Wow, who knew you had to have so many different accounts in order to be wired in. Day two, and I am now set up on i-Google, Blogger, Twitter, Facebook, Yahoo, and Flickr, not to mention my own school division server and e-mail account. Yikes, talk about information overload.
I have to admit, it is not as difficult to get started with this blogging as I thought it would be. Time consuming, yes, difficult, no. I chose to go with blogger as my blog post as I have a little experience with reading the blogs of one of school division tech guys, who blogs quite frequently. It really is very intuitive and quite easy to do, really the only challenge in the process is figuring out what to write and how to set up your page (I have left that little element for a little later). What I have found a bit more difficult to reconcile is the amount of identifying information that one needs to put out there in order to get wired in. For example, to get a Flickr account, I had to get a Yahoo account (unless I messed up). To get a Yahoo account, I had to give my first and last name, birthdate, postal code, and e-mail address. Thank God I don't have anyone chasing after me right now, or my goose would be cooked.
Now of course, I could have lied and given false information, but then I would have to remember it (I have a hard enough time remembering my real postal code). As a consenting adult, I can make these decisions to share this information and am intelligent enough to be mindful of predators on the internet. However, my concern is for the children who are out there who do not know any better and do share information that could lead them into danger. The possibilities and potential of these web tools is enormous, but I find myself wondering what measures are being put into place to protect the kids out there whose parents don't know enough to be able to to watch over them adequately.
black adam tracking
3 years ago
You bring up an important point about parents - can we expect parents to know about these technologies?
ReplyDeleteMy answer is that as teachers it is our job to make sure we teach these information literacy skills to kids. Our kids are lucky - they have parents that are learning about this stuff and can help/guide/protect them from making big mistakes on the web. Most kids won't have parents who are able to do that.
I am passionate about the need for teachers and teacher-librarians to know about these issues, talk about them in their professional communities and then integrate these information literacy skills into their lessons. I am not sure that we are doing a good enough job of this in our teacher training programs and even though we have folks that are DH in this class, they are mostly working in secondary and these skills need to be taught by teachers beginning at Ruth's grade level (grades one and two).
We need to be teaching them about privacy and intellectual property and Internet safety and cyberbullying, etc. As a principal, you can really provide leadership in this area. I am thrilled that you are talking about these issues in the first week.
I hear what you are saying about the account anxiety Craig!!
ReplyDeleteI too feel as though I am getting account overload. Maybe I'll start myself a database to capture all my web 2.0 applications, maybe there is one online??
The upside is that we can retrieve our passwords and login information from most sites by just clicking on a link for "forgotten passwords" and when we enter our email address the forgotten details are emailed to us. Another great reason to use your "real" information when signing up for these new accounts.
~:) Heather
Speaking of losing your first blog set-up attempt, I just lost my comment that I posted to you.
ReplyDeleteI found your blog very entertaining as well as one that presented experiences that I can relate to. I also found that I had to do a lot of signing up in order to get rolling with the applications in Web 2.0. I also toyed with the notion of using aliases or pseudonyms, but you are absolutely right "lying" requires an exceptional memory.
Lori