technology with intention
Digital Identity
Online personas, digital awareness, social networking, and the interaction of digital and real-world identity.
Tech in the News updates
625 days
7th grade is focused on technology in the news. The last few weeks we’ve been following the upcoming iPhone, Facebook privacy updates, and a lawsuit against Google for Street View information.
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
Important Facebook privacy changes
655 days
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg unveiled plans to connect Facebook accounts with other companies all over the internet, from CNN to Levi’s and further. The changes to how other companies can use YOUR Facebook information are a big deal – please take a few minutes to follow this step-by-step guide to protecting your digital identity.
- 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)
3. Back to “Account” in the top right corner of the page, click on “Privacy Settings.” You’ll end up on a page that looks like the 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.
5. Click on “Instant Personalization” on the next page, look for and UNCHECK the tiny check box at the bottom that says “Allow selected partners to instantly personalize their features with my public information when I first arrive on their websites.” (screenshot below)
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.”
The above steps will help you stay in control of your information. As always, the best way to keep data safe is to not post it online in the first place. For more information about how to configure your Facebook settings, please reference our previous post.
7th Grade in Central Washington
678 days
This week students will be rafting, rock-climbing, hiking, meeting with union workers and immigrant farmers, cooking and learning about the history of Washington state.
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.
Computer Engineer Barbie
705 days
by Jac de Haan
in Digital Identity
Barbie has been around for 51 years and there are 126 different versions of the doll! While popular around the world, there are many people who don’t like this toy because they say her body is unrealistic, she perpetuates a stereotype and she doesn’t represent real women.
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?
OK GO followup
707 days
On Monday, the 7th grade talked about the band OK GO and their inability to post embeddable videos due to the record contract they have in place. State Farm Insurance stepped in and gave the band money to make a new video that falls beyond the EMI agreement. Enjoy this massive Rube Goldberg machine:
OK GO coming to Washington state
708 days
7th grade time in the lab is split between two lessons today – bridged by digital identity:
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.
2010 digital identity survey results – cell phones
717 days
The 8th grade Community class has been analyzing the results of their 2010 Digital Identity Survey. 88 students (out of 103) completed the request for information. There is a lot of information to work through – from social networking accounts to gaming consoles to parent perceptions of tech use. Below is a small sample: student cell phone ownership and texting trends.
Who are we (according to search engines)?
755 days
In conjunction with the new iCLAST unit on “identity,” 7th grade students explored the concept of “digital identity” today.
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)
Fix Facebook for your Friends
780 days
by Jac de Haan
in Digital Identity
Welcome to your Winter break!
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:
Community class focused on digital identity
782 days
The new group of 8th graders enrolled in Community Class have turned their attention to digital identity in preparation for a January 20th presentation to parents.
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:
- Parent/Teacher survey about screen-time and online habits, both for the parent and for their children
- Student survey about digital device interaction (texting, accessing media, gaming, etc)
- 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!
