Cybersleuthing my partner was a creepy experience for me, not because there was anything weird about my partner but because I felt I was invading her privacy, like I was overstepping my bounds. I felt like there was something wrong with me, looking for anything I could about her. I came to know her, some very specific details of her life. I wondered how easy it would be to steal her identity. I have no idea how to go about this and I have no plans to but I think an experienced person probably could. My partner was easy to find on Facebook which did not really surprise me because we are about the same age and Facebook includes many in our generation. This made me reflect back to Katia’s lecture on June 3rd, 2021 when she said “that if you don’t have a Facebook, you are considered suspicious”. When I began cybersleuthing my partner and I discovered she was on Facebook, my immediate reaction was “oh thank heavens she has Facebook” (not because it made my cybersleuthing easier, but because her having Facebook somehow made her ‘normal’).

An area in my life I have taken great pride in is that I do not (think I) have a digital footprint. So imagine my surprise when I read the article Having Multiple Online Identities is More Normal Than You Think and discovered that many people have multiple accounts using multiple platforms! My own teenagers have “spam” accounts but I thought they were weird, the minority, the exception, not the going (and growing) trend! I do wonder how people have time to manage so many online identities because it sounds exhausting. The author makes this point as to why people have multiple online identities: “Different sites, different audiences, different purposes”. Taking a look at Jon Ronson’s Ted Talk reminds me that we need to be very careful what we post online because it all leans in to our digital identity, the good and the bad, the positive and the negative, our charm and our mistakes.

Watching Monika Lewinsky’s Ted Talk was hard because she made a mistake, right at the beginning of what has become known as digital identity. At the young age of 22 she “fell in love with my boss”, who just happened to be the president of the United States. People who did not know her, the situation, or most likely anything else to do with the circumstance made horrible comments that we now call “public shaming”. This “culture of humiliation” is inappropriate, very harmful and dangerous and we even risk losing our voice in a culture in which “voiceless people found they could now have voice” (Jon Ronson). I am sitting back, taking all this in, trying to understand and digest it all and I more clearly understand my hesitation to have a digital footprint. Is seems as though there is NO room online to make a mistake or to post anything less than what appears to be perfect.

Madison Holleran’s story is an excellent example of trying to achieve an online presence exhibiting only perfectionism. Holleran became so enthralled with the idea of perfection both offline and online that it ultimately cost her her life. She observed her friends unfiltered ‘perfect’ lives and she felt inadequate, that she could never achieve this level of happiness, of perfectionism. Unfortunately, it became too unbearable for her to bear.

Even when we are offline, we are online. There is no longer a difference. “We don’t have an ‘online me’ and an ‘offline life'”(Katia Hildebrandt, lecture June 3rd, 2021). The perfect example of this is Justine Sacco who made a Tweet to her few Twitter followers, jumped on an airplane, and by the time she landed, that Tweet had traveled around the world faster than she was, unbeknownst to her, and ultimately had her fired from her job.

My key takeaways from this lesson are:
#1: I need an digital footprint because if I don’t create mine somebody else will;
#2: By giving real life experiences, we can learn and be taught about digital identity;
#3: The internet works very quickly;
#4: If I need to push something further down the google search results then I need to be posting as much as possible to get people to click on those instead of the undesirable content.

The first thing I discovered about the relationship between digital citizenship and the SK curriculum is that there is not a lot designated towards learning about digital citizenship. Therefore, in order to incorporate digital citizenship into the curriculum I see myself integrating it in my classroom through creativity and developing cross curricular lesson plans. These lessons will require students to delve into the digital world in a safe and controlled manner, under the direction of their teacher. The following lessons for grades 5, 6, 7, & 8 are lessons that I would actually use in order to include digital citizenship in my classroom. Mike Ribble suggests 9 elements of digital citizenship that I need to be cognizant of in my classroom.

Grade 7 Health Education requires students to learn about the importance of harmony in relationships. In the world now these relationships are also found online and are just as important as face to face relationships.

Outcome USC 7.4 Demonstrate a personalized and coherent understanding of the importance of nurturing harmony in relationships (with self, others, and the environment), and apply effective strategies to re/establish harmony when conflict arises.

Indicators: (there are 16, all could fit, I’m only including a few)
a. Express insights into what makes a relationship harmonious.
c. Create an informed personal definition of conflict.
d. Analyze potential sources of conflict.
h. Examine feelings associated with conflict.
p. Demonstrate the basics of two or three strategies for reestablishing harmony and for resolving/managing conflict.

I would incorporate Mike Ribble’s element of Digital Etiquette in this health lesson because the outcome is requesting students learn the importance of harmonious relationships, and this now needs to include the digital world. Examples of poor harmonious online relationships are easy to find online, which students are exposed to. Examples such as these can create conflict therefore this becomes an appropriate way to teach grade 7’s about how to apply effective strategies to re/establish harmony when conflict arises. Digital etiquette is a skill that needs to be taught at school because adults are not always great at this either.

Grade 8 Science class requires students to research various ideas and theories, past and present.

Outcome: CS8.3 Distinguish structural and functional relationships among cells, tissues, organs, and organ systems in humans and how this knowledge is important to various careers.

Indicator: b. Research various ideas and theories, past and present, used to explain the composition of the human body (e.g., living organisms were made of air, fire, and water; and body is animated by spirit).

I would consider Mike Ribble’s element of Digital Access for this grade 8 science class because the students are asked to do research on something from the past. Although the indicator does not specify where and how to complete their research, it can be assumed some students could turn to the internet. This could cause a barrier for some students though, especially remembering 60% of the world’s population remains offline, because not all students have equal access to computer devices, or even the internet.

Grade 5 Arts Education encourages students to create a dance based on popular/ current dance trends.

Outcome: CP5.1 Create dance compositions inspired by pop culture (e.g., street dances, current dance trends in music videos).

Indicators: a. Investigate potential sources of ideas for dance related to pop culture (e.g., current street dances, popular dances of different eras, TV dance competitions).
b. Pose questions about pop culture to explore through a dancemaking inquiry process (e.g., What popular dance movements, styles, and conventions could we include in our own dances?).

I would consider Mike Ribble’s element of Digital Communication in this lesson because we need to be careful what we post online and “how that will be conveyed online in the future” (Katia Hildebrandt, lecture June 1, 2021). This class outcome has students create their own dances based on current dance trends found in music videos. The following videos have been uploaded to YouTube within the past few years, therefore are considered “current dance videos”. The teacher’s job is help the students understand what is appropriate to put online and they can use the THINK model to help them decide what is appropriate. Using the following videos as possible guides, the teacher can help the students understand what is appropriate to post online (the first two videos are examples of inappropriate dance moves for grade 5’s to post online). Even though the outcome does not require the students to post their final dance composition online, many students do post dances online, therefore they need to understand how to safely and appropriately do so.

These two following videos are more appropriate for grade 5’s to post of themselves attempting similar moves online:

Grade 6 Social Studies encourages students to examine power and authority.

Outcome: PA6.1 Examine the relationship between an individual’s power and authority and the power and authority of others.

Indicators: b. Give examples of the forms of power (force: gangs, bullying; authority: leadership of an organization; influence: clergy, charisma) in the local community.
e. Describe diverse ways in which groups and societies, especially those groups involving young people, deal with competing claims for power.

This is a great way to integrate Mike Ribble’s element of Digital Literacy because so much false information floats on the internet in regards to power. This would be a great lesson for students to learn how to research if something is true or not. Our students need to learn how disinformation leads people astray by giving false information. The below meme could be used in this grade 5 lesson:

The above meme started circulating online in about 2005, however, it is actually unknown (and unlikely) if Benjamin Franklin actually said the above quote that has now been attributed to him. The students can begin to understand digital literacy in regards to this lesson on power.

In Michael Wesch’s talk, he quoted the fact that 88% of videos uploaded to YouTube is “new & original content”. This is simply incredible, there is no other way to describe it. I looked at my own YouTube channel and realized that I have over 30 of my own “new & original content” uploaded there, all of which have been uploaded in the past 3 years. Again, incredible. The reason I find this so incredible is because I think back to my childhood when camcorders became popular. They were bulky, expensive, and awkward. I was six the year these were invented and they looked like this:

Now, my family did not own one of these because family’s of the 80’s, as mine pictured below, did not get extra’s like camcorders because they were so expensive. I remember watching America’s Funniest Home Video’s as a child, in awe of the possibilities being recorded.

Fast forward 22 years to 2005 (I am now 28 years old) and YouTube is born. This becomes important because, as Wesch states, this becomes a “celebration of new forms of empowerment”, a “celebration of new forms of community that we had never really seen before”.

What becomes even more astonishing is that two years after the birth of YouTube, the first iPhone is born, hence the beginning of the ability to film/ record video with a device that fits inside our pocket that no one ever leaves home without and 85% of people own.

Yes, I am older than most university students, but this all happened within less than 2 decades! I am sure the younger generation will easily look back in their older years and be astonished at the technology that emerged because it develops at ever increasing rates.

So what does this mean for me and my future classroom? The first thing I think about is privacy. I need to make sure I have the proper permissions before I ever post anything on any social media. I love the fact that educators can, and should, use technology in their classrooms. Students are using it so let’s meet them where they are. I reflect on Katia’s slide displaying all the popular social apps youth are using right now and it overwhelms me. YouTube, SnapChat, Instagram, Tik Tok, Minecraft, Roblox, Fortnite, Among Us, Discord, Reddit, and Twitch are just a few. Wesch describes this as “linking people in ways that we have never been linked before”. I need to be aware of what technology my students are using.

So, sounds awesome right!? I agree. But as with all good things, we need to take precautions. This new way of interacting in our world comes with risk and we need to be aware of these risks and talk openly about it with our students because if we aren’t talking, who is?

In our class lecture we discussed what is known as the “mediator” and that this mediator has disappeared in our new digital age. Parents, as an example, used to act as a mediator when the house phone rang. Now, parents do not even always know who their children are talking to. In these virtual communities, who knows who a child is talking to and where in the world that person is living. And there are predators lurking in not so dark corners anymore to lure youth in.

What does this mean for schools in general? Schools will certainly need to rethink things because the world now consists of “user generated content”. We have an “integrated media scape” that students are embracing. Wesch’s comment “when media change(s) human relations change”. Educators are going to need to be creative on how we develop relationships with our students because of this shift and change. Schools will need to adapt and be flexible. And many teachers and schools are!

To rethink the idea of schooling and education in our networked, participatory, and digital world I need to not be afraid of it! Sometimes fear of not understanding how some technologies work limits me. By choosing not to participate in this digital world, we limit ourselves as well as our students. Educators should meet students where they are at, and they are all using some type of technology. I think about the in class example Katia gave of teens eating Tide pods or participating in the black out challenge. We definitely need to re think how to participate in this digital world because sometimes our students can be misled in the big, digital world and they need educators to understand and not judge their digital realm..

How can we balance the challenges of our new digital reality with the possibilities that it offers? Balance is difficult in most things and I have found it comes mostly through trial and error. There is not a recipe to follow or a one size fits all solution for every classroom/ teacher. Choosing to not engage in any technology is not the right angle and yet trying to tackle too much is unrealistic! It is trying one thing and exploring and playing on that to see how it goes. Luckily “information is no longer guarded by institutions”, as Katia reminded us in class. This enables us the freedom to explore and try at least a few new things within the school year.

I am so excited to have discovered Fotobabble! And what a cute word! I am fairly familiar with Davinci Resolve and Audacity, which are open source tools that Katia gave as suggestions but I really wanted to delve into something I knew nothing about. I considered Puppet Pals and Little Bird Tales but these are both applications for iPads or iPhones. I own both these Apple products but I prefer to do my school work on my desktop computer (which is not an Apple desktop). So I tried Fotobabble and this is simply awesome! I LOVE it! You have to try it! I love that it is sooooooo user friendly. I did not need to google or YouTube anything in order to learn how to use it. It is extremely straight forward to use. It is a program that uses your recorded voice overlapping pictures of your choosing.

I began by uploading pictures I wanted.

I then choose to create a caption (optional) for my photos.

Next I recorded my voice that accompanies each picture. The picture automatically displays for the entire length of my voice recording.

Disadvantages of Fotobabble is that I could not edit my audio at all; if I didn’t like the recording I would need to re record all of it (per picture). It cannot be uploaded to YouTube either. Another disadvantage of Fotobabble is that when I give the link of the project to someone, it forces the viewer to Fotbabble’s website to view it. I would rather it be available directly on my blog instead of it being a link.

In comparison to Davinci Resolve, this program is more powerful and I can do far more with it, including uploading to YouTube. That said, it was extremely time consuming for me to learn and figure out. I also find the audio will randomly cut out, which seems to be a program glitch. It does allow for far more editing though. In Davinci Resolve I can upload audio, video, and pictures, unlike Fotobabble (pictures only).

Fotobabble, in comparison to Audacity, there is no comparison with audio quality, especially if I used a Zoom H4n recorder with Audacity, as seen here:

Audio that is created in Audacity or elsewhere can be uploaded to Davinci Resolve but not to Fotobabble. So Audacity and Davinci Resolve can be used together, unlike Fotobabble, you need to use Fotobabble’s own voice recorder, which is low fidelity.

I still think Fotobabble is awesome for small projects! I was easily and quickly able to create a project that is fun, interactive and catches attention. I was able to give my viewers a ‘tour’ of my project.

Fotobabble can be used in the classroom as an alternative form of journal writing. Students could take pictures and then record their thoughts regarding it, used to expand grammar, voice fluctuation, and pronunciation as opposed to just spelling. Or teachers could take pictures of their students work, particularly projects, and then voice record their assessment of the work. This gives the student the ability to see and hear the teacher’s feedback. These uses of Fotobabble fall under M, Modification, in the SAMR model because it changes what teachers are able to do in the classroom because the student created something. Fotobabble is especially useful as a form of remote assignments because it can be handed in and viewed online as compared to in person.

Twitter as a professional development tool is an excellent choice because I get to choose who I would like to follow on Twitter. I choose like minded people therefore their tweets are in alignment with what I am looking for. For example, I follow Syndey Hoffman and she tweeted an article that provides alternatives to traditional book reports. I love this because I enjoy out of the box thinking for classroom assignments and this article provides that. Due to a lack of time I would never have enough time to sort through all that is available online, therefore, by relying on those I follow, they help give me access to things I value.

I would attempt to use Twitter in my classroom because it is a fun and interactive way for my class as a whole to interact online safely. I imagine my class tweeting about a place-based project we are collaborating on. Or they could request resources for assignments such as this that was tweeted.

The #SaskEdChat was very interesting and fast paced. I have to admit, I felt completely overwhelmed with it at first. I felt I had to read every single comment that appeared on my screen and the comments were coming very quickly because there were so many people participating. I loved the learning environment though. I want to participate again! I like that chats are safe and convenient, we can stay at home rather than rushing out the door for yet another meeting. I appreciated that the chat was moderated therefore I felt that comments would not get out of hand/ inappropriate.

I actually like Twitter. I can see why Katia finds it so useful. At first I had a hard time understanding its purpose and role in my life because there is so much content available. I was reminded of Katia’s comments though: take what you can for now. I can save the rest for later! I can do that! My favourite thing about Twitter is that I get control over who I follow. This sounds simple enough (all platforms give you this option!) but it is significant to me because I choose like minded people that help me ‘sort’ the internet for practical and useful things in my career. Other platforms do not do the same level of ‘sorting’, even with AI.