made them remove it.  This is bizarre because the internet made them famous but now their bosses asked them not to use this tool to connect with fans.  To watch this video, you have to go to YouTube so that EMI can get paid by the advertisers.

OK GO has a great online presence, using Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and their own website to promote their brand (band).  We took a look at their Facebook page and found out that they are performing at the Sasquatch! music festival in Washington in May.  That took us to the second part of our class…

2. We opened Google Earth and searched for the The Columbia Gorge, where the music festival takes place every year.  From there, we prepped for the upcoming Washington State History quiz on notable locations around the state.  We used Google Earth to locate the Coulee Dam (pictured below), Adams and other mountains, major freeways, lakes, tribes and more.

Searching our own names online (Bing, Google, Ask, Yahoo, Pipl.com, Spock.com), we found that unless you know someone in the real world, it can be impossible to figure out what results are accurate and which are about someone completely different.  This can become important when it is time to apply for high school, college or jobs, as well as with friends and parents.

A few students, like Aranza and Deividas, have unique enough names that there wasn’t any misinformation associated with their searches.  Others, like Forrest, learned that there are thousands of results that have little to do with their own lives.

Some highlights of the class:

• Aaron is an all conference 2nd baseman who hit .351
• Sophie S. went to The Giddens School (true fact)
• Veronica lives down in Grenada Hills, CA
• Toby died during the war of 1812
• Isabel stars in 2 teenage novels
• Dani is a broadway star-quality singer and dancer
• Amanda works at Parliament
• Rachel L. has 2 children
• Augie’s dad’s name is Chris (true fact)
• Aselya has her own radio station
• Sophie L. is a honey farmer
• Curtis won the 2008 stock market game (true fact)
• Nicholas has a 5-star film
• Alex is a DJ
• Nicole has a boyfriend named Steve
• Twig is a florist
• Halley is a 43 year old Englishman
• Abbey is a 70 year old Australian
• Nova volunteered to feed kids (true fact)
• Forrest is a 3 out of 4 star doctor
• Rachel R is a supervisor at Netflix
• Isaac is a black male who died in South Carolina
• Drew is an actor
• Ronan is a Facebook friend with someone named Ilya (true fact)
• Reyna is a business analyst from Toronto
• Nick is a realtor in Mount Vernon
• Sophia gets her hair cut in Queen Anne (true fact)
• Aranza is mentioned in a webpage about brain research (true fact)

This post is a follow up to last week’s discussion about the new Facebook privacy policy that is in effect. Many of you mentioned that you tried to read the explanation by the CEO Mark Zuckerberg, but didn’t really understand what it said. This is a big deal – so big that the government might be getting involved (http://mashable.com/2009/12/17/ftc-asked-to-investigate-facebooks-new-privacy-settings/).

To be brief, if you accept Facebook’s “recommended privacy settings”, you are opening your digital identity up to anyone who cares to look for you.  Parents, teachers, high school admissions counselors, advertising companies and search engines. As you know, once a search engine has a cache (copy) of your info, there is no way to get it removed…as Brian says, “Google is forever.”

If you haven’t already done so, please take 5 minutes to access your account and do these things:

1. Login to your Facebook account.
2. Go to “Settings” in the blue bar at the top of the browser window and choose “Privacy Settings” from the drop-down menu.
3. Click through to “Profile info” and make sure everything is viewable only by people you know. Make sure you check out the settings in your photo albums too.
4. Head back to the “Privacy Settings” page and fix your contact info. No one, including Facebook, needs your cell phone number or IM handle. If they want to contact you, let them use Facebook to do so.
5. Head back to the “Privacy Settings” page and click on “Applications and Websites”. Do you really want your friends to be able to share your religious views and contact info? Uncheck all that stuff.
6. Head back to the “Privacy Settings” page and click on “Search Engines”. Uncheck the box that allows search engines to copy your info. You will probably get a pop-up saying “Trust Facebook, everything is okay.” It’s fine if you trust them, just don’t let them give your info to other companies that you might not trust.
7. Go to “Settings” in the blue bar at the top of the browser window and select “Account Settings” from the drop-down menu.  You should see tabs across the top of the page, select “Facebook Ads.”  On the next screen, click the drop-down next to “allow ads on platform pages to show my information to…” and choose “No one.”
8. MAYBE MOST IMPORTANTLY…share this info with your parents, especially the ones that have Facebook accounts. They might be just as confused about the new privacy settings as you were before we talked!

Have a happy, healthy break. Get off the computer and go run around outside.

p.s. Thanks to Tessa for tip #7, and thanks to Richard at Catlin-Gabel for the suggestion to send a message to students.

The Parent Education committee has requested an evening to discuss “what exactly do students know about social networking and tech usage in general.” The 8th grade sees this as an opportunity to educate parents about screen-time, gaming and social networks and to teach parents what kind of questions to ask.

The class has split into 3 groups:

1. Parent/Teacher survey about screen-time and online habits, both for the parent and for their children
2. Student survey about digital device interaction (texting, accessing media, gaming, etc)
3. An online resource website for parents with links to studies, news stories and FAQ around digital identity.

Results will be posted once data gathering is complete!

Did the nomination have an affect on our web traffic?  Absolutely!  We received visitors from 25 countries, as far away as the Philippines and New Zealand.  Thanks to everyone for taking the time to learn about technology integration at our school!

Also, take a look at the bump in traffic we’ve received since the nomination:

And here is a breakdown of the voting results: