Civics Teacher Blogging

“A popular Government, without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a Prologue to a Farce or a Tragedy; or perhaps both.  Knowledge will forever govern ignorance: And a people who mean to be their own Governors, must arm themselves with the power knowledge gives them.” (pg. 93) I loved this quote from James Madison that's included in the Net Smart. The problem is, that we have so much information, and people have such difficulty determining what's truthful and what isn't. (Well,they probably do have some idea what's truthful and what isn't, but judging from what people share on social media, the majority of people don't seem to care). This makes the Crap Detection so important. As Rheingold says, "...the widow of a deceased Africa dictator is definitely not going to transfer millions into your bank account." (pg. 81) It is so important to teach things like media consumption and helping students learn to be skeptical and exer...

I loved the term "unnecessary noise."  That describes most social media.  How much more time would we have if we weren't concerned about how many likes our Facebook post received, or what so and so is publishing on Instagram.  It's a fine line between being connected and being obsessed with what people are doing online.   While this is important to teach to students, it's also difficult to see how it fits into different subjects.  Perhaps if school districts took the lead on this and assigned different parts of the information in this book to different subjects, classes could spend time discussing parts of it during different weeks of the school year.  CTs could also spend time incorporating this information into their weekly planning.

I have been "copyrighted" twice, by Fox Corporation.  I make video podcasts of all of my lectures, and incorporate funny video of clips throughout them.  I use a lot of Simpsons's clips, and for whatever reason, two of my videos were flagged and I was not allowed to show them them on YouTube.  I did not do anything to fight against this, as I was worried that they would come after the multitude of other videos I have made that include clips from not only the Simpsons, but other TV shows and movies. However, after reading this book, and listening to the brief conversation we had in class through collaborate, I realize that this was not a copyright issue.  Should I have corresponded with Fox and let them know what the clips were being used for?  Perhaps.  Instead, I found a work around , and now just store my videos as MP4s on my local network.  The students can still view them and I don't have to worry about being bullied by a large corporation. ...

Yum, yum.  I really enjoy the fact that information is so readily available, at our fingertips.  There are times that I feel overwhelmed by the amount of data, but I feel that I do a good job filtering out information that isn't good for my diet.  I really only use social media (Twitter) to stay up on current events and sports.  I love reading about politics, and follow feeds from both sides of the aisle, trying to receive information for what I know to be reliable sources.  We talked about Facebook in class, and one of the best decisions I have ever made was to delete my Facebook account.  The distractions and the amount of time I was spending looking for likes or what someone else was posting was overwhelming.  I also was tired of getting into arguments with people who would post information that wasn't true.  I can only imagine what is going to happen during the 2020 presidential cycle. This is something we should be teaching to our student...

Isn't this (or shouldn't this) be the goal of good teaching?  Don't we want to give our students the tools they will need to make decisions about their education?  While it is important to give students guide to their work, we also need to give them choice and and independence in the classroom. I attended a meeting a couple of weeks ago that look at cultural proficiency and assessment in the classroom.  One of the points that was brought up is that we often assess students where we expect them to be, instead of assessing them where they are.  Likewise, how many teachers design lessons based on what expectation they have (the teacher), instead of listening to what expectation the students have?  I know that we all have curriculum to cover and standards to go over, but for students to be invested in class, they really need to be involved in the design process.  Whether it's informal meetings, or questionnaires and evaluations, students should have a voice o...

It's important to figure out the best way to use technology in the classroom.  I think it's important that we use technology and even if we need to figure things that we need to figure things out on our own.  Sitting and complaining that we haven't had training on something is why we aren't using it, sounds like such an excuse.  If a new technology is introduced, try it out and see how it works.  Not knowing how to use every bit of something shouldn't be a reason not to use it.  I try to use as much technology as possible in my classroom, and there are many times I make mistakes or have difficulty answering questions about it.  I will say that there are so many tools, that it is impossible for any of us to be experts on all on them (I guess this goes with my previous post).  I'm looking forward to have my school going to 1:1 next year.  Lots of things to try and do.