EDLD 5316 Journal Reflection Week Two

Week two of this Digital Citizenship course has proven to be brutal for me! I think it was the video assignment that got me. I take pride in creating quality videos and usually spend a lot of time creating them. I spent at least three to five hours each weekday (double that on Saturday and Sunday) of week two working on the assignment. I wish this class would have been in the summer so I wasn’t working on lesson plans, grading, fixing Chromebook issues, etc. at the same time.

With that off my chest, I did learn quite a bit from this week. A lot of the information I was already familiar with since I teach digital citizenship in my class. In my class, I spend a lot of time discussing digital footprints (tattoos) with my students. They are sixth graders and are just starting to really create their intentional digital footprints. I like the term digital tattoo better than digital footprint because tattoos are more permanent than footprints, but most information refers to the digital path you leave behind as digital footprints. I just hope that I can effectively teach the kids about intentional (active) digital footprints/tattoos and unintentional (passive) digital footprints/tattoos. Maybe if my students can really grasp how much a life is impacted by these footprints/tattoos, their eyes will be opened and they will become more careful with their digital lives.

Nicholas Negroponte’s TED Talk (2014) was very interesting to me. I can remember being a little girl watching Saturday morning cartoons. The Jetsons was one of my favorites. I look back and believe the reason I was so intrigued by all the tech gadgets the Jetson family used in their everyday life is that all things digital had a place in my life. I did not know that my future self would be a computer teacher. In fact, I was sure I was going to be a veterinarian or a park ranger! The video telephone calls were the best part of The Jetsons. Who knew that I would actually get to use that technology during my lifetime? It seems that Nicholas Negroponte knew! He made many predictions that actually became realities. His latest prediction is that we will gain information by ingesting it. I think that is a bold prediction, wonderful and scary at the same time.

Net neutrality was a topic that I had heard of in the past but didn’t really pay much attention to it. After this week, I will be following decisions made about net neutrality much closer. Open Internet is another name for net neutrality. I think it’s a good thing that the FCC previously ruled there is to be no blocking, no throttling, and no fast lanes (paid prioritization). However, since I am now interested in this topic, it seems as though our coursework may be slightly outdated. From what I have researched, Net Neutrality has been repealed. There is a new chair for the FCC named Ajit Pai (appointed by President Trump) and his stance is against net neutrality. According to The New York Times (2018), net neutrality was repealed late in 2017 but did not take effect until the summer of 2018. I’m not sure what changes we will see. It does seem as though some states are still upholding the net neutrality regulations. This will be interesting to see how all of this plays out.

Here is my favorite video that explains net neutrality in Whopper® terms.

References

Burger King. (2018, January 24). Burger King|Whopper Neutrality. [video file] Retrieved from https://youtu.be/ltzy5vRmN8Q

Collins, K. (2018, June 11). Net neutrality has officially been repealed. Here’s how that could affect you. The New York Times. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/11/technology/net-neutrality-repeal.html

TED. (2014, July 08). A 30-year history of the future | Nicholas Negroponte. [video file] Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5b5BDoddOLA

royalty-free images on this post from kisspng.com