lol...OMG / Thoughts about the internet- by Emily E

I’m about half way through this text right now and so far I’m very interested.  I’ve always had concerns about Internet safety and my “identity” online. 

In the beginning of the book Ivester refers to the internet as a college student, meaning that it is still young.  I thought this was an interesting analogy.  I’m 29 years old and I remember when internet first became popular and it took a few minutes to dial up to get access.  Now I open my laptop and am impatient as I wait 5 seconds for the little icon in the top corner to flash and pick up the internet in my location.  We have such access to internet and it only grows.  My parents are the perfect example of how so many people are becoming internet users and how it can be used in so many ways.  We gave my mother an iPad for Christmas 2 years ago and she said it was the best gift she’s ever gotten because of how accessible things are to her now. She recently has been complaining that her GPS does not have enough access for her and just last week bought her first iPhone.  She is amazed that she can have interenet while she is out on the road and that there are so many applications for use. 

Thinking about my students and the conversations I have with them I know that they have access as well.  Actually, just today I asked some of my fourth graders if they had Facebook, and 2 out of the 4 students do have accounts.  For my 21^st century project I created a blog for my students to respond to text on, so I’ve been mulling over in my head a lot how I’m going to introduce it to them.  I felt worried and as though I’d need to do some teaching about basic internet skills and how to access the blog.  I also need to teach what types of responses I’m looking for from them, as well as what are acceptable comments to write to each other.  Reading this text about privacy online made me more aware that I needed to somehow find a way to express that appropriately to these fourth graders.  So I searched online and found a lesson plan as well as a link to a cartoon about internet safety. http://www.edutopia.org/blog/internet-safety-younger-elementary-mary-beth-hertz These fourth graders might think the video is a bit corny, but the video makes some points that they need to know.  I will be using this when I begin to introduce the blog.

I began looking through the National Educational Technology Standards and found the following standard: 2. Communication and Collaboration

Students use digital media and environments to communicate and work collaboratively, including at a distance, to support individual learning and contribute to the learning of others.

a. Interact, collaborate, and publish with peers, experts, or others employing a variety of digital environments and media