technology with intention
Digital Identity
Online personas, digital awareness, social networking, and the interaction of digital and real-world identity.
EduBlog nomination impacts our digital community
883 days
There was a lot of excitement this week around the EduBlog “Best Class Blog” nomination that the Billings Middle School Tech Blog received. Students, alumni, faculty and board members all sprung into action – leveraging social networks (both real-world and digital) to spread the word.
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!
Think before you text
895 days
by Jac de Haan
in Digital Identity
Texting is a prevalent form of communication among much of our students. Up in the tech lab, we periodically compare texting plan rates and discuss the fact that a text is a permanent record that can be used by others for good or bad.
LG has teamed up with James Lipton to create some funny ads that ask teens to think before they text:
Tip for parents: if your student goes text-crazy without a plan, you should be able to call your cell phone service and ask for a retroactive plan that started the previous month. A $200 charge can quickly be reduced to $8, if you are willing to subscribe to a monthly charge.
Documenting community
899 days
One 8th grade class is photographically documenting the meaning of the word “community.” After an introduction to some well known photographers, students used our new interactive white board to sort thumbnail images into a Venn diagram (shown below). We differentiated between artists that convey their theme purely through subject and composition v. those that use treatments after shooting to express themes.
Students then took to the streets to capture the Green Lake community. Once back in the lab, most chose to use a Hockney-esque treatment to convey their theme.
October is National Cybersecurity Awareness Month
940 days
by Jac de Haan
in Digital Identity
Tom from Overlake pointed out that October is National Cybersecurity Awareness Month. This ties in with the 6th grade study of good password practices and also compliments the Acceptable Use Policy (AUP) that students have read through and committed to. The goals of our AUP are to:
- ensure that our digital community stays emotionally safe, and
- keep computer running smoothly so that faculty and students can work effectively.
Tools to keep your personal computers safe
McAfee offers a great resource called “Site Advisor.” This tool allows you to learn about website security “bill of health.” You can use this service free of charge…check out any website that you frequent. As an example, check out the billingsmiddleschool.org bill of health (we’re clean!).
StaySafeOnline.org provides this list of websites that will run a security check on your home computer to look for viruses and firmware:
- http://daol.aol.com/security/computer-checkup
- http://www.auditmypc.com
- http://www.bitdefender.com/scan8/ie.html
- http://shop.ca.com/STContent/Resources/Resources.aspx
- http://onecare.live.com/site/en-us/default.htm?s_cid=sah
- http://www.kaspersky.com/virusscanner
- http://us.mcafee.com/root/mfs/default.asp
- http://www.pandasecurity.com/activescan/index/?track=1&Lang=en-US&IdPais=63
- http://www.symantec.com/securitycheck
- http://housecall.trendmicro.com/housecall/start_corp.asp
National Cybersecurity Awareness Month
Netiquette
1445 days
by Jac de Haan
in Digital Identity
by Sam K
There are some computer games that have internet access. In most of those games, guess what people do? They swear. Now even though they know its bad, they still do it. Luckily for those people that don’t swear the computer automatically covers up the swear words or words and turns them into symbols like a dollar sign or an exclamation point. Want to know something? There are even some people who act the opposite when they are on the internet then when they are in the real world. Now that I have your attention, let’s talk about some issues related to Digital Identity.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_identity
What is Digital Identity? “Digital Identity is an aspect of digital technology that is concerned with the connection of people’s experience of their real life identity and the identity of other people online”. Digital Identity opens a door that when people go through it makes them act worse than they are. My personal thought is that this is bad because when the people go through that door it makes them worse not better and the world needs those people to get better not worse. If anything could be done to prevent these kinds of actions, it would be that all the websites that were the source of the bad behavior should be deleted or they could be given redirection to a special manner website that teaches them… Netiquette! Warning: if the sources of the bad stuff should be deleted, it will greatly affect freedom of speech in a negative way.
http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9896576-7.html
Chinese authorities in the Beijing University area put a ban on online bad behavior. Examples of such bad behavior are online swearing and rumor spreading. The authorities shut down the websites responsible for the bad behavior. I personally think that that this is a good way to stop online bad behavior, but I also see a disadvantage to this method. The good side to this is that it prevents online bad behavior such as swearing and rumor spreading, but the bad side to it is that even though it’s preventing this kind of stuff it limits the freedom of speech those that go online.
http://www.rediff.com/netguide/2003/jun/09manners.htm
There are some people that think that people who chat online should spread their politeness beyond the dining table and to the online world of the internet. Some people listen to this and some don’t. Those who don’t often act strange or odd when they are in their chatting areas. Some examples of being strange while chatting are using all capital letters or pausing a lot while those people are chatting. There are people out there like Virginia Shea who has a manner website that teaches Netiquette. This is a much better option than shutting down websites. Here is a website that teaches people manners:
http://www.albion.com/netiquette/index.html
The whole moral that I have written here is that swearing online is bad and you shouldn’t do it and that being polite online is good and that you should DO THAT! If people misuse technology then that makes life worse for everybody else. I personally think that Digital Identity is a gateway to a good and bad future. Basically I am saying that Digital Identity is both good and bad. Bad because it cause people to make another identity or identities and these other selves hide their true identity so they can act bad. Despite being all this bad stuff I don’t think that the websites should be shut down.
Morse code vs. text messaging
1445 days
by Jac de Haan
in Digital Identity
Morse code is old – really old (164 years). Text messaging is way faster – right?
Emergency Operations Center tour opportunity
1465 days
This Saturday (May 17th from 11-1) the City of Seattle is having a free open house for its new Emergency Operations Center located at 4th and Washington. This is a great opportunity to see all of the technology our City uses in emergencies to help keep people informed, safe and healthy.
I got to go on a super sneak preview on Tuesday night as part of the Citizens’ Telecommunications and Technology Advisory Board. Here is a photo panorama taken with my cell phone of the EOC main floor.
They have biometric identification scanners that control security!
They have lots of flat screen televisions!
They have lots of cameras and a sophisticated monitoring system!
They actually let me control the entire facility!
Cyberbulling pt. 1
1478 days
No computers today – we sat down to introduce and discuss cyber-bullying. Our conversation began with talking about conventional bullying. Students noted that bullies may act out because:
- they feel bad about themselves
- they have been bullied in the past
- they don’t have friends
- they are unhappy at home
- it makes them feel powerful
- they might make friends by being funny and mean
We talked about how humans usually feel that on the whole they are good, and that even when we do bad things we individually feel that we are more good than bad. This is true even for bullies.
The 6th grade defined cyber-bullying as “being mean or hurting someone using technology.” Cyber-bullies can use many types of technology to pick on someone; students noted the following ways:
- text-messaging
- instant messaging
- emailing
- building a website that makes fun of someone
- posting mean pictures or videos about someone
- saying mean things on MySpace
We talked about different ways that messages can be delivered. In a one-to-one format, bullies send a message to their recipient (email, instant message, text-message, etc). In a one-to-many format, bullies send a mean message about a person or people to many, usually in an effort to recruit more people to make fun of the victim (building a webpage, posting a video, etc). In many-to-one instances, a group of people will pick on an individual (incoming messages to a MySpace account, online petitions, etc).
Finally, we pondered why so much bullying goes on at social networking sites (e.g., MySpace, Facebook). The main reasons (according to students) are:
- there aren’t many adults to monitor things
- it’s easier to make fun of someone you don’t know or can’t see
- other people might be doing it so it seems okay
Overall, this was a really interesting class – we’ll be following up on this discussion in another week, before the summer starts.
Safety Online and on Phones for Kids
1481 days
by Jac de Haan
in Digital Identity
by Nava
A digital identity is who you are online, on your phone, on your credit card, anything digital. Maybe it’s your real name, maybe a nickname. It’s what computer you use; what sites you go on. It’s your phone number; your AIM screen name, anything you have that’s digital. I think that young children, differing in age from child to child, should have their parents know what sites they go on, who they are calling, to keep their digital identities, and real identities, safe.
I think having a list is a useful thing to do, especially for things like keeping people safe. On one site I went to, there was an actual guideline for keeping yourself safe, for kids! It had some ten useful rules, and here are three of them
- I will not give out personal information such as my address, telephone number, parents’ work address/telephone number, or the name and location of my school without my parents’ permission.
- I will tell my parents right away if I come across any information that makes me feel uncomfortable.
- I will never agree to get together with someone I “meet” online without first checking with my parents. If my parents agree to the meeting, I will be sure that it is in a public place and bring my mother or father along.’
It’s a good guideline, for children and parents both, for teens and toddlers. It can help young kids know what’s safe, and it can remind the older kids of it, too.
With a device that can be installed on phones, called Radar, parents and others can make sure that their kids are safe. If anyone calls who isn’t on their approved list, they are sent a text message. This could be a good thing. For example, if their children were being harassed and didn’t know what to do, their parents would know about it and they could help.
However, Radar could also not be a good thing. Kids should have a bit of privacy, without their parents completely running their lives. If they get interrogated about every one of their friends that their parents didn’t know, it would get very tiresome to keep telling their parents, who called; what they knew that person from, and all that. Their parents should trust them a bit, and maybe not have such an extreme grip on them, as to monitor their phone calls.
In conclusion, kids should get some freedom, and some safety. I believe that as you get older, your parents should give you more freedom, especially if you use that freedom responsibly. From cell phones to using the internet, you need some privacy, but some safety.
Articles:
Here are two very similar lists of Kid Online Safety Rules:
http://www.safekids.com/kidsrules.htm
http://www.microsoft.com/protect/family/age/upto10.mspx
Here is a site about parents being able to track their children’s phone calls.
Cell phones in school
1488 days
by Jac de Haan
in Digital Identity
by Emiko
Cell phones are a very important part of the society. In my opinion, I don’t think that phones should be banned completely from school grounds. The students could keep their phones in their back packs. There has been no complaining that the students are not learning. Digital identity is when people give their information online and then their digital identity A Digital Identity is the representation of a human identity that is used in a distributed network interaction with other machines or people.
In one of the articles, by Jennifer Feals, a father named Rocky Rochford’s daughter’s cell phone bill went $170 over, all from text messaging. The messages were sent through out the day, even, during school. Though his daughter was extremely irresponsible with her phone, I don’t think that the schools should ban cell phones from the school completely; just the parents should enforce some punishments for texting too much, especially during school.
Cell phones can be used for emergencies. In one video on you tube, there is a teacher hitting his student. Probably the video was taken with some other student’s cell phone. Because if the teacher knew that he was on camera, he probably would not have hit the student. That’s one way that cell phones can come in handy.
In the other article by Lyndsey Besser, people took a survey of the use of their phones. 84% of the people who took the survey reported that they regularly use their cell phones for sending and receiving text messages. .Of those who text, 70% admitted to text messaging while in class.
Teachers probably have a hard time dealing with lots of student’s texting during class. The students are there to learn and not text message. If I were a parent, I might be disappointed in my child for not paying attention in class. The students probably would have the phones on vibrate and text when the teachers are not looking. Texting answers during a test is a new way of cheating.
Cell pones are a key part of this generation but for the learning. The two stories connect because they both involve text messaging and it being a problem in school.
Link for the story:
http://people.uis.edu/rschr1/et/2007/11/parent-questions-text-messaging-in.html
Supporting Story:
http://collegian.csufresno.edu/2007/04/23/texting-during-class-can-b-distracting-4-u/
Got the definition from:
http://www.digitalidworld.com/local.php?file=aboutdid
Video about the teacher beating the student:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aR1f2TkW6GU
