Digital Responsibility

By now you have probably heard about Logan Paul. If not, he's a Youtube "celebrity" that recently filmed himself in Japan making fun of a suicide victim. It sparked global disgust and outrage and has since been removed from Youtube. Before it was removed it had been viewed 6 million times and most of his viewers are young people.

It is important to discuss issues like this when they come up. Seeing incredibly graphic content displayed in a mocking manner can be debilitating for young people who may or may not have developed coping mechanisms for viewing such material.

For this post please comment about your reaction to this case. Were you aware of who he was and what happened? What do you think is an appropriate response? With just a click of a camera we can instantly transmit high offensive and morally repugnant content. How far is too far?

New Year, New You?

Welcome back. Happy New Year. People typically like to take the opportunity to reevaluate some bad habits and try to correct them around this time of year. For our first post of the New Year lets share a few resolutions you are committing to making or discuss how it may have went for you in the past. Are you able to stay committed to a resolution you make with yourself? Or what would you like to change about yourself and how can you?

Digital Literacy Continued

This is a continuation of our previous post regarding information literacy. Websites and news organizations make money from advertising when we view their content. There are three important distinctions for you to know:

1. Native Advertising - advertising that tries to sell or promote a product disguised as a news story
2. Traditional Advertising - most common advertising that sells or promotes a product 
3. News story - real content containing factual information about a subject and independent of bias and should answer, who, what, when and how

For this post take a look at the following two website banners and answer this question:

Which are these an example of: native advertising, traditional advertising or a news story and why? 

Credit: Stamford University Study: https://sheg.stanford.edu/upload/V3LessonPlans/Executive%20Summary%2011.21.16.pdf

Digital Literacy 101

There has been a lot of talk in the news lately about the abundance of fake news. Fake news is information deliberately posted to confuse people, drive traffic to websites and in many cases can have a significant impact. We know from class that anyone can create a website. It is now our job to become detectives of what is real vs. what is fake.

Websites and news organizations make money from advertising when we view their content. There are three important distinctions for you to know:

1. Native Advertising - advertising that tries to sell or promote a product in the guise of a news story
2. Traditional Advertising - most common advertising that sells or promotes a product 
3. News story - real content containing factual information about a subject and independent of bias and should answer, who, what, when and how

For this post take a look at the following website banner and answer this question: 

Is this native advertising, traditional advertising or a news story and why? 

Credit: Stamford University Study: https://sheg.stanford.edu/upload/V3LessonPlans/Executive%20Summary%2011.21.16.pdf

Q2 Ice Breaker

Here’s a simple query of your personal life: 

What are you reading?  

What are you watching?

What are you playing?

For our first blog post of Q2, please answer each of these 3 questions in the comment section. Please include the question. Do not include school work.  You can have multiple answers to each question.  Example:

What am I reading?

The People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn

What am I watching? 

Seinfeld

What am I playing? 

Doom (video game)

Digital Distraction

Distraction: noun

1. 1.

   a thing that prevents someone from giving full attention to something else.

   "the company found passenger travel a distraction from the main business of moving freight"

Growing up in America today is to be a part of a society that is rapidly and constantly changing. The fact is you are surrounded by technology and information and spend a large portion of your time interacting with it. But what is it doing to your brain?

As we saw from the video in class, our brains are not wired for multi-tasking. Some tasks require more concentration than others and when we switch between many tasks we lose focus. 

Specific Instructions:  For this post think about something you do that requires your full attention. Then think about your habits with technology while trying to concentrate. Do you listen to music while doing homework? Is that bad? Do you respond to texts while doing homework? Then go online and find evidence to support  your response. Please include the link to the site you use in your response. -5 points if you respond with no link. Do not copy other people's posts, ideas or links. You will get a 0 for plagiarizing.

If you missed the video in class please watch the first 8:40 minutes of this documentary:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/digitalnation/

Sample post: 

I like to listen to music while I do homework. It helps me to relax and focus. After reading this article (https://gradeslam.org/blog/does-listening-to-music-help-with-studying) I learned...

Why no cell phones in class?

We discussed in class the importance of non-verbal cues and looked at the impact adolescence has on learning development (see below). We also talked about how technology can negatively impact social development because our focus is  removed from everything else.

So for our blog post using the above chart, pick one element of development under Early or Middle Adolescence and make an argument for or against using a phone in school. Then go online and find an article that supports or negates your position and give us a brief summary of what the article states. 

For example: During Early Adolescence as my intellectual interests expand I need a phone to engage more with what I'm interested in studying. The article I found talks about how 75% of students using cell phones in class are performing worse than those without. https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2016/04/do-smartphones-have-a-place-in-the-classroom/480231/

Do not copy my example.