Q2 Ice Breaker

Here’s a simple query of your personal life: 

What are you reading?  

What are you watching?

What are you playing?

For our first blog post of Q2, please answer each of these 3 questions in the comment section. Please include the question. Do not include school work.  You can have multiple answers to each question.  Example:

What am I reading?

The People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn

What am I watching? 

Seinfeld

What am I playing? 

Doom (video game)

Digital Distraction

Distraction: noun

1. 1.

   a thing that prevents someone from giving full attention to something else.

   "the company found passenger travel a distraction from the main business of moving freight"

Growing up in America today is to be a part of a society that is rapidly and constantly changing. The fact is you are surrounded by technology and information and spend a large portion of your time interacting with it. But what is it doing to your brain?

As we saw from the video in class, our brains are not wired for multi-tasking. Some tasks require more concentration than others and when we switch between many tasks we lose focus. 

Specific Instructions:  For this post think about something you do that requires your full attention. Then think about your habits with technology while trying to concentrate. Do you listen to music while doing homework? Is that bad? Do you respond to texts while doing homework? Then go online and find evidence to support  your response. Please include the link to the site you use in your response. -5 points if you respond with no link. Do not copy other people's posts, ideas or links. You will get a 0 for plagiarizing.

If you missed the video in class please watch the first 8:40 minutes of this documentary:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/digitalnation/

Sample post: 

I like to listen to music while I do homework. It helps me to relax and focus. After reading this article (https://gradeslam.org/blog/does-listening-to-music-help-with-studying) I learned...

Why no cell phones in school?

We discussed in class the importance of non-verbal cues and looked at the impact adolescence has on learning development (see below). We also talked about how technology can negatively impact social development because our focus is  removed from everything else.

So for our blog post using the above chart, pick one element of development under Early or Middle Adolescence and make an argument for or against using a phone in school. Then go online and find an article that supports or negates your position and give us a brief summary of what the article states. 

For example: During Early Adolescence as my intellectual interests expand I need a phone to engage more with what I'm interested in studying. The article I found talks about how 75% of students using cell phones in class are performing worse than those without. https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2016/04/do-smartphones-have-a-place-in-the-classroom/480231/

Do not copy my example.

Your top 5 digital resources.

We talked in class about what your digital footprint is and how it can hurt us in ways we may not think of and we reflected on the positive and negative impact Digital Media has on our lives. Now I thought it would be good to share web resources that are helpful to you. What are your top five Internet sites or apps and what do you use them for.

Here is a sample of what a proper post should look like:
NY Times.com - up to the minute news
Wikipedia - education
Facebook - social media
Google - search
Reddit - crowd sourced information

Remember -5 points if post is not completed by due date.

Welcome to your class blog.

Hello ladies. Welcome to St. Saviour and your Freshman Technology blog. A blog, for anyone who doesn't know, is a web page that is updated and typically contains information about a specific subject. Blogger is free with your Google account and you can create your own to share what you are passionate about with the world.

A blog is a powerful tool because of the contributions of its followers. Commenting on our class blog will be part of your grade throughout the year.

Please follow these Guidelines:

• Write your comment as you would a letter. Use correct spelling, grammar and punctuation. No acronyms ie: LOL 
• Never reveal personal information about yourself. No last names, addresses, screen names, email names. This is a public space so anything you say can be seen by anyone in the world.
• Never disrespect someone. "Do unto others as they would do unto you."  No matter what someone writes, respect their opinion and do not offend. 
• Don't just write your opinion. Include facts, from sources you find. Link to the sources but do not include something you have not analyzed first. 
• Be aware of copyright. Make sure what you use is copyright free. (Just because you found it online does not mean it is free for you to use without permission). 
• Stay on topic and keep it about education.  

We will go over in class what I expect of the blog. Please respond to this post to test that you can comment and you setup your LIMITED  Blogger account correctly.