Digital Citizenship/Creative Commons and why they're important

Logo from little site we created in class

Digital citizenship is an idea that helps people understand how to use technology effectively, efficiently, and appropriately, and Creative Commons is a way to share your work on the internet in a legal way minus the hassle, in my opinion. I think Creative Commons increases creativity by not applying complicated laws regarding copyright to user-created work, but works more as a open area where people share what they've made, and giving credits where it's due.
Why is it important for students today to possess these skills? Technology is now more and more relevant and there's no stopping it. Possessing knowledge of how to utilize it in the right way can go a long way in the future.
I don't think there is a way getting around not knowing digital citizenship. I don't think anybody can get by in life without possessing some sort of knowledge about being a digital citizen. Technology is so relevant to everyday life everywhere, thus I don't think it's possible without some sort of consequence. I do think it's possible to get by in life without using Creative Commons, as there are certainly alternatives to it.

Traditional Learning vs. Technology

I think both are great ways to study. I've learned through both environments and I can tell you that there is no significant difference in terms of what I've learned. I think technology is a way to make things easier, but it doesn't always apply to everybody, and that is the case with this school. I think it's all personal preference, some people prefer to use technology, they think its helpful to their studies; some people think it's a huge distraction to what they do; and some, like me, doesn't really have a preference as to what kind of learning philosophy the school utilizes.

What I found intriguing is the location of the school, situated in the middle of Silicon Valley, technology center of the world, are they trying to send a message?

Web Bubbles

"It will be very hard for people to watch or consume something that has not in some sense been tailored for them." ~Eric Schmidt, Google


This quote refers to a current movement on the internet that doesn't have a name yet, but more and more websites with comprehensive contents are doing: filtering search results to a person's best interests defined from the user's past search history. Search engines aren't just a "give keyword, display results" thing now, but more of a multi-dimensional "personality reader" based on various algorithms that filters out search results. 


Take YouTube, for example. On the front page there is a section displaying videos that you may be interested in based on your past viewed videos. Amazon.com displays products on the front page that has relation to a past product that you may have bought. Perhaps most of all, news sites and search engines are not displaying results that it thinks you might not be interested in based on past search history. In the video an example was displayed between two people with different interests and what their results for the keyword "Egypt" looks like on Google. One had results about the uprising in Egypt, and another about vacations in Egypt. Honestly which seems more important? A civil uprising that could change the lives of millions of people or a person's own interests? 


I think any websites that does some sort of filtering in their results should 1. tell the users that they are filtering their search results based on what their interests may be and 2. offer options to remove the feature, because I believe the filtering isn't bringing people together, but rather slowly segregating them.

Other school have implemented iPads, too

Burlington isn't the only school with iPads distributed to every student. The district of Zeeland, Michigan started the same program too this year too.


Their program is even more ambitious than ours. The plan in Zeeland is to provide an iPad for every student from grades 3-12. Asides from the wider distribution grades-wise, there aren't much difference between Zeeland and Burlington. iPads have replaced some textbooks, replaced paper tests/quizzes, and made backpacks lighter. 


However there are things that Zeeland are doing differently. They blocked Facebook, which I have no problems with, but it's not something I would wish for if I had the chance. Another thing is they're also planning on giving students in grades 3-5 iPads, which puzzles me. What use for iPads could they have? I feel its a waste of money to give them iPads, even if they stay in school.

What I've learned this week

This week we learned how to use two of Google's many services: Alerts and Reader. Both services are based on the idea of having information coming to the users instead of users finding information. Google Reader utilizes RSS Feeds, which allows Reader to sync with the website the user has subscribed to in realtime, displaying any new content as it is published. In other words, Reader is a personalized dynamic newspaper that updates itself in realtime. Subscriptions can be added easily from websites that you often visit. Browsers now has built-in RSS buttons and many websites are RSS compatible.


Google Alerts follows a similar philosophy, except instead of using RSS Feeds, it uses keywords, just like a normal Google search. The way it works is every time a new search result for a certain keyword is indexed by Google, it sends you an email or sends a notification to your Google Reader feed. How often it relays the notification is can be customized. 

New friend request: "College"

Beware of what you put on facebook.


Time to check your spelling and grammar in every status, wallpost, comments, or even photo captions. Because now colleges can track your facebook. Colleges now have the choice of using a tool called the "Target X CRM Tool" which tracks whatever you do on facebook as a way of getting a "360 degree" look at their students or future applicants.


I personally believe privacy is golden, but this is a useful way of tracking your own students and see what they are outside of school. People our age who own a facebook put, figuratively, their entire life on facebook, and it is a great way for colleges to have an in-depth look at their students. I believe colleges do have the power to do so, and as for us, we'd better check what we do on facebook starting now. 


But I am hopeful they don't start tracking our text messages.