DRoman

This week I learned about media literacy. After watching Professor Zumpano’s screencast , I learned that media literacy is our interaction with media and the messages we take away from it. It’s our ability to access, analyze, evaluate, and create media messages. I agree that it is important to teach students about media literacy from a young age because it is important for them to learn how to analyze what they see, read, and learn online. Students need to be aware that companies post advertisements for a reason, and that is to sell. Our students also need to be aware of how the media makers manipulate things and how they can make informed choices and learn how to differentiate between what's true and not true online. Image Source: Fulcrum: Media Literacy is Essential Education This week I also learned about Rheingold’s social media literacies and Renee Hobbs 5 competencies . Renee Hobbs 5 competencies are:  Access  Analyze Create Reflect Act  I think all of the 5 compet...

This week I learned about the Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA) and the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) more in depth. Both of these laws were created to protect students’ safety and privacy when using electronic devices in the classroom. CIPA ensures that the schools that receive government funding via E-rate provide filtering and monitoring softwares on their electronic devices to ensure student safety. These softwares block harmful and inappropriate content on school devices. CIPA also ensures that schools educate their students on internet safety. It is important for students to learn about being safe online, such as not talking to strangers, being truthful about their age when creating an account online, and never meeting up with strangers they met online. It is also important for students to learn about cyber bullying. COPPA is a federal law that protects the privacy of children under 13 years old by not collecting their personal information, such as th...

This week I conducted a data mine of myself. The websites I used were: PeopleFinders , Nuwber , Google , LinkedIn , Spokeo , FamilyTreeNow , InstantCheckmate , and ZabaSearch . This data mine was very eye opening because I got to witness my own digital tattoo. I found a lot of my personal information posted online for anybody to see. The information I found was from my past and my current life too. I now understand a little bit more about how everything that is posted online is like a digital tattoo because it can’t be easily erased and it stays online forever. My thoughts and feelings throughout my data mine were: at the beginning I was surprised by so much information I found online of myself, throughout my data mine I was intrigued and wanted to keep digging up more information and see what else was out there about me, and by the end of my data mine I was shocked to see how much accurate information there is online about me and anyone who looks me up can see it. I plan to be more ca...

This week I learned about Safety, Security, and Phishing. I also had an opportunity to review more in depth my school’s Acceptable Use Policy (AUP) for technology. I learned about a Passphrase , which I hadn’t heard of before this week. Did you know you can add spaces to your passwords? I didn’t. After learning about what a passphrase is I plan to use them from now on, because they are more secure and it takes centuries for hackers to guess your password. I will also be sharing this knowledge with my colleagues and students’ parents, because my students are only 3 and 4 years old. The older students at my school can definitely benefit from learning this knowledge and it will hopefully encourage them to create more secure passwords on their technology devices by creating a passphrase.  Image Source: Screenshot of www.useapassphrase.com After reviewing my school’s AUP in English and Spanish, I think that it can definitely be improved. It is missing positive student friendly language....

The topic I researched this week was on Privacy. I think it is important to know if our lives are really private or if someone or something is listening in on our conversations and learning about us and/or our preferences without our consent. The infographic that  EAVI  created is very informative. Here is a picture of it:  Image Source: EAVI I’ve always heard of the term “cookies”, but never really had the interest to research what it really meant until this week. The EAVI infographic explained that “First party cookies…come directly from the site. They improve your browsing experience by remembering things like your volume settings, displaying the weather where you live and the items in your shopping cart” and “Third party cookies…follow you around the internet, tracking your behaviour and any information they can gather. The Like buttons on Facebook or Twitter are also a way to activate third-party cookies” (EAVI). After reading about all of the information that adver...

 Professional Learning Networks (PLN) This week I learned about and explored different Professional Learning Networks, PLNs. After viewing the videos Dr. Trust created about the many benefits PLNs have for teachers and students’ learning, I am excited to expand my own PLN. Out of the 4 growth areas Dr. Trust talked about in her videos (affective, social, cognitive, and identity), I identify with cognitive  the most. I am always looking online for new resources and tools to use in my classroom to enhance my students’ learning. Oftentimes I follow creators online (most of the time on Instagram and Pinterest), that are either preschool and/or SPED teachers and I save the activities and resources they’ve used in their classrooms, so I can reference them in the future when I’m teaching that activity or subject. I also like to use Instagram and/or Pinterest to test out new ideas, for inspiration, and to learn about new teaching strategies I can integrate in my classroom, because I a...