Content knowledge and digital literacy

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While at supper with friends, someone asked me to look over some medical claims they found online. A quick glance at the material revealed it to be a fraud. The article mentioned softening the patient's cell walls. Humans don't have cell walls, just membranes. Had my friend known this basic biological fact, she could have rejected the information out of hand.  She’s not alone, though. People tend to trust the first few Google hits rather than reading what is there and judging accordingly.

The fact that we can learn anything, anywhere and at any time we please has convinced quite a few people that content knowledge is a silly goal to pursue. The idea is that since mobile devices and the internet gives us unfettered access to information, there should be no reason to "waste" time teaching students any basic content knowledge.  Such opinions are dangerously mistaken. After all, electronics run out of power, loose connection and (gasp) get lost. More importantly, students will be exposed to large amounts of questionable material online. Without the internal resources to double check validity, anyone can be led to believe scams which could be costly indeed.

The trick is to use triangulation. This is a process of using three sources to figure out the accuracy of information. When researching online, the three sources are as follows:

1. You- Consider how comfortable you feel about the article or claim. Does it feel right? If there are warning bells going off in your head, pay attention.
2. The Internet
3. A trusted expert- This could be a teacher, doctor or encyclopedia. It could also be your background education. The important thing is to look to an outside authority. Which agrees more with the authority... you or the internet?

Teachers of course have limited time. We struggle to strike a balance between teaching content knowledge and thinking skills. The triangulation method is a great way to find some of that balance. Not only will students have a great critical thinking tool, but they’ll also have additional motivation to learn content. When students ask “Why do we have to know this?” you can always tell them that it will help them avoid being ripped off by liars and idiots.

Twitter, teaching and what is learned

Twitter is a funny animal. Many school districts block its use due to the serious risks that it poses. However, if your district is willing to give it a try, Twitter is really worth using. There are important skills students can learn from using Twitter in the classroom. I got most of these ideas from Matt Levinson's excellent post on ways in which parents can teach kids about the internet.   

1. Digital media is social. Students really need to understand that they are interacting with others every time they get online. It’s also vital for them to deeply believe the phrase “If you don’t want it on the internet, don’t put it on the internet”. That is, everything that goes online, even for an hour or two, will likely stay online for years to come.
2. Appropriate language and sharing apply to the online world. Most students know when and how to speak in public. They don’t reveal personal information and they try not to look foolish by using incorrect english.  The same must apply online.
3. The internet is a PUBLIC space. When you are using Twitter with your students, there are no private notes. The whole world can see what they write including principals, other teachers and yes, perfect strangers. But this is true of the internet as a whole. The sooner students internalize this fact the better.
4. Mistakes are great learning opportunities. Everyone will see when a student makes a mistake. They’ll also see when YOU make a mistake. This is a great opportunity to explain how mistakes lead to better learning.  

Some teachers won’t want to use class time to teach digital citizenship and that’s fine. Even if you really just want the students to learn the course content, there are good reasons to start using Twitter. For one, you’ll increase engagement. Twitter is easy to use and students get almost instant recognition for what they have to say. You’ll also have a chance to use social learning in the classroom. For a great list of ideas on how to use Twitter to teach a variety of topics check out this post.

Once you’ve decided that this platform works well for you and your class, you can start getting a bit more sophisticated with the technology. First, you could add a custom background to your page, personalizing it for your class. You can regularly update it based on the unit you’re studying. If you’d like you can even add unit goals and objectives which often look great to administrators. Don’t forget about your profile, either. With 160 characters, you can provide a solid course description or list some simple classroom rules. Finally, try to get parents involved. Let them know what students are saying (or failing to say) online. Remember that this is a public space and you’re letting students use their public voice. The more you can involve parents in this process, the more your students will get out of it.

Now, those of you out there already using Twitter on a regular basis may want to correct me on some of my claims or ideas. Some of you still think that Twitter (and other social media) is so inherently dangerous that it should be kept out of students hands all together. Please leave a comment.

Digital disease

People get sick by doing one of the following things:
1) A lot of interaction with the public.
2) Poor hygiene.
3) Taking in (eating or drinking) something that's infected.
4) Doing things they frankly shouldn't be doing in the first place.

Computers get viruses, worms and trojans for the same reasons.  
1) A lot of interaction with the public.

Social networking is great. And a lot of people friend, follow or add people to their circles that they don’t know in real life. That can be just fine. You should be aware of the risks, though. The more strangers you network with, the more likely it is (intentional or not) that they could send something harmful your way.

2) Poor hygiene.

No need to wash your laptop. Instead, clean it out with a good piece of antivirus software. Norton is popular but there are many others including Sophos and Vipre. If you don’t have these installed and running, you’re just asking for trouble.

3) Taking in something that's infected.

Computers take in programs when you click on something. Whether you’re installing a program that you’ve purchased yourself or you’ve opened an infected email, clicking is the way to get things into your computer. Here’s the thing.; if something looks “wrong” don’t click it. Here are a few examples of things that look “wrong”:

1) Personal emails from strangers.

2) Emails from people you know, but who never send you those kinds of things.

3) Hyperlinks with misspelled werds.

4) Emails from your bank that don’t contain your name.

4) Doing things they frankly shouldn't be doing in the first place.

Elicit or adult websites are poplar. Some accounts say that 25% of all traffic online is for inappropriate material. There are a lot of things wrong with these sites, but one that may surprise people is the amount of malware that comes with the package. Nothing is for free. Either you’ll be exposed to ads or the site will charge you money. In the case of improper webpages, the cost is often an infection by a worm or virus.

So stay safe out there. Keep yourselves and your computers healthy!

Teachers, stay safe.

There has been an awful lot posted online about how to keep students safe on the Internet. However, I haven't run into very much focusing on teacher safety. Perhaps we tend to think that, as adults we're savvy enough to avoid online blunders. I thought that about myself until I started doing some research. The following list is by no means comprehensive, but it's a pretty good starting point. Please keep these tips in mind whenever getting on the Internet.

1) People lie.

Ya, I know this one is pretty obvious. Be honest, though. Have you ever forgotten a key piece of information for your class and needed to look it up really quickly? The shape of a molecule? An important date? The difference between affect and effect? Be especially careful when you’re in a rush!

2) Plagiarism sets a bad example.*

Forget about the legal ramifications of plagiarism. OK … just for a second forget about it. Have you ever gone online looking for a picture to use for your PowerPoint? Ever cite your sources? Have you ever copy and pasted quiz questions you’ve found online without telling your students where you got them? Your students will find out. (Mine did.)

3) If you don’t want it on the Internet, don’t put it on the Internet.

I have no idea who first said this, but it’s brilliant. Here’s the big point: Everything you put online for someone else to see can stay there forever. In spite of “privacy settings” there are hundreds of ways to transfer what you have online to some other computer. Even if you delete it, there’s no way of getting rid of it. Think twice before mentioning your school or colleagues.

4) Set your filter to “safe”.

Its true that you’ll be missing out on some good things if you do this. However, you’ll be saving yourself from all of the problems that surround pulling up an inappropriate website. If a student is exposed to a single inappropriate image, you are setting yourself up for uncomfortable discussions.

5) Students don’t have privacy on school computers.

This is a bit of a strange issue. Many students get offended by a teacher looking over their shoulder to see what they’re up to. Many educators seem to buy into this attitude thinking that students should allowed to work largely unsupervised. When students know they’ll be monitored, they tend to stay on task.

So what do you think? Did I miss anything? Do you disagree with anything I’ve written here?

*Thanks to Deb Ng inspiring much of this blog post.

On Tradition

We do what we have always done because it works. And hey, why reinvent the wheel? Besides, we have so many things we have to get done that it's hard to find time to learn a new way of doing things. The thing is, it turns out that our ways are often inefficient or less productive than some alternatives.

With a new semester upon us, it may be time to try a few new tools. Below, I list some of my favorite online tools to improve teaching in the next 18 weeks. Give them a try. You may find yourself getting more done in less time, for free.

Google docs + Google calendars
I've written about this mash-up before. Google calendars is an easy to use schedule that you can work on at any time and on any computer that's handy. Calendars also has a nice feature that allows you to attach any file to an event as long as it is already in your Google docs account. That opens up the possibility of attaching lesson plans, tests and student samples. Since you can make any of those files private, you never have to worry about anyone else in the world seeing sensitive documents.

Edmodo
Students love social media for good reasons; it's fun, engaging and it makes learning easier. Unfortunately, there are so many dangers and pitfalls to using sites like Facebook or Twitter. The solution is a site designed specifically for educators to communicate with their students. Parents have full access to their own student's activities and teachers moderate all discussions. There is no outside communication and students don't have the option to talk to the outside world. Better yet, you can make self-grading quizzes and polls for free!


Desmos Graphing Calculator
Students are given all sorts of wonderful technology in schools. They are still being asked to buy expensive calculators. Finally here is a free online solution. Help kids learn to do math without expecting them to buy equipment.

Prezi
Perspective matters. Much of what we talk about in class deals with large scale vs. small scale. Consider these questions: What does a water molecule have to do with whether you have a desert or grassland? How did the Delaware river affect George Washington? What does the hight of a tree and the length of it's shadow have to do with a protractor you hold in your hand?
Prezi is an online presentation site that creates unique, beautiful presentations. Kids love them!

Educational Youtube
Finally! A way to get good educational videos at school! You don't have to worry about crude jokes or wardrobe malfunctions. Its all good stuff here. Well, that's mostly true. Unfortunately, suggestive videos are still sometimes suggested on the right hand side of the screen. You can't watch them, but the suggestive picture is there along with the provocative title. You'll just need to be a bit careful even when the video you want to watch is great.

Holiday cookies

There are lots of things to over indulge in during the holiday season including late nights, fatty food and sweets. Most people don't think twice about the number of internet cookies they get into their system, though. In fact a lot of people don't even know what a cookie is or how it is used. Lets get that part out of the way first.

What is a cookie, anyway?

A cookie is just a small piece of text stored on your computer. It cannot gather data or crash your hard drive. It is just a short bit of text that a website sends to a browser like Firefox or Safari. That browser then stores that little bit of text for later. When you go back to the site, it will ask the browser to look up any cookies they might have sent you. The browser then sends the same text back to that site. So why do browsers do this? Well, look at what a cookie contains. Here's an example- ID=195AY2 www.website.com. In this cookie, the site just wants to be able to know that it's YOU coming back and not Joe Shmoe. That way they can say "Oh, hey Ben! Here are some new books we think you'd really enjoy." It makes the internet far more personal. Internet banking and online shopping depend on also cookies to function.

As with everything, there is an evil side to cookies. You don't necessarily want everyone knowing who you are all the time. You may not want Nike (for example) sharing your ID with Facebook to increase advertising revenue. It really comes down to an invasion of privacy. So what do you do? You may only want to get rid of cookies from a few websites you don't trust. Or you may want to delete all of your cookies and just start fresh.

A word of caution here... Don't delete all of your cookies unless you know the username and password to all of the websites you visit. If you go to a site that "just lets you in" it may use a cookie to do so. Erasing all of your cookies may prompt the site to ask you for your username and password. If you don't know them, you may be in for a few headaches!

Here is a list of three browsers and how you can delete the cookies you may have picked up during the holidays.

	Chrome Click on the little wrench on the upper right hand side of the browser. Go down to "Tools".  Next click on "Clear browser data". You'll be given the option to clear your history, cookies, passwords and the like. You'll also be given the option to erase the information from the last hour, day, week, month or the beginning of time.
	Firefox In the top tool bar, click on "Tools" then "Clear recent history".  From there, choose wich cookies you'd like to delete. Read this excellent tutorial for more.
	Safari This is the easiest browser to delete cookies from. Click on Safari, then go to Preferences. Go to the privacy tab. There you'll see how many cookies you have. Click on the "Details" button. You'll see this window pop up. Notice two things. You have the ability to remove ALL of the cookies if you want. Do this with caution. You'll also see a search bar at top. There, you can search for cookies from specific sites. Here, I've found a cookie from Facebook. To delete it, you could just hit "remove all" or you could choose the cookies you want to get rid of and hit "remove". You'll need to hit "done" when you are finished getting rid of the cookies you don't want.