Currituck County Schools Media and Tech

I’ve been hearing this term more and more lately and I think it is a good framework for teaching adults and children about the proper use of digital resources.

Mike Ribble and Gerald Bailey have written on this subject in Digital Citizenship in Schools.   Ribble and Bailey structure the book around `nine elements of digital citizenship‘ to help educators better understand the variety of topics that constitute digital citizenship and to provide an organized way to address them.   The nine elements are: digital access, digital commerce, communication, literacy, etiquette, law, rights and responsibilities, health and wellness, and digital security.

I’m looking forward to reading their book.

I came across some reports on Teen Tech use this week that challenged some assumptions and reinforced others.

First is a survey of teens from Harris Interactive.  ” In total, the Cox Communications funded survey found that nineteen percent of teens surveyed go online via their cell phone and 19 percent say their parents are unaware. The vast majority of teens (80 percent) whose parent know they go online via their cell phone say they are not given any limits or controls — far fewer than are given boundaries on their desktop PC or laptop.”  Combine this with the finding that 19% of teens have engaged in sexting (sending, receiving or forwarding sexually suggestive nude or nearly nude photos through text message or email) and you can see the potential for problems.

The second survey found that 60% of teens who text admit to texting while driving.  This is definately a big risk for teens as driving while texting (DWT) is potentially as dangerous as DWI.

Finally, there is a Nielsen report that suggests teens’ use of media is not that terribly different from adults’ use of media.  Here are a couple of myths and realities from the survey.

Myth: Teens use media—10 screens at  a time.  Reality: Teens are more likely than adults to use their media one at a time.

Myth: Teens are abandoning TV for  new media.  Reality: Wrong. They’re watching more TV than ever.

This study is excellent reading and it comes to a not too surprising conclusion.  “When it comes to media, teens are not as radically different (from adults) as some think.”

What does all this mean for those of us who are responsible for teaching, training, and caring for teens?  We need to be actively talking with them about potential dangers but we have more in common than we think.

NCDPI has released the first draft of the new Essential Standards.  They are asking for us to review the standards and make comments.

We have set up a wiki to facilitate this process.

The wiki was created using Wikispaces, a free service for creating wikis.  The address is http://currituckacre.wikispaces.com/

I created an instructional video using Screencast-o-matic.  This is a free service for creating screencast video.  The address for the video is http://www.screencast-o-matic.com/watch/cQfUoDeC5

Have you heard the phrase “Cloud Computing” and didn’t know what it meant?  You have probably used cloud computing  and didn’t even know you were doing so.

Very basically, cloud computing is using the Internet to deliver software applications to the end user.  Let me give some examples.  I often use Google Docs.  This is an online word processor.  I don’t have to have Microsoft Word, or any other word processing software, on my computer.  I go to my free Google Docs account, type my documents, and save them on the web.  The word processing, aka the computing, is done on the web, or in the “cloud”.  I don’t know exactly where the software is located, or where my documents are stored.  I just know I can access them anytime I have Internet access.

Cloud computing has many advantages.  Many of the applications are free.  They can be accessed anywhere you have Internet access.  You do not have to maintain the software application, or buy multiple copies to use on different computers.  There are also some disadvantages.  In many cases, if my Internet connection is down, I can’t access my documents.  I don’t have the same control over my documents I would have if they were stored on my computer, so I’m very careful with private information.

Some of my favorite cloud computing, or web-based applications include Gmail (for email), Google Docs (for documents, spreadsheets, and presentations), flickr (for photo sharing), Delicious (bookmarks), and YouTube (for video).  All of these services are free and I can access my information anywhere.

Google has an added bonus.  When you use Google Gears you can copy your online docs to your local computer for a backup.  This helps with peace of mind!