Digital Citizenship - Week Six

Week six is finally here. I struggled a bit last week. Not due to the hardships of trying to get Evernote to work, which were many, but because it was reading week at Brock. I found it funny that I felt disconnected form what was happening in the wide world of education as I was not spending as much time interacting on line at the beginning of the week. Reading week, I was only exploring these cool tools for grades. As the week progressed I did change this and started to explore. Critically reflecting on how I felt and my actions through the week has given me the sense of clearly where this path is leading and the changes that have and will occur in me. I can now spend hours just reading the vast number of twitter posts that have links to blogs or web sites and then just explore each one of those and the time just slips away. The new ideas and concepts are so vast that at times it becomes tough to decide which ones to share and explore further. Each one in its own way exciting and intoxicating as my mind races to determine how or what can be tried in my classrooms or implemented at Lambton College. The interaction of all the tools has actually helped the process. It has now become clear how I can use this technology to help me collect information that is on a particular topic and the many ways in which it can be shared.

The Evernote piece was a tiny struggle for me for a couple of reasons. First getting the clipper to perform correctly was a bit of a learning curve that I have now mastered. Nothing wrong with the tool, the issue was all in the student. I still could not get an academic Article from a Library uploaded. I have not given up, just have not yet been successful. The other issue was that I wanted to only find things to store in Evernote through twitter or my feeder. This was turning out to be very time consuming and showing very little results. In the end, I just searched the web to come up with the many "notes" that are going to be required for this research project.

My time looking through my feeder and posts on twitter were not totally wasted as I did find lots of great information. One interesting piece spoke to the increase of social media use in class rooms. There is some statistics that they are using but I wonder what type of social media and just how is it being used. There were also many other links at the bottom of the page that are worth a look. I believe that it is about time and that these numbers are way to low. I think that as social media evolves, great educators will use all these tools to their advantage to guide the students to new concepts and ideas that they will explore themselves. Quality educators, using social media to its fullest, will reach more students at any age, and facilitate learning and real change.

I also found a piece that caused me to laugh aloud as I realized that this was exactly what was occurring in me. Ferriter and Provenzano ( I am following Provenzano on twitter as well) wrote a very good piece on how the use of social media has and well replace the need for professional development. Of course I could not help but see myself as they describe the interaction between like minded educators, sharing and learning from one another using the numerous tools that we have been exploring in this course. Interestingly I feel that this will only be a small number as I only see the truly great educators taking advantage of this now. The revolution has started, just how long will it take before all educators are on board?

I am excited as I grow and learn. I find myself looking forward to the next new bit of the puzzle for my PLE and discovering just how I will make it fit with the others. Thank you reading week for giving me the oppurtunity to critcally reflect and to grow as I am starting to become digitally literate.

Jeff

Digital Citizenship- Week Five

This week I am very disappointed with the updates in my feeder. I have actually discarded some of the blogs that have not had very much change and replaced them with new blogs that I have found through the educators I am following on Twitter. One such blog from those I added was on a new tool that I am going to try. Kind of a cool concept around sharing files without uploading or downloading. Check it out and give it a try.

During this week I am attending the National Council of Deans of Technology in Toronto with representatives from Post Secondary institutions across the country. It was very interesting that one of the topics at this meeting connected nicely to a blog I found from one of the people I am following in Twitter. Basically the issue is the lack of foundational learning in the courses required for technology options. We spoke about how the lack of these courses when students reach the cross roads of deciding what they will do for their future and how this takes many choices away from them. Even with the required courses, we are finding that the students are still not properly prepared to enter College. I totally agree with Noel Hulsmen that these choices in high school, that translate into limited options for post secondary education, will start to have a negative affect on Canada.We need our youth to gain skills required for the workforce of the future.

One of the presentations at the conference was around the lack of IT professionals going forward and the prediction that there will be a shortage of 106 Thousand people to fill positions by 2020. I think their math is off a little but they of course present the information that they want you to see. What interested me is in part of the presentation they were speaking to the need of creating a positive Digital Citizenship for all students. This topic did raise an eyebrow or two and some interesting discussion. It was very apparent that most of these Deans had never even given the subject a second thought. What is funny about this is how much they use digital communication as the number of ipads and cell phones was staggering. No one could go an hour (myself included) with out checking e-mail, twitter, and who knows what else. They all use it without a second thought of what they are sending out to the World.

I am enjoying my new twitter account and find that when I have a thought and I now want to tweet about it. I am struggling a little as I transition from using the tool as an outlet for my ideas and transition so it becomes more of an input for the numerous ideas flowing by. I am following 16 people now and being followed by 8. I laugh at myself when I am excited by an additional follower. 

Have a great week and Happy Thanksgiving

Jeff

How to carve a Pumpkin for Halloween

Is he kidding? Everyone knows how to do this. We have been doing it the same way for years. Cut out the top around the steam. This becomes the lid. Reach in and spend the next 15 to 30 minutes scoping out all the seeds. Huge mess. Take a sharp instrument and scrape the bottom of the pumpkin to get a flat spot to set the candle on. Spend the next five minutes washing your hands and arms to get the sticky mess off. Now we carve a face as desired. Take it to the front porch and sometimes shim the bottom so it will sit just right. Put a candle in the pumpkin and struggle to light it without burning yourself. Easy.

We should never think that just because this is the way we have always done it that it is correct. The part in the bottom of the pumpkin that needs to be scraped out to make a flat space for a candle actually has all of the seeds (and mess) connected to it. I cut out the bottom. I very carefully pull out the bottom and most of the seeds and mess come with it. I do need to reach in and get a few but this only takes a minute or two. No need to wash hands and arms. Cut the face as desired. Light a candle and set it down on front porch. Place pumpkin, with its nice flat bottom that I created, over top. Now that really was easy.

We should never think that just because we have been doing something in one way for a long time that it is the only way. The results at the end of both exercises is exactly the same, you have a nice carved pumpkin. The path to get there was very different. As educators we need to keep this in mind and start to embrace the ever changing world. The result of an educated student will be the same, we will just be taking a different, and in some cases, a much better path to get there.

Have a happy Halloween.

Jeff
Jeff's Blog by Jeff Murrell is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Digital Citizenship - Week Four

I think that I will try and keep this weeks post a little shorter. I might want to think that it is because I have spent so much time this week already but I was just having so much fun exploring. The real reason is that as I continue to expand my knowledge I have come to understand that if I continue to create lengthy blogs with something important at the end, chances are no one will ever read the entire thing.

The bookmarking tool I choose was Diigo. I have actually found the free app and installed it on my ipad. I choose this one because I think it will be the best for our students going forward as our college becomes more mobile. I did some bookmarking already and it can be found at www.diigo.com/user/jrmurrell. In fact, when I was reviewing my feeder I found another blog that I booked marked on apps, which I will totally explore later. This becomes a great interaction of both tools. I find a couple of things that interest me but do not have the time to properly explore at that moment. I bookmark it with Diigo and revisit it later. Very cool.

For my Curating tool I choose Storify. I know that once I get accustomed to searching the internet properly I will be able to utilize this tool very nicely. I created my first attempt on Saturday night but woke on Sunday morning realizing that I had linked not to the stories but to the websites that carried the stories and of course, the stories would change. I think I have the hang of it now. Check it out at http://storify.com/jrmurrell/will-keselowski-spoil-kyles-title-run.

I found another very interesting piece in my feeder and I totally agree with Vickie Davis. As Post Secondary education moves more towards e-learning, or online, or mobile and more and more students are bringing personal devices to school, we are going to need libraries even more. This is so true as we reduce the space for open computer labs we need to ensure that students still have space and access to computers to allow them to do proper research and to study in a quite space while at the school.

What a cool and fun week. I am starting to connect some of the dots and see the relationship of everything in the new PLE. There is no quick answer here but rather the collaboration of using all the tools together to pull in all the knowledge for many sources into a usable space.

Jeff