Technology
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Application and perspective can both be most effectively addressed by working
the technology from within. The focus of this unit is on digital reputation and
should revolve around immersion within the technology that we are discussing. I
briefly considered using a blog for this unit, but quickly came to the conclusion that
my students would not get the same experience out of a blog as they would if they
were engaged in the very media that we were evaluating and talking about in class.
So, I decided on the Ning social network for the unit. The Ning affords the class many benefits. First of all, the format of the social network will be ideal for students to be able to participate and communicate with each other as well as allow me to model proper social networking etiquette. Second, students will also be directed to find information and then post it directly to our Ning site which will allow for greater discovery-based learning exercises. Third, students will be able to post comments and link to more resources as they delve into the subject matter. Next, students will be able to respond to each other as well as to carefully selected questions that I post on the site. These may be straightforward or may be asking students to think about and respond to situational/case studies. Finally, the Ning format will also create for us a record of our unit that the students will be able to use in their reflections. There are potentially more benefits to using this technology, but probably the greatest of them all is that it should be more engaging for my students, therefore exciting them about the topic. The Ning will serve as our discussion board for all related activities.
All other activities will flow through the Ning but will strategically augment the unit. Instead of using http://bubbl.us to have the students
create a visualization of their digital footprint, I will be using an app within Facebook called the Facebook Friend Wheel. This change was done for two reasons. First, the bubbl.us was an assignment that was neither dynamic nor engaging. It was effective in creating a sample visualization of a students’ digital footprint, but not very dramatic in its results. Facebook Friend Wheel actually does the mapping for the students and creates links between individuals so that the students can see first-hand who they are connected to and more importantly; who they are connected to through their friends and their friends of friends. This will allow for more time to analyze and discuss the results instead of taking two class days to create the bubbl.us visualization. Facebook Friend Wheel will also affect my pedagogy in that it is more student-discovery learning and less teacher-directed.
I will also add to the schema and scaffolding of this unit by making this unit more real-life oriented. This will be done through carefully selected first-hand videos. These videos are subject specific videos with children about the same age as my students. I am hoping
that this will be instrumental developing perspective and empathy within the unit. I want to make sure that the subject matter becomes more personal and therefore, more meaningful. These videos also take advantage of delivering the meaning of the unit through storytelling. As Willingham points out in his book, “The human mind seems exquisitely tuned to understand and remember stories…”
(66)
the technology from within. The focus of this unit is on digital reputation and
should revolve around immersion within the technology that we are discussing. I
briefly considered using a blog for this unit, but quickly came to the conclusion that
my students would not get the same experience out of a blog as they would if they
were engaged in the very media that we were evaluating and talking about in class.
So, I decided on the Ning social network for the unit. The Ning affords the class many benefits. First of all, the format of the social network will be ideal for students to be able to participate and communicate with each other as well as allow me to model proper social networking etiquette. Second, students will also be directed to find information and then post it directly to our Ning site which will allow for greater discovery-based learning exercises. Third, students will be able to post comments and link to more resources as they delve into the subject matter. Next, students will be able to respond to each other as well as to carefully selected questions that I post on the site. These may be straightforward or may be asking students to think about and respond to situational/case studies. Finally, the Ning format will also create for us a record of our unit that the students will be able to use in their reflections. There are potentially more benefits to using this technology, but probably the greatest of them all is that it should be more engaging for my students, therefore exciting them about the topic. The Ning will serve as our discussion board for all related activities.
All other activities will flow through the Ning but will strategically augment the unit. Instead of using http://bubbl.us to have the students
create a visualization of their digital footprint, I will be using an app within Facebook called the Facebook Friend Wheel. This change was done for two reasons. First, the bubbl.us was an assignment that was neither dynamic nor engaging. It was effective in creating a sample visualization of a students’ digital footprint, but not very dramatic in its results. Facebook Friend Wheel actually does the mapping for the students and creates links between individuals so that the students can see first-hand who they are connected to and more importantly; who they are connected to through their friends and their friends of friends. This will allow for more time to analyze and discuss the results instead of taking two class days to create the bubbl.us visualization. Facebook Friend Wheel will also affect my pedagogy in that it is more student-discovery learning and less teacher-directed.
I will also add to the schema and scaffolding of this unit by making this unit more real-life oriented. This will be done through carefully selected first-hand videos. These videos are subject specific videos with children about the same age as my students. I am hoping
that this will be instrumental developing perspective and empathy within the unit. I want to make sure that the subject matter becomes more personal and therefore, more meaningful. These videos also take advantage of delivering the meaning of the unit through storytelling. As Willingham points out in his book, “The human mind seems exquisitely tuned to understand and remember stories…”
(66)
![Picture](/uploads/6/0/8/8/6088682/654669335.jpg?351)
There will be other activities built into the lesson that will call for students to discover information on their own and use the Ning to post their findings for the entire class to experience. This collaboration piece will help students have more autonomy in their learning as well as feel some ownership in their education. Daniel Pink offers a great explanation of autonomy in his book Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us. Pink explains that “Autonomy…is different from independence. It’s not the rugged, go-it-alone, rely-on-nobody individualism of the American cowboy. It means acting with choice—which means we can be both autonomous and happily interdependent with others.” (88) Simply put, autonomy is critical to motivating students to take ownership in their work and find a sense of intrinsic reward in performing their work. Probing questions, like “What is expectation of privacy and is it something that you give up when you post something to the Internet?”, will be used to start students thinking critically about the Internet and issues of privacy when it comes to social networking.
There will also be two other performance-based activities that will be used as a means of assessing student knowledge and understanding of the material covered in the unit. One will be a student-created video segment, directed at their peers, which will
present what they have learned about digital reputations so others can learn from them. The other is a reflection paper that will talk specifically about what they have personally learned and taken away from this unit. I will be more specific about these two activities in the evaluation segment of this project.
There will also be two other performance-based activities that will be used as a means of assessing student knowledge and understanding of the material covered in the unit. One will be a student-created video segment, directed at their peers, which will
present what they have learned about digital reputations so others can learn from them. The other is a reflection paper that will talk specifically about what they have personally learned and taken away from this unit. I will be more specific about these two activities in the evaluation segment of this project.