Category Archives: Technology Resources

Program or Be Programmed: Quotes from Douglas Rushkoff

by dogtrax

This afternoon, I am facilitating a session with the Western Massachusetts Writing Project around hacking literacies. It’s part of our year-long inquiry around digital literacies. I’ll share out some of the work (playful work) we will be involved with, and the sites we are using, tomorrow. But I created this slideshow of quotes from Douglas Rushkoff’s book, Program or Be Programmed, as a teaser for the start of the session. (The book is great, by the way, and I highly recommend it).

Peace (in the code),
Kevin

 

Encouraging Kids as Digital Makers

by dogtrax

I wasn’t there but Doug Belshaw shared his slideshow for a presentation he co-facilitated around supporting a new generation of digital makers. I’m fascinated by this direction, and wonder (again) how to balance this idea of technology, creation/making and school curriculum. Doug’s presentation reminded me of the resource that I had developed over at NWP’s Digital Is around a similar concept — of connecting the Maker’s Movement with the Digital Composition concept.

Peace (in the making),
Kevin
PS – I get an email newsletter from Doug that is just consistently full of interesting and wonderful resources. You might want to consider subscribing, too.

Hacking Education Week with X-Ray Goggles

by dogtrax

I am going to be leading a Hackathon session with the Western Mass Writing Project in a few weeks and so I wanted to try out (again) how X-Ray Goggles (from Hackasaurus) work as a browser tool to allow you to “hack” websites (basically, you are messing around with the overlay of text and images and making a copy). I was pleased to see that you can now publish your hack right through the tool itself (that will be handy for sharing).

Here is what Education Week looked like before I got busy on it:

Kevin EdWeek Hack1

Here is how it ended up when I was done:

Kevin EdWeek Hack2

So, why hack? Why teach it? Well, it has to do with a form of literacy, right? We remake media messages, deconstruct it and revamp it, and in doing so, we understand the original source even as we are making our own message. This is all about critical thinking, and engagement, and putting creativity into the hands of users — of helping to make the shift from passive consumer of media to creator/remixer of media.

What do you think?

Peace (in the hacking),
Kevin

 

Composing Interactive Fiction 2: Playing My Story

by dogtrax

(Note: This is part of a short series I am sharing about trying out Interactive Fiction as a writer. Yesterday, I shared out the overall experience. Today, I want to share the first story that I wrote, and well as provide some advice on how to play it. Later in the week, I will try to share out resources that I have discovered and maybe tinker with some other Interactive Fiction possibilities. – Kevin)

(Click on the image to get to the story, but I suggest you read my post first.)

I named my Interactive Fiction story What To Write With When You Are Writing because my initial idea was to create a story where the player needs to choose a writing device, and the end result would be to make fun of technology and end up with a pad of paper and pen. Things did not quite go as I had planned, though, and I ended up simplifying the idea considerable.

What you need to know to play the story (that sounds so odd, doesn’t it?):

  • You navigate by using compass directions. In this case, writing “go east” or “go west” will move in that direction.
  • If you there is an object (such as, oh I don’t know, a key, maybe?), then you need to “take key” in order to have it in your hand.
  • To open a door, write “open door.” Unless it is locked, then you need to “unlock door” before you can “open door.”
  • Once a door is unlocked, you need to give directions again on which way to go (east, west).
  • The same thing is true with a locked box. You need to “unlock box” before you can “open box.”

I think all of these hints will help you navigate my story, which ends in a cloud of ideas (you’ll see). Let me know how it goes, please, and what you think. Even in a small, simple story like this, the amount of thought and planning that I did was pretty intense. I had this whole visualization of the hallway and rooms, etc, and creating that experience for others was tricky and challenging (in a good way).

Peace (along the paths),
Kevin

 

A Collection of Avatar Creators

by dogtrax

Last week, we were talking about online identity and avatars, and my students are now working on creating a visual representation of themselves for our Glogster space. Here is the list of avatar creation sites that I shared with them (the Lego one was the most popular).

Peace (in who you are),
Kevin

 

 

Educator Portfolios, Student Work and Privacy Concerns

by dogtrax

Like many school districts out there, we are in the midst of changing the ways us teachers are evaluated by our administrators. For us, this is not a huge shift, as we began a semblance of this new model a few years back — we set goals, have discussions with our principal, await a series of quick classroom visits, self-evaluate on a rubric, and have another discussion with our administrator, who evaluates us along numerous lines. One of the main changes is how we collect and share our “evidence of practice” with our principal, as our new system requires us to construct a portfolio of our work as teachers complete with student samples.

Our principal is moving us into digital collections, so that he and we can have access to a digital file of the evidence. Ideally, it will save us paper and time, and make shared access quick for both of us. Our district is moving into Evernote, the sharing site, as a way to make this happen in a logical, coherent way. I am all for it.

Except …

I keep raising the idea of privacy. While our Evernote spaces will be private (accessible only by the teacher and the evaluating administrator), I keep wondering: will it always be private? Who owns the content once we upload it into Evernote? It is Evernote or is it us? This is not a diss to Evernote but a real concern when it comes to not just our own work but also our students’ work. While Evernote is independent now, you can be sure it is on someone’s radar: Google, Facebook, Pearson. Someone is no doubt taking notice of how Evernote is being used more and more by schools. So, I keep wondering, what happens to student work if Evernote does get bought out?

We don’t know.

And I think we should.

Or at the very least, we need to have a school district policy about how to format materials for Evernote (no names of students, no images of students, no videos of students) so that if the unknown becomes reality (if Evernote is bought out by a company whose policies are not in tune with our own), we have some safeguards in place. My principal “heard me” and made some phone calls, and has our district technology coordinator on the issue, as we try to sort this all out before the digital portfolio idea takes hold.

How does your district deal with this issue?

Peace (in the privacy),
Kevin

 

 

Bill Moyers and the Digital Divide

by dogtrax

Bill Moyers takes on what is contributing to the Digital Divide, looking at corporations that don’t care enough about many communities (rural, urban) to provide high-speed connections. Simply put: the profit isn’t there and companies are built for profit. But what is that unequal access mean for our students and then future? And shouldn’t our government be doing more on this?
Here is just one clip:

from the show’s promo:

“America has a wide digital divide — high-speed Internet access is available only to those who can afford it, at prices much higher and speeds much slower in the U.S. than they are around the world.

But neither has to be the case, says Susan Crawford, former special assistant to President Obama for science, technology and innovation, and author of Captive Audience: The Telecom Industry and Monopoly Power in the New Gilded Age. Crawford joins Bill to discuss how our government has allowed a few powerful media conglomerates to put profit ahead of the public interest — rigging the rules, raising prices, and stifling competition. As a result, Crawford says, all of us are at the mercy of the biggest business monopoly since Standard Oil in the first Gilded Age a hundred years ago.

“The rich are getting gouged, the poor are very often left out, and this means that we’re creating, yet again, two Americas, and deepening inequality through this communications inequality,” Crawford tells Bill.

- from http://billmoyers.com/episode/full-show-who%E2%80%99s-widening-america%E2%80%99s-digital-divide/

These are issues we need to pay attention to.

Peace (in the equity),
Kevin

 

Student State of Technology 2013: Facebook, Instagram and More

by dogtrax

Yesterday, I began sharing out some data that I collected from my sixth grade students about their use and perceptions of technology in their lives as we lead up to Digital Learning Day on Wednesday. Today, I want to share out the data from questions about social networking, but in particular, about my students’ use of Facebook and Instagram. I should note that my kids are 11 and 12 years old — not officially old enough for Facebook and Instgram (as if Zuckerberg and company really care).

My observations?

  • The percentage of my students who are on Facebook seems to have dropped this year, from last. I don’t know if an informational email that I sent earlier this year to all parents with information about Facebook (age levels, advice on how to monitor traffic, controlling privacy settings, etc.) had any impact but I am glad that the numbers are not growing.
  • It’s clear that my students view social networking spaces for the value of connections among friends more than sharing of information. But still …a fair number on FB are sharing images and videos, and probably not at all considering the privacy ramifications, nor their digital footprints (that will be our topic next week).
  • I notice a few students are using Facebook without parent knowledge. That always concerns me. I know, from experience, how hard it is to keep track of what our children are doing. But it is critical.
  • More than half the class is on Instagram now, which means they are probably sharing a lot of photos. This app will be a main focus next week, I think, as we talk about privacy issues. I also know that they probably have access to a lot of inappropriate content in those spaces (thus, the age 13 level).

On Facebook
State of Tech 2013 facebook account

Use of Facebook
State of Tech 2013 Facebook use

Parents Know About Facebook Use
State of Tech 2013 facebook parents knowledge

On Instagram
State of Tech 2013 Instagram use

How Using Instagram
State of Tech 2013 Instragram use
Peace (in the social sharing),
Kevin

Student State of Technology 2013: Tech Useage and Perceptions

by dogtrax

Each year, I have my sixth graders take a survey we call The State of Technology. The data I collect over a series of questions forms the basis for discussions (we will have next week) around digital citizenship and privacy and footprints. Plus, I find it fascinating to get a glimpse into what they do with technology and how they perceive it. I’ll share out more elements in the coming days, but these questions ask about amount of time on tech and what they do, as well as their impressions of themselves as tech savvy kids.

What observations can I make?

  • First of all, notice the amount of time they spend with technology. Hours and hours each day. That’s a bit frightening, and it is something we grapple with in our home, too, with our children. I continually return to the questions as a teacher of the amount of screen time I am bringing into my instruction.
  • Mostly, they are using the technology at home and not in school. No surprise there, I suppose, given the proliferation of devices now available.
  • The shift to mobile devices over desktops and computers is clearly evident, and this has grown by leaps and bounds each year (reflecting society, I suppose). In fact, each time I introduce some technology in class, the first question is always: is there an app for this? (We had this yesterday, as we worked with Glogster for the first time)
  • It’s also interesting that text messaging is still an extremeley popular use of technology, but playing in online gaming environments has grown considerably in the past year, and watching videos online is a steady growth pattern over previous years.  What I would love to see is more growth in the categories around making, creating, producing … instead of the ones around watching, experiencing, staring.
  • Finally, the question about self-perceptions shows another shift in my students. Not long ago, I would have had a whole group identifying themselves in the “uncomfortable” category, but now, the vast majority either feel comfortable with whatever device or platform we put in front of them, they also consider themselves “experts.” (Reality check: they still need guidance and help to see the larger picture of how things work, and why.) And when they think about their own use in comparison to their parents, well, kids always know best, right? Here, they clearly think they are more knowledgeable and savvy than mom and dad.

Amount of Time
State of Tech 2013 hours of tech

Where Time is Spent
State of Tech 2013 time on device

What They Do on Tech
State of Tech 2013 outside of school

Home vs. School
State of Tech 2013 Home vs School
Self-perceptions of Tech Use
State of Tech 2013 rate self
Compared to Parents
State of Tech 2013 compare to parents
In the next few days, I will share out their use of social networking spaces

Peace (in the data to understand),
Kevin

PS — Want a copy of the survey to use with your students? I think I created a blank template in Google Drive that I can share here with you. Feel free to use it as you see fit.

 

 

Source Evaluation: NoodleTools Show Me

by dogtrax

I saw this site from a tweet from Troy Hicks and I like it. This site — Noodletools Show Me — is a way of providing scaffolding to evaluate books, websites, and more through simple strategies. It’s another entry into information literacy strategies (which is a key part of the Common Core). The site is divided into three categories, so you can tailor it to the level of your students. I liked the “junior” level, as it connects a lot with some of our work around evaluation of sources. (I also note that these free tools are connected to a paid service. I am hopeful the top layer of options remains free, but you never know).

Peace (in the share),
Kevin