If its Online It is Forever: Your Digital Citizenship

     A digital citizenship is similar to the traditional idea of citizenship because in both cases you are known by how you are coming across.  In real life, if you always show up not your best self you will begin to be seen as not a great person to be around. This is similar to online, where if you are constantly posting yourself doing things that are considered poor choices people are going to begin to see you as the type of person that makes poor choices. This can effect if you get hired, who wants to hang out with you and many other aspects of your life. However, unlike a traditional citizenship where you can move away from your problems or change your image, you cannot do this with a digital citizenship. This information will always be there, easily accessible online. This is what makes a digital citizenship more difficult, what you say and do online is permanent. Therefore, you need to be very careful about creating and maintaining a good digital citizenship.  Here is a short video describing our digital footprint:

     In life, you always want to put your best foot forward when dealing with other people.  This helps you get where you want to be in life and make connections that you want to make with other people. It is important that we teach students the importance of presenting yourself in the best light at all times, including when you are online. This is important because we want our students to be able to make their digital footprint the best one they can have. We also want to teach our students the importance of copyright and giving a creator credit for their own work.  In real life we would never get up in front of a room of people and say someone else's words, word for word, without giving them credit for it.  Why does this happen online? We must teach our students that this is not acceptable behavior and they must always give a creator the credit for their own work.

    The teacher should teach the students the importance of copyright and giving credit where credit is due. They also must protect the students from the dangers of the internet by teaching them to be cautious when they are on the internet. I also think teachers should educate students on the dangers of cyber bullying. This is an act that can be extremely damaging for students and leave severe, lifelong consequences. The teacher also must protect the students by making sure they stay on the website and content they are allowed to access, through both blockers and monitoring of computer use when it is being used in the classroom. This will help keep our students safe.

Always remember to take care of your digital footprint and be careful with what you put online. Teachers please teach your students that they need to take care of their digital citizenship. Here is a link to an infographic which will tell you about the laws that surround your students' internet usage.  The internet is a powerful tool that can do a lot of good if people remember that once it is on the internet it does not go away.

Citations:
Bray, Ollie. "We All Have a Digital Footprint" Comic. March 20, 2011. Retrieved February 23, 2018 from https://www.flickr.com/photos/olliebray/5542813754/in/photostream/.
GDST."Live My Digital for students: Digital Footprint". Online Video Clip. Youtube. 1 July 2016. Web. 23 February 2018.

Welcome to the Twitterverse

     I have had a twitter for sometime, but I never use it. I ended up creating a new twitter for this class because I felt that I needed a college twitter because my high school one involved a lot of people and organizations that I was no longer interested in following.  

For this process I was trying to find a personal learning network that fit my life right now and what I needed to know the most about.  I recently started a new position within my sorority where I am in charge of educating the new members on our chapter.  I recently went to a leadership conference. However, I felt I did not come home with the ideas that I wanted.  Therefore, in searching through twitter to find my personal learning network I looked for Sigma Kappa's, but more specifically, Sigma Kappa chapters as well as other Sigma Kappas with the same position as me. 

  The topic I searched to find my twitter pages to follow was "Sigma Kappa New Member Education" 

This opened me up to getting to see the other New Member Educators.  Therefore, I was able to follow them.  I did this last semester on instagram with my old position and I got a ton of ideas from just one girl.  So I imagine that with these twenty new people and Sigma Kappa chapters that I followed I will be able to get a lot of new ideas. 

I plan to sustain this learning environment by regularly checking on it and asking for ideas. I think this will help grow my skills in this area and allow me to pass them down to the officer that takes this position from me.  This will also allow me to share my ideas that I think we are doing really well.  

SAMR Model: Integrating Technology into the Classroom

     The SAMR model is a model that helps teachers observe technology integration in their classroom.  The first level is substitution which is where the technology is a direct replacement for the original assignment method with no added functions.  The next level is augmentation. This is where students are using technology to complete the same task, however, in augmentation there is some kind of added functionality. The next level is modification. Here the technology completely redesigns pieces of the task. The last level is redefinition.  In this one new tasks are created that were once unimaginable. This following video helps show you what this looks like in the classroom:

       I think this model is a good one to use because it helps a teacher critique how they are using technology in their classroom.  I feel that too often teachers will just hand their students an iPad and expect magic to take place.  When I was in high school, we were often asked to take a written response test on a computer.  This was frustrating to me because it did not improve the test time at all.  We still had to wait just as long to receive our test grades back. Often time there was less feedback given back because the teacher did not want to give us time to access it on the school computers and review what she said.
    This model allows for teachers to know how they integrating the technology. Therefore, I think this will allow them to see if it is working. If they find that they are always using substitution maybe they should switch it up and occasionally try to use augmentation or modification. If the students learning begins to approve, they then know that they can aim to use more of those types of technology.
   I think this model works and can give teachers a lot of insight as to how to integrate technology into their classroom. It also allows them to observe what is working. However, I think the teacher must be active in discovering what technology is working for their class.  Technology can do amazing things in the classroom, but it only adds to the classroom when you are integrating it in an effective way.

Sources:
(2017, June 11). The 4 Stages of EdTech – The SAMR Model for Technology Integration. Retrieved January 26, 2018, from http://lingomedia.com/stages-of-edtech-the-samr-model-for-technology-integration/
 Spencer, J. [John Spencer] (2015, November 3) What is the SAMR Model and what does it look like in schools? [Video File] Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SC5ARwUkVQg