My Teacher's Lens

In his book Net Smart: How to Thrive Online, Howard Rheingold shared what he learned in his quest for answers on how to use social media intelligently, humanely, and mindfully. He discussed five literacies of digital mindfulness: 1) attention control - being constantly mindful of the here and the now, 2) calibrating your crap detector - being in fully aware and in control of the direction of your attention. 3) Participatory culture - what it takes to be a part of and what you get out of it; 4) Collaboration - collective intelligence, virtual communities - entire communities exist for the purposes of knowledge sharing and organization; 5) Net Smarts - the skills based on the knowledge of digital networks and human social behavior; Net smarts are not just vital to getting ahead; you need this knowledge to keep from falling behind (Rheingold, 2012, p.24) Reading this book is like reading something written in another language. I have to reread several sections. This reflects how much I k

One of the things I wrote about on my Information Diet blog post was how we as educators act like parents being responsible for our children's nutrition. In the same way, we ought to set a good example for our students in modelling how we manage our use of information. The responses I gathered can be summarized into three points: Less is more, Technology is the New fast food and Living by example. Less is more: When we use any websites or apps, our information is collected. It could be our email, phone number, zipcode, facebook account or other info. The more information we give away by downloading and using apps, the more we are being targeted for advertisement based on our data. The more time we spend on social media, the more information they know about us. Self-regulation is the key. Just like any form of diet, we need to use apps and information in moderation. Technology is the new fast food: It is a quick fix for entertainment, easy way of getting in touch with friends, o

In this lesson, we read a book by Renee Hobbs entitled "Copyright Clarity: How Fair Use Supports Digital Learning". As a science teacher I have very limited understanding of the Copyright law. I have always erred on the side of caution and try to minimize use and reproduction of copyrighted materials. As years go by, more materials have been available online, the fear has subsided and is replaced with confusion. I may have used materials here and there without being certain if it was permissible. This book has shed light on this issue as far as use of materials for my practice is concerned. My most important take away would be determining fair use of copyrighted materials for teaching and learning. I learned that I am responsible for making a fair use determination. It is my right and responsibility under the copyright law to be able to reason out that my use of the copyrighted material is fair. These are the four factors needed to determine Fair use: - the purpose and ch

This lesson is truly inspiring. I have recently changed the way I eat. As a result, I experienced positive effects such as lesser headaches and increased energy. It is enlightening how the author talks about how diet affects one's health is similar to how our mind is shaped by the Information we consume. I learned that just like watching what you eat, you will benefit from filtering what information you consume. The author talked about information obesity as a result of over consumption. It actually has physical symptoms such as apnea, poor sense of time, attention fatigue, loss of social breadth, distorted sense of reality and brand loyalty. In the book Information Diet, the author also discussed the 'diet' that he recommends. Data literacy includes (1) searching, (2) filtering and processing, (3) producing and (4) synthesizing (p.80). Also important is keeping a healthy habit of reading locally as well as from reliable and direct source of information. Having a balanced

In this lesson we experienced being student designers. Our task was to create a video summarizing the Design Principles that we learned in class. The experience allowed me to revisit the lessons, this time, not as a passive recipient but as a designer. In the article "The Creative Spirit Design" the author mentioned that "design is the ability to imagine that-which-does-not-yetexist, [and] to make it appear in concrete form as a new, purposeful addition to the real world” (McDonald, 2011, p. 54). The process of creating the promotional video taught me that: 1) as a designer it is important to have a clear picture of the end product; 2) designing involves constraints and limitations that we face in the process; 3) creativity and ingenuity makes a design exceptional. Instructional design is compared to a game of chess (McDonald, 2011, p. 53) it is an intellectual activity involving constant problem-solving. The ultimate goal is to win and it can be done in many different

This week we read an article entitled  "Affordance analysis – matching learning tasks with learning technologies".  The word affordances refer to the perceived and actual properties of the thing, primarily those fundamental properties that determine just how the thing could possibly be used (Bower, 2008, p.5). In this article I learned about  Affordance Analysis Design Methodology. It is a step by step process which serves as a guide in matching educational goals to appropriate technology in order to construct e-learning designs (Bower, 2008, p.8). The steps include (a) Identifying educational goal/s, (b) postulating suitable tasks, (c) determining affordance requirements of the tasks / determining the affordances available, and (d) e-learning task design. These steps require solid understanding of pedagogy, content area as well as of the technological affordances available. This process is a really helpful for me as a designer. Learning how to execute this methodology wil