Blogs

 In the past I would usually do a search for information and find a pretty good website.  From the website I would click on the blog and read an article or two then move on.  I have always been encouraged to contribute to our school blog at edcentre.ca and have tried to a couple of posts.  However I often had a hard time coming up with something interesting, fun and genuine that my students could relate to.  I had the dream to blog but I didn't have the emotional "funding" to back it up.  I am glad this course is giving me the opportunity to delve into blogs.  

I looked over the suggested blogs in the weekly course schedule and found some interesting Canadian Blogs and others in the top ten which I added from the Teach 100 - Top Educational Blogs .  I did notice from The 50 Best Blogs for Future Teachers that there were bloggers apologizing for not blogging and also informing their readers that they are taking a hiatus.  I am glad to see these bloggers are "human."

The blog Edgalaxy was interesting and relevant as it kickstarted the creative side of my brain.  With a simple video to "The Google Research Tool" I began to think about the ease of using this tool to model citing sources.  I would like to make simple lessons on plagiarism, citing sources, and paraphrasing.  This would be an excellent start as I like tools to be user-friendly, free and intuitive for my students to apply to their lives.  This blog has interesting posts about Technology and Passion-Based Learning.  The little nuggets of information can help formulate new methods and ideas to incorporate into my course.  The trick and the key to it is to do one little step at a time.

I signed up for Inoreader and subscribed to some interesting blogs about "Technology and Education."  I was pleasantly surprised to find Alec's blog "open thinking."  I had heard some of this information in his presentations at iT Summit and when I looked at the name "alec" I put two and two together.  

I was inspired by reading his post on "Flickr Perversion" to talk to my teenage son about  his Instagram.  I recently found his Instagram by searching for it and felt the gamut of emotions.  50% pride, 25% curiosity, 15% shock and and 15% dismay.  I closely monitored his Facebook in the past as well as his Hotmail.  He was given a couple chances to delete some inappropriate Facebook posts or "facebook" dire consequences.  Since he has moved to his dad's four hours away I notice he no longer Facebooks but is into Instagram.  

I want to address with him
4) What rights and responsibilities do we have as parents to protect the digital identities of our children?
This is helpful and relevant because he is very responsible and I want him to be cognizant of this in his instagram at all times for his "present" and his "future." Update: Talked to my son and he thinks its chuckled at my request to clean up some of his Instagram posts.  He probably thinks of it as "cleaning up his room."  We will see tomorrow when I check it if he "cleaned up his online room." #digital citizenship #blogging