Well now, let me tell you—twitter is quite a doozy. I used to use twitter when it first started really booming around 2010, but things have really changed since then. I remember hearing about Ashton Kutcher beating out CNN to have the first twitter account to reach one million followers. That was back in 2009, and now, just 9 years later, it isn't uncommon for people to have tens of millions, in some cases even a hundred million followers. It goes to show you the immense power and velocity at which the internet is being integrated into our societies. For the first time in history, almost anybody with a cellphone has the capacity to reach an audience of hundreds of millions of people via twitter. The rapidity and immediacy with which we're able to access information and communicate with one another is changing the social landscape on a global scale, and I think it's slowly rewiring how we have communicated for hundreds and thousands of years. Unfortunately, human computing power is peanuts compared to the speed of technological innovation, and I don't think it's necessarily healthy to radically alter human communication from face-to-face, long form discussions to 140 character, rapid-fire back-and-forths. So, I stay off twitter for the most part. Aside from a few educational and comedic accounts I just don't get much enjoyment out of the darn thing.  If I want information about what's happening in the world, I'll go to reddit.

Digital divide mainly affects poorer communities where schools can't garner or gather enough funding to keep up with the continually evolving technology being integrated into the modern day education system. I would even stretch the definition to include a lack of funding for updated textbooks, especially in the arts and sciences where there is constantly new research and discovery. It can directly affect how the student thinks about learning in a developing world. Children need to be comfortable using technology in a classroom setting so they can develop the necessary technological fluency that's becoming inherent in the modern world. However I would conquer digital divide would depend on the school and subject matter I was teaching, but let's say I was in an underfunded school teaching English to a fifth grade class. I would stress the importance of taking advantage of technological opportunities outside the classroom and try to always have the most up-to-date information to exchange, if the tools themselves were lacking.

I would like to implement Word and some kind of educational video game software catered to the subject matter I was teaching. Word would be useful because students are likely going to be writing papers their entire academic career, and word has a plethora of practical functions. Educational video games can teach children almost anything from basic addition and multiplication to demonstrating what a dissection might be like on a cadaver. With video games you can bring experiences and situations to life that you would have a hard time recreating in a real-world setting. This opens up all sorts of doors when thinking about how to educate students on different career paths and so on. So, yeah, something like SecondLife maybe? I would have to look into it a little more.

Bon voyage, compatriots.

—MC

And another one

I believe I would be best suited to teaching students about how to conduct short-term, as well as sustained research projects that break down the process of writing a college-level research paper from start to finish. Being an English major I have experience writing both creatively and analytically, and have written papers on a wide array of subjects, whereupon I have had to do different types of research for different types of material. I have found it isn't always clear how to conduct and document research for varying topics, and would approach teaching from a more distilled point of view. For example, conducting a literary analysis on Shakespeare's Hamlet is going to require a different method of inquiry than if you were writing a paper arguing against the ethicality of factory farming. A standard I would need to be more diligent about would be the range of writing, or writing routinely over extended or shorter periods of time. It would require some organization and time management skills I'm sure I could implement fairly quickly.

I would likely start out with something easy, like doing a literary analysis on a book we read together. So as we begin reading into the book, I would discuss points and ask questions that would be juicy topics to research further into, and hint at points of reference where a paper could be started. I would show the students how to conduct research using the internet, how to utilize their own reflection and speculation regarding what the author is doing or not doing in the book, and demonstrate why it is important to ask questions and dig deeper if at first you don't comprehend a situation. So I would utilize lesson plans drawn up for upper-level (high school) english students.

I was surprised at how much I enjoyed the newsletter activity. Although it was amusing to masquerade as a 5th grade teacher, I found the actual work entertaining and creative enough to have a little fun and make it subtly my own. The Word software provides a lot of creative control as far as formatting, and it feels really satisfying to produce a sharp-looking document for people to read. Though I don't think I would enjoy doing this weekly, I had a lot of fun with this assignment and felt I adapted to the role with comfort. If I were to make another, I would play around with different color schemes and adjust the theme according to whatever season it is, and if I'm into a movie or show or something I might throw some innocuous references in there just for kicks. These kind of assignments are always helpful. Since I'll likely be writing things for as long as I'm alive, I like having experienced writing in a variety of media, forms, subjects, etc. It keeps your brain sharp.  

So long, friend.

Well I'll be...

I've been using Microsoft word since I was in first or second grade, and have worked with it through it's evolution into what is, today, Microsoft Word. My teachers have also used it since as far back as I can remember, or at least they must have used in in some form or fashion to print handouts, worksheets, newsletters, etc. In my experience, Word has always been incredibly accessible and user-friendly. It's also very familiar to me, as I have always stuck with it, so I am biased. Nonetheless, I have always found MS Word to be an incredibly useful tool in an endless amount of ways both in and outside of a classroom setting.

Almost every year of my education there has been some predestined lecture or form to fill out that more or less strictly goes over what is considered copyright and fair use. If I were an educator, I would make sure my students know and understand the stipulations of copyright and fair use. I would vehemently go over citing your sources, and encourage students to think of ways to express their ideas along with the ideas presented in their research. Having always been a student myself, I understand the struggles of trying to express your thoughts and opinions on the grounds of other peoples research, so I would attempt to show them ways to get abide by copyright and fair use laws while articulating their point with personality and clarity.

Academic honesty: The solution I would propose to uphold academic honesty would be to have different copies of a test, quiz, etc. given to students sitting near each other. I would also want a program that runs papers through a copyright check.

Privacy: I would encourage students not to jeopardize themselves by putting valuable information about their identity online, and demonstrate examples of proper and improper ways to preserve privacy online.

Cyberbullying: I would stress the importance of being a responsible digital citizen, and make sure the students understand what it means to be a kind person on the internet, and why they should strive to give people the credit they deserve online as well as offline.

Well, I've gotta go get some veggies out of the oven. Until next week!

My first blog

I believe teachers are influenced by what is going to be the best learning mechanism for the student, while trying to be as relevant as possible to whatever emerging technology is available currently. Students are susceptible to adapting to emerging technology, simply because they've grown up with the rate of change. Used to the state of constant flux, the students are typically influenced by whatever is available to help them learn in the most optimal way. Today's students having access to laptops, tablets, and smartphones there are constantly new ways to integrate technology into your everyday learning habits.

Reflecting upon the ISTE standards, one that I think is important is being a responsible digital citizen. Anonymity and mystique are large parts of what draw people to the internet, since you can be as anonymous as you choose and search for nearly anything. There's a depersonalization brought about by the sheer amount of power and access when you're online, and it's much easier to be mean, or say something nasty to someone from behind a screen. I would hope that when most people are online, they would give people as much credit as they would in person.
I don't really see any I would consider outside my current skill set, but I think I have trouble with number four, the "Innovative Designer." It can be scary to share something you've created with anyone and everyone on the internet, and depending on how anonymous you've made yourself, it may make you feel a little vulnerable. But hey, what's the problem with being vulnerable?

I completely agree and accept the term, "digital native." I think being a digital native implies that you have been around since the birth of the internet, but the stereotype would assume the person is younger, and affluent with technology because they've grown up with it. I have noticed that the generations of people born before the "digital era" can be very good with adapting to the technological world, or they can be willingly ignorant. I think most humans are capable of learning and adapting to far more than they think. Something strange is happening at this point in human history, since there has never been this much access to information at this rate of speed, and in comparison to how quickly a computer processes data, the human computing power is pale as a ghost. So my question is: how is the integration between human development and technological progression going to mesh? And are the students of the next generations going to be even more adept than the students today? I wonder if the integration of technological progression into human development, much further down the line, is going to change our biology.

Well, that's all I guess. Hopefully you folks have a good day.

- Max Cherry