The End of the Road

EDU772 Final Reflection

Image source

This is not only the final reflection for Coding II but my final post as a Dominican graduate student. Sometimes it feels as if I have been in the technology special endorsement program and MAED program for years and sometimes it feels like I'm just getting started.

What are 1 - 2 things you need to learn next to build upon what you learned in this course? How will you learn these things?

This answer is a no brainer for me. Now that my principal is going to order 25 Edison Robots for my school, I need to improve my understanding of robotics, especially when it comes to coding. I need to find some online and/or hands-on opportunities to learn and practice coding. I still feel like I'm swimming upstream, but I want to walk into my school in August fully prepared to help lead my school when Eddie comes to my school. For now, I need not to have homework for at least until my school lets out for the summer. 

I feel that I need to go through the Edison lessons again to build up my confidence. I also feel like I need to get out of my own head when it comes to feeling like I will never get this. Since coding and robotics are new to my school, it is difficult for me to ask anyone for help and guide me. My plan is to start searching out Twitter chats and Facebook groups that can join. Another part of my plan is to find videos and workshops to watch and attend. I don't feel like I'm ready to teach robotics as effectively as I would need to, but my goal is to be ready by August.

What are the 1 - 2 most important things you learned in this course? How will these things be part of your future work as a teacher or librarian?

The most important thing I learned during this course was simple for me to identify. Although there has been a moment here and there where I felt overwhelmed and frustrated throughout the courses I have taken since the fall of 2017, but nothing has compared to the level of which I have felt during this course. Let me be clear, none of the stress I felt had anything to do with classmates or the instructor. In fact, my fellow classmates and instructor went out of their way to help me work my way through this challenging class. I am grateful for the advice and suggestions that I received. 

I have a much deeper appreciation for collaboration after this course. Sure, I have worked on group projects and I have my own students work on collaborative projects, but this was different. Robotics truly fits the bill of collaboration, communication, critical thinking, and creativity. 

What I'm walking away with from this course is feeling what it is truly like to struggle as a student. Mr. Kelly clearly knows his way around coding and robotics, but that's not why I enjoyed his class so much. What really struck a chord with me was how patient he was with me. No matter how many times I emailed him or voiced my frustration with my own lack of experience and knowledge about coding/robotics in discussion posts, Mr. Kelly always used words and a calming tone that made me feel safe to make mistakes. Once I got that important message in my head, I relaxed a little and began to appreciate the art of writing code. 

At Week 4, I was ready to quit the class, knowing that Coding II was supposed to be my last class. The stress was unbearable and it didn't help that my husband and son often saw me arguing and yelling at a robot. What changed my mind about quitting? Two things, first my parent's voices in my head. Neither of my parents went to college, although my Mom was attending a community college when she died unexpectedly. They raised me to never quit, which I take to mean, to persevere. Second, the willingness of Mr. Kelly to reach out to me to video chat. That 30 minute or so video chat, saved me from giving up. His calming demeanor and willingness to spend that much time to help me gave me hope that I could do this. That single video chat also gave me a student's perspective of what it must feel like when he/she just doesn't get the topic/concept. I'm not saying that I didn't have patience with my students or I didn't care if they were struggling. That evening is now a reminder I keep in the forefront of my mind when that student who is truly floundering is just wanting to feel safe and hear encouraging words.

That is what I'm taking away from this class and I thank you, Mr. Kelly, for one of the most frustrating experiences of my life. I mean that in a good way.

Blog Post #8--To Post Or Not To Post, That Is The Question

Image Source: (Chris, 2014)

From the start, I was looking forward to this class for a couple of reasons. 

1. I am the social media administrator for all the social media pages at my school.
2. I wanted to see how to get more teachers in my school to step up and dive into social media.
3. I wanted to see how I could use social media in my classroom.

Image Source: (Stux)

Social Media Administrator

Since I work in a small Chicago, Catholic school, there is no funding to pay teachers for extra roles we take on during the school year. I wanted to my wonderful school and put it on the map, so to speak by creating a presence on Facebook. Ten years later, my skills have improved and I continue to look for ways to get my school mentioned on all the major social media platforms. Although I did not walk away from this class with learning better ways to use the social media we have, I am okay with that. What I did learn was that I needed to change the logos that I was using in my email as clickable links to drive traffic to our social media sites. After reading ToS policies more closely, I discovered the branding resources. Now all my links to drive traffic to my school's social media pages meet the terms of the platform for usage.

Taking the Dive into Social Media

Working on the final project for most of the time of this class, I developed a web page to help the teachers in my school with using social media and Google Classroom. Currently, my school has at least five different ways teachers communicate with the families. If I was one of the parents with multiple children in the school, I would be frustrated with having to go to a few different sites just to see the daily homework and/or announcements. With my principal's blessing, she is happy not only did I bring up the idea of moving to a school-wide platform, but I created a manual on a webpage to help us be more tech savvy and considerate to our parents. While I was working on the final project, I began creating screencast videos that can be used by teachers, parents, and students. The problem was, I did not have a place to house them. Then an idea hit me! Since my main goal is to help the teachers in my school use Google Classroom, why not model an example of Classroom's power? I created a Classroom where the teachers in my school will be invited to join. Once that happens, they will have access to resources, links, and my tutorial screencasts. Teachers would also be encouraged to add to the resources as well as use the screencasts to teach their students how to join Classroom or for the parents to sign up to receive Guardian Summaries. The idea is not to give more work to the teachers, but to give them the tools to help them learn about various tech tools.

Using Social Media

As of now, no one in my school is using the major social media platforms with their students. The majority of the students are under the age of 13 and we have an intranet for student use. My plan is to look into how I can use at least one platform with my students next year, but I have not decided on which one. I want to look at my classmates' projects to see how they use social media to get more of a visual understanding of social media's potential in schools. I would also like my students to start blogging. Currently, the eighth grade teacher has her students blog and I can see the students take pride in their work because they know the audience is not just the teacher. Making arrangements to talk about social media and student use with my principal is on my agenda, I just want to make sure I have as much information as I can for that meeting. She is very open to thinking outside of the box, so I am hopeful that we can figure out the best social media tool to use with my school.

For my own use of social media, I think I have been pretty mindful of what I post, whether it is text or images. What I have noticed is that I have been keeping the T.H.I.N.K acronym in the forefront when it comes time to decide whether to post something or not. This is definitely a poster  I want hanging in my classroom.

Image Source: (Galvez, 2012)

Chris. (2014, January 6). Retrieved from https://www.performanceicreate.com/whats-next/

Galvez, T. (2012, March 16). THINK before you. Retrieved from https://www.flickr.com/photos/togawanderings/6988486459

Stux. (n.d.). Free Image on Pixabay - Social Media, World, Communication. Retrieved February 24, 2019, from https://pixabay.com/vectors/social-media-world-communication-1405601/

Blog #7 Digital Literacy

Rheingold: Critical Consumption

Image Source:  (National University of Ireland Galway, 2018)

After reading Howard Rheingold's, "Attention and other 21st-Century Social Media Literacies," the literacy that stands out to me is Critical Consumption (2010). Why? This is exactly where I am at with my students. I do think that all the literacies, Attention, Participation, Collaboration, Network Awareness, and Critical Consumption that Rheingold writes about are important for educators to teach and for students to be aware of. I agree with Rheingold's comments when he writes, "we need to expand our thinking of digital skills or information literacies to include social media literacies" (Rheingold, 2010). I agree it is not enough to teach our students how to access and look at it critically, we also need to teach students how and what to share and the responsibility that comes with posting information for the world to read.
When it comes to Critical Consumption, I think not only students have difficulty with evaluating text, I think the same is true with adults. Here are a couple of examples, recently on my Facebook feed, I saw the post that Jack Klugman died. For those of you who do not know who he is, or I should say was, Jack was a big TV actor who starred in shows such as "The Odd Couple" and "Quincy". Well, it does not take a detective to do a simple search to find that Jack died in 2012. I have seen this post about poor Jack several times over the years and I find it sad that adults that I know keep posting this erroneous information and slightly humorous that Mr. Klugman died several times over the past few years. I am sure anyone reading this post has a similar story of when friends and family posted completely inaccurate information. 
The same could be said about students conducting research for a school project without verifying the sources, only to type false information. With a click of a mouse, the world is opened to us and it is our responsibility as consumers of information to dig deeper to find out what we are reading and viewing is fact, fiction, or a combination of both. I found as my students started researching facts and statistics to back up their argumentive essay claim, they had difficulty deciding what was true and not. I had to stop with the plans that I had so meticulously written and rewrite portions of my plans. Why? Well, it seems that I neglected a key component in research, validating the source. I assumed that my students knew how to decipher text from fact from fiction. It was not that I did not teach how to look at the text, but rather I did not give it the priority that I should have. Lesson learned and now my students are improving with their ability to look at text more critically. How did I do this? I started using a website called Checkology. Checkology is a website where teachers can work with students through an interactive video series that teachers consumers of information on how to determine what the author's purpose is and how to decipher information. There is a free and premium version. I use the free version, which works great if the lessons are gone through as a whole class. My students use small dry erase boards to write their answers and then we hold them up to see the answers, which leads to classroom discussions. Other worthy sites to help teach how to evaluate media are, "The Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus," "Geno Choice," "Buy an Ancestor Online," "Mankato, Minnesota," "Ova Prima Foundation," "All About Explorers," and "Dog Island." All of these sites are fake sites, where students can examine with a critical eye to determine what is the site fake or real and why. Here is the site where the answers to what is wrong with the sites that are listed above. Test yourself and see if you can figure out what is wrong with the sites before you look at the answers. 

National University of Ireland Galway. (2018). LibGuides: Digital Literacy: Introduction. Retrieved from https://libguides.library.nuigalway.ie/DigitalLiteracy

Rheingold, H. (n.d.). Attention, and Other 21st-Century Social Media Literacies. Retrieved      September/October, 2010, from https://er.educause.edu/articles/2010/10/attention-and-other- 21stcentury-social-media-literacies

Blog for Week 6--CIPA/COPPA

CIPA/COPPA

What are your thoughts about CIPA/COPPA?

Image Source

Both the Children's Internet Protection Act (CIPA) and the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) are important government protection laws that guard children’s safety while using the Internet. My school does take these two laws seriously. The technology consortium that my school belongs to has a tech come out once a week to address technology issues. He asked that I did not use his real name so I will refer to him as Kris. Kris was kind enough to answer a couple of questions about this topic. He said that since the school received E-rate and the goal is to protect the students, filters and firewalls are in place. Kris went on to say that one of the protections students have is the school generated Gmail accounts with the school domain. The permissions are set high, meaning that students cannot send to or receive emails from anyone who does not have a @stwilliamschool.org domain. In the students' case, their email has a different domain, but I would rather not list it here for public view.

Teachers can request for a website to be blocked, but as far as I know, that has not happened. As a sixth grade classroom teacher and fifth grade social studies teacher who has a set of Chromebooks in the classroom, I am constantly prowling with a purpose when my students are using devices. We do not have a system in place like Go Guardian that helps to reduce the sites students access during school. If my school had the budget for it, I am sure we would have something in place. For now, it is up to the students to act responsibly with digital content and for the teachers to monitor student activity.

Although the Internet is full of positive sites for students, it is very tempting to stray away from a task. Take for me for an example, while I was working on this post, I stopped several times to check Facebook and play a couple rounds of a silly game to break the stress of having homework, papers to grade, and lesson plans to write. I am glad that there are laws in place to protect children but seeing that the CIPA Act has not been updated since 2011 is surprising. New websites and advances in technologies are being created and released at an alarming rate. I understand that it is difficult to keep up with all the trends in technology, but when it comes to children I really feel that our government needs to do a better job with updating policies, such as CIPA and COPPA on a regular basis.

Do you think they do enough to protect children?

I alluded to this question in the last prompt with my comments about CIPA and COPPA needing to be updated more frequently in order to keep up with or at least be more current with emerging technologies.

With this question, I thought about the sites my students use on a regular basis and how they signed up to use them. Everfi is a site that came to mind as a one I would recommend to educators to use with their students. I included the link in case anyone is interested. When students register at this site they are asked for a class code, and then they are asked if they are 13 years old. If a child is not, then only the first name of the child is required. I reviewed Everfi’s privacy policy and the policy is clearly stated what data is collected, what is stored and not, and how it is used. My students also started using Google Computer Science (G CS) this year. Just like Everfi, I had to set up a class first and then I was given a class code. When my students used the code to sign in a generated username and password were generated. If a student forgets the information, a new account needs to be set up. G CS does not ask for a student’s name or email. The teacher does have an option to type in the student’s name in the teacher dashboard. I did do this just so it was easier for me to see who is struggling with coding and who is progressing. What I learned is when I got home and logged into my dashboard, all the names I typed at school were gone. After a little investigating, I found out that even though I typed the names on my teacher laptop, G CS does not store student names, but they are stored only on the device where I typed them. I thought, wow, that’s great security.

Now for the other side. Until now I have not thought other sites that I use with my students where all they need to do is sign in with Google and they are in. No questions asked about age, just click sign in with Google, click allow, and that is it. Granted, the sites are all educational sites and the students are connected with a class code or invite to join, but it seems like this is a go-around of the law. Has anyone else run into this situation?

Do you think 13 is the proper age that CIPA/COPPA should target?

“Research shows that it takes children about 12 years to fully develop the cognitive structures that enable them to engage in ethical thinking. Before 12 it’s difficult, if not impossible, for a child to fully grasp the impact of their actions upon others, online or otherwise” (Graber, 2014). Here is a link to the Graber article. As someone who teaches eleven and twelve year old students, I can easily see the difference in decisions and maturity in my students. Then when puberty hits, from experience that starts as early as December to March, my sweet students become completely different people. So to answer the question about the age of 13 as a proper age to target; I say yes.

Does this mean that my students are avoiding YouTube due to their age? No! I asked my students who have a YouTube account and fourteen out of the twenty students said they had one. Out of those, who asked their parents for permission? The answer is a big fat zero. Why? They all lied about their age to have an account. This does not surprise me, but I do wish there was something more that could be done to reduce the dishonesty regarding age.

My next thought goes to parents. Are the parents okay with this behavior, are they pretending there is not an issue, or do they just not know? Considering the R rated movies the parents have taken their own children to see, I tend to lean towards the answer that parents are okay with their child being exposed to content that is not meant for children. How in the world is a teacher supposed to deal with that?

What about Danah Boyd's comment that COPPA teaches kids to lie?

YES! Just from my own student’s comments, there is no consequence for lying about their age. I do believe that digital citizenship needs to be taught at schools and it would not hurt to have a digital citizenship night to educate parents. Keeping up with how quickly new devices and websites/apps are released is like trying to herd kittens, but we still need to try to educate our students and parents, when possible about responsible use with tech.

Okay, it is now time for me to step off my soapbox and tuck it back into the closet.

Alpana. (2018, June 27). Keep Your Child Safe By Learning About The Internet. Retrieved from https://mommyonlineblog.wordpress.com/2018/06/27/keep-your-child-safe-by-learning-about-the-internet/

Graber, D. (2014, December 08). 3 Reasons Why Social Media Age Restrictions Matter. Retrieved from https://www.huffingtonpost.com/diana-graber/3-reasons-why-social-media-age-restrictions-matter_b_5935924.html

Week 5 Digital Footprint

Privacy Check

For this week's assignment, I chose the Privacy Check option. Why? When I read the choices, it dawned on me that is has been some time since I reviewed privacy settings on the social media platforms I use and stopped using.

FACEBOOK

Following the suggestions listed in "How to Manage Your Social Media Privacy Settings", I went step by step to review my current privacy settings (2019). Under Security Log In, I do not have a two-factor authorization. I did not change this setting because I want to think about it first. I only access social media accounts on my own devices and I do not have FB set up on my phone. I did notice my phone number was listed but locked so that only I can view it. Since I do not use my phone for FB, I removed my phone number.

The next set of images if the path where to find information that is saved about its Users. 

Figure 1. Click Access Your Information.

Figure 2. Explanation of purpose.

Figure 3. View of some of the choices available.

Figure 3 gives you a menu of items to click and review. the Profile Information choice that is circled contains the information the User chooses to display on the FB home page. It provides a nice view of what others see when they visit your page. If you do not change the options, the FB default is used, so it is a good item to check to make sure that what is actually being displayed is what the User wants, not what FB wants.

I was most curious to review my privacy settings because leaving a trail of digital footprints and making my page available to everyone is something I do not want. The Privacy area has two categories, Your Activity and How People Find and Contact You. In both areas, the settings are currently Friends. The one setting I wanted to change but cannot is Who can look you up using the phone number you provided. Currently, the setting is Friends, but I wanted Only Me as the setting. That is not an option within this setting, so I am glad I removed my phone number. The last setting is if I want other search engines outside of FB to link to my profile. ummmmm, NO. I really do not need or want other search engines collecting data about me. This setting was set for No, thus I did not need to change this one.

Another area I looked at within settings was Location. I was relieved to find that I have the Location History set to off. I see no reason why FB needs to know where I am, especially since I only access FB from home. Having a website constantly knowing my location is something I find creepy and invasive.

Blocking is next. Within this area, I did find that I have blocked a couple of people and companies over the years for various reasons. Do I remember why I blocked each one? Yes! There are two people and two companies and there is no way I would ever unblock them.

The Face Recognition category is a new one to me. I have no idea when that category started, but I was happy to see that it was not enabled. According to the blurb on FB, the purpose of enabling this feature is so FB can create better experiences for me. Thanks, but no thanks, I create my own experiences. But wait! Before I rush to judgment, I decided to click the Learn More link because I wanted to make sure I understood this tool. After further investigation, enabling face recognition is to provide me with security. 1. Protects the User from their profile photo being used by others as their profile photo. 2. Helps Users with visual impairments by telling them who is in the photo. 3. Informs the User when you appear in a photo/video, such as a group photo, that the User was not tagged in. There are more reasons listed by FB HERE. I think I need to investigate other sources to make an informed decision if I should have face recognition enabled, but for now, the setting is disabled. 

Now What?
The time it took to go review and update my privacy settings on FB was well worth the time. My plan is to review the other social media platforms I use to make sure my digital footprints are secure and minimized.

Works Cited

Facebook Privacy Basics. (n.d.). Retrieved February 4, 2019, from https://www.facebook.com/about/basics/manage-your-privacy/face-recognition#9

How to Manage Your Social Media Privacy Settings. (n.d.). Retrieved February 4, 2019, from            https://identity.utexas.edu/everyone/how-to-manage-your-social-media-privacy-settings

Week 4 Statistics

Educational Technology Research Report

As with any method, strategy, or textbook that an educator or school administration investigates, one should not ignore statistics and research to support any and all decisions that will impact student learning. The same should be said when it comes to deciding the devices and technology tools that schools invest in for their students. This week the goal was to focus on statistics that hit home, thus I chose the "2017 Digital Study Trends Survey," published by McGraw-Hill. Although the survey deals with students in college, I wanted to see how the results compared to the demographics in my elementary school, with a focus on sixth grade, which is the grade I teach.

The purpose of the survey that was conducted by Hanover Research on behalf of the McGraw-Hill Education was done so to understand trends in technology by college age students. Three statistics jumped out at me. First, the survey results regarding app usage, next being about Smartphones used as a tool for learning, and the laptop being the preferred device choice.

When it comes to the survey results depicting the favorite app for social media and studying, I was slightly surprised by the results. Now it was not the first choice results, but the second top preferred apps that caught my eyes. I talked to my son, nieces, and nephews, who are in the twenties to get their opinion. My son, an educator, does not use Instagram but is a frequent user of Facebook, Google Apps, and YouTube for social media when it comes to education. My nieces and nephews, who are recent college graduates, preferred Instagram, Snapchat, and Spotify for social media. When it comes to studying tools, my family ranked Google Apps and YouTube as their top two choices. Wanting to know the apps my current sixth grade students use, I conducted an impromptu survey in my classroom. The results to what their favorite social media app is, were loud and clear, YouTube 75%, Snapchat 15%, and Spotify 10%. Please note, I have twenty students and they are under the age of 13, but that can of worms regarding having social media accounts at that age was one I did not pursue. What surprised me was how high up the chart that Facebook is among college age students. Too often I have heard from my family and teachers who are in their twenties at my school, Facebook is low on the list of social media sites. To quote my niece, "Facebook is for old people." Well, I may be older than she and I do use Facebook, but old? Nope, not me.

Figure 1. Survey results showing preferred app choice for social media and studying (2017, p. 23).

The second statistic I found in this survey of college-age students is about the use of Smartphones as a learning device. As seen in Figure 2., Smartphones are a common device in many classrooms, but not when it comes to using Smartphones for homework. Part of this statistic makes sense to me. My school does not have a bring your own device program and phones are to be kept in the student's backpacks, not on their person. Instead, there are shared iPads for preschool through eighth grade and 1:1 Chromebooks for fifth through eighth grade. Knowing this, the experience of using Smartphones in the classroom is foreign to me. What I can relate to is my student's feelings towards using Smartphones as a tool to aid with homework. Not one of my twenty students like using a phone to to complete homework. The demographics of my school are as such, 66% of the school families are receiving free or reduced lunches, thus some of my students do not have a laptop or a tablet to use at home. I try to take that into account everytime I assign a short or long-term assignment that involves writing and using a device for research. The local public library has four old computers due to having to change locations a few years ago, but that is another story.

Figure 2. Results from the survey about Smartphones (2017, p. 4). 

Almost all my students use their phones at home for social media, watching videos/movies, and playing games. Last year, I had a student who was using her phone to research, cite sources, and type an argumentative essay. She struggled with learning, and when her parents finally told me why deadlines were missed and why her work was error laden, it broke my heart. Here was this young lady trying to do her best while typing an essay on a phone. This year, I have the same situation, students who have only a phone to complete complicated assignments. The difference is, now I am aware of this situation from the start of the school year. Not wanting to go off on a tangent, I will say that I do make sure I provide plenty of opportunities before, during, and after school to use school devices, at school.

This last statistic I chose to share is about preferred device choice, which is the laptop. With laptops being affordable, portable, reliable, it is no surprise to me that laptops top the list of the chosen device among students. Choosing this particular statistic is an affirmation in what I see with my own sixth grade students. Before I wrote the plan and submitted it to the Title III office in order to acquire 50 Chromebooks and a couple other items for my school, all students had access to shared iPads. Do not misunderstand, just about everyone was thrilled that my school was providing more 21 century skills, but teachers in the upper grades, as well as the students, were frustrated when it came to using iPads that did not have an external keyboard for word processing. Once the Chromebooks were wheeled into the classrooms, teachers took their teaching skills to another level and provided students with frequent opportunities to use laptops for authentic learning in our 21st century world.

Figure 3. Results from the survey about laptops (2017, p. 4).

As seen in Figure 3. my students are not the only ones who find the laptop as a valuable tool. No longer do my students ask to use the iPads, which also serve an important purpose in education, but students as young as eleven see how versatile a laptop is.

What does this all mean?

1. Tech does have a purpose in education.
2. Teachers provide the best learning experiences based on the tools they have.
3. The goal of any device is to have a purpose for the use of the tool.
4. Before any administration makes a choice about which device to invest in, talk to the students and teachers who will be using the tools. 
5. Students want to learn and do their best, so those who make the decisions about which platforms and devices to purchase need to have a well-developed plan in place before purchasing anything.

2017-Digital-Study-Trends-Survey-Results-FINAL-10302017[PDF]. (2017, October). McGraw-Hill            Education.

Week 3 Social Media Policy

Social Media Policy

CURRENTLY

My school uses the Acceptable User Policy (AUP) that was created by the Archdiocese of Chicago (AoC). On the first day of school, students are given a family packet with a plethora of forms that are to be read, signed, and returned. I have no doubt that the vision I have in my head of parents just sitting at a table and filling out one document after another and placing it back in the envelope was repeated by many families in August. Please do not misunderstand, I also know the flip side of that story also happens, but my first thought was to the less positive scenario. 

The annual signing of the employee AUP is also not taken very seriously by most of the employees either. In August, as teachers and staff are focused on setting up classrooms, the dreaded start of the year meetings are ever present. A small portion of the meeting time is set aside for filling out emergency contact forms, signing up for committees, and signing the employee AUP. Notice the keyword that was missing in the previous sentence? READING! Unless there is a new employee, most of us, including myself, just sign and hand back to the principal. Is that the right thing to do? No, but as you will see on my included forms, one document has not been updated since 2015. With new technologies being constantly developed, I feel it is time for all policies regarding technology be reviewed and brought up to date.

UPON REVIEW

Student AUP

This is a short document that both the parent/guardian signs, as mentioned at the top of this blog. The consent form is a standard one used by the AoC, thus my school uses this form. Upon reading, you will notice that there is nothing mentioned about cyberbullying or social media. The document mainly focuses on the appropriate use of devices and the school network. You cannot see me, but my eyes are rolling at the lack of updated information that this document is in desperate need of in order to ensure the safety of the students when using technology.

Family Handbook
As I have seen on another classmate's blog, my school is in the process of updating the Family Handbook, so I am only including the portion about technology that is included in this document.

Once again, there nothing in this short entry in the handbook about cyberbullying or social media. In the boxed portion, there is a statement about harassment and offensive communications, but I feel the terms cyberbullying and social media need to be added and clearly defined. As of now, the technology usage policy is weak at my school.

Phone Use and Personal Possessions are two other areas in my school's family handbook where technology is mentioned. I laughed out loud when I read the statement about PDA's. Do today's students even know what a PDA is? Answer-Personal Digital Assistant. If this does not convince you that serious updating needs to be done, then nothing will.

Employee

This is the shortest document that I am including. Your first question might be--What policies listed in this document? I had to ask my principal for a copy of the information that is mentioned in the AUP that is signed annually, which can be viewed here. The document is called Electronic Communications Policy and it is no surprise that this form needs to be updated, also. There is mention of the word posting, but the dated language that is peppered throughout the document is yet another example where updating is needed. 

Digital Citizenship

Yay! Something positive to write about! Every two years, Archdiocesan schools need to complete Digital Citizenship Certification for Schools, via Common Sense Education. This year is my school's renewal year and the process to remain certified is currently being worked on by the computer teacher and administration. Teachers will also be added to the list of working through the certification process.  

NOW WHAT

Being armed and informed about what a quality AUP and technology communication policies look like, I plan to set up a meeting with my principal to share my new found knowledge. But before I take on this step, I want to continue to learn from this class. This way when I do schedule a meeting, I can present the information in a logical manner with suggested changes. Now, I am not so nieve that I am assuming I can bring about change in the AoC, but maybe changes can at least be made at my school. At this time, I am not sure if any changes can be made just to my school, but time will tell what if anything can be done. 

PLN--Tic-Tac-Toe

Facebook Group

Click the link to visit professional FB page.
Image source cited with References at the bottom of the post.

The area I relate to the most from the four is cognitive. My main purpose of joining educational social media platforms is to acquire and share resources, advice, and strategies. Although I do enjoy meeting other educators and making online friends,  breaking away from being isolated in my classroom is not a priority for me because I do not feel isolated. I think the one benefit that I do not relate to is the affective one. Relying on others, who are online, to make me feel confident is something I do not seek. I do think I dabble in the area of identity, which moves the teacher from being the expert to collaborating with helping students to achieve success. In other words, the teacher moves from being "the sage on the stage to the guide on the side" (King). This is what I strive for with my teaching, thus I hope to move from a dabbler in this area to someone who stays in this area.
The way I am using Facebook (FB) groups to acquire resources is an example of crowdsourcing, which is "The practice of obtaining information or input into a task or project by enlisting the services of a large number of people, either paid or unpaid, typically via the Internet" (Crowdsourcing). Depending on the topic or time I have, determines how much of a taker than a giver I am. Since being in the technology specialist and masters program, I have made it more of a priority to make sure I contribute to the social media platforms that I take information from.
If you visit my page, I have one friend and that is for a couple of reasons. The first reason is my teacher friends I have do not have a professional FB page. Instead, they use the one FB page for all their connections. Second, I left this page pretty much inactive for about a year. My goal is to work on building my professional learning network through this course. I invite you to be my friend on my page so we can share resources and ideas. 
The three groups I recently joined and try to contribute to are: NGSS For Middle & High School Science Teachers, Teachers Using Google Classroom, and 6th grade ELA Teachers. All three groups are new to me, but so far they are worth my time.
Here are a couple examples of my usage in these groups.

6th grade ELA Teachers
Image source: Personal screenshot of FB group page.

Recently my principal has asked all the ELA teachers to include at least one day of reading stations. It has been a few years since I used stations and I have never used them while teaching sixth grade.

NGSS For Middle & High School Science Teachers
Image source: Personal screenshot of FB group page.

This is a group that I am finding little help with because it seems most of the members are high school teachers or teach only science. I need to seek out another group or use a different platform if I truly crowdsource. With this group, I find myself more of a lurker than a contributor, meaning, I am a watcher because at with this FB group I do not feel like I have much to contribute (Tolisano). Although I posted an example of a contribution, this is the only one I have made to this science group. You can also see that I had to scroll back to January 8, in order to find something where I could contribute. 

Teachers Using Google Classroom
Image source: Personal screenshot of FB group page.

Using Google Classroom was the first FB educators group I joined, which was about two months ago. I joined it from my personal FB page by accident, but recently, I joined from my professional page. I am a Beta tester for Google Classroom, so when the newest features were rolled out to everyone, I wanted to read what others thought about the changes. There are 30 comments so far and most of them do not like the new look of the Classroom's new page. It was nice to read what others thought and their reasoning for liking or disliking various aspects of the updates. 

Crowdsourcing | Definition of crowdsourcing in English by Oxford Dictionaries. (n.d.). Retrieved January 15, 2019, from https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/crowdsourcing

King, A. (1993, January 01). From Sage on the Stage to Guide on the Side. Retrieved from https://www.jstor.org/stable/27558571?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents

Main Page. (n.d.). Retrieved January 15, 2019, from https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page

Tolisano, S. (2012, June 7). Silvia Tolisano- Langwitches Blog. Retrieved from http://langwitches.org/blog/

Social Media & Emerging Technologies

Introduction

Hello fellow classmates! My name is Karen and I am in my last semester at DU. I started off last year with the goal of earning a technology specialist endorsement, but the opportunity presented itself to go further. After this class and my next one, which is Coding II, I will earn my second Masters of Arts in Education. I look forward to working with all of you and learning from all of you.

Here is little about who I am--

Extra Info--

• I currently teach at St. William School, which is a Chicago Catholic elementary school, with grades from preschool through eighth grade. 
• My family and I have two German shepherds-Sadie and Harley, one blue Russian cat-Nefi (Nefertiti), two red-eared slider turtles--Puddle and Wrigley, and a few koi.
• I have been happily married for 30.5 years to a wonderful man.
• My son is a teacher at the same school where I teach, so calling him Mr. Z. during the day is just weird. 
• I would drop what I am doing, no matter what it is to go to a Cubs game.
• Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter--I am the admin for the social media accounts at my school. Here is a link to my school's FB page. My school does have a school parent who is paid to do the marketing, such as info about Big Shoulders and boosting enrollment. I create posts about events in the school, create slideshows, and post photos that the teachers send me.

Here are a few examples of the profile photos I use for various social media platforms.

Facebook--Professional Page

Personal screenshot of FB my page.

I do not use this page as much as I should for professional social media purposes. After a prior class that involved creating a professional portfolio, I created the Facebook (FB) page with the purpose of building a network of professional educators and resources, or PLN. Since most of my contacts are on my own personal FB, I just have not found the time to switch or separate the educator contacts from my own interests. This is a goal of mine, but most likely that will not be accomplished until the summer. 

Gmail--Work

Personal image

This is the same photo I use at my school via my work Gmail account. Teachers at my school use a mix of using the traditional school photo, a selfie, or an image that does not show the audience what the staff member looks like. 

Facebook--Personal

Personal image I took while at Cubs game.

This is an image from my personal FB page. I am careful of what I put out there in the world because I am well aware of digital footprints. I am a die-hard Cubs fan, so when I visit the friendly confines, I am always taking photos of the ballpark and game. The policy at my school is not to "Friend" current students and parents and I take that policy seriously. 

Most of the photos I post are from my gardens, pets, places I visit, and Cubs games. I rarely post family photos. If I want to share something with my son, I send it in a private message. The settings for my FB page are that I only post to friends/family and you have to request to see my page. Private information such as my email address, and details about my life are not posted.

Pinterest--Personal

Personal image that was edited to a photo I found online several years ago. 

I only included this profile photo of Jon Bon Jovi and me because I wanted you to see that I have a goofy side to my personality. I do not have a professional Pinterest account. Going down the rabbit hole on this social media site with one account is all I can handle. 

My digital footprint

Professional Facebook 

Professional Twitter

Professional Portfolio

Linkedin