Last week in EDCI 336, Jesse Miller came and spoke to our class. He is a very talented speaker who captivated our class and inspired us all to make sure we are using the internet safely. This safety is not only important for ourselves as professionals but also eventually for when we have our own classrooms, we need to be aware of the rules and laws that are in place surrounding children and the internet.

Here are some of the interesting points from the presentation:

  • Jesse designed the erase bullying campaign
  • He also designed digital scholarship/literacy component of the new BC Curriculum
  • “We live in a world of new media where there is evidence of everything you have ever done.”
  • He compared the generations: being a child, teen, or young adult today is way different than 10, 20, or 50 years ago.
  • We live in a world of “mediated realities” of social media and mobile technology. We have professional responsibilities online, our personal lives merge with our public lives and all of these things can affect our place in the hiring process as a teacher.
  • Our job as guiding the youth of the 21st century isn’t to prepare them for the realities of days past. Today, we need to “help children make sense of their on-demand media and online experiences while teaching and guiding them how to uphold enduring values.”

 

 

Here is my video that I edited today during our video editing session

 

  • Jesse went on to claim that all of the technology education that are our students will receive needs to “empower their communication expectations in the reality they live in, not the one we grew up in…”
  • He argues that “too much screen time is not a thing” when there is a “quality of purpose rather than a quantity of time on screens.”
  • It is 2020 – “time to focus on networked citizenship. digital identity, digital rights, digital literacy, use of communication networks – social, professional, personal, safety – networked connections, the security of self, and communications in networked spaces.”
  • He pulled up contrasting articles saying that tweens’ brains are simply too immature to use social media appropriately (they breed issues such as bullying or warp the school climate) and another one from Scientific American that said: “kids who use tech are all right.” This was to show us that the stances on children and technology are vary and are always changing and that in the end, “we shape our tools and thereafter our tools shape us” (John Culkin).
  • Jesse asked us what social media is worth to us: would we pay $1 a day to use Snapchat, Instagram or Facebook? It was a resounding no from our cohort which shows us that we need to be careful of what we put on these apps that we do not pay to use: they can sell all of our information and pictures. We need to “let [our] morals dictate [our] choices.”
  • He closed his presentation by saying Social Media & Youth presents opportunities for success and conflict. We can make our classrooms a safe internet environment by “1. addressing the existing and emerging social media concerns in your environments with education and media literacy conversations. 2. opening up constructive solutions-based dialogue with co-workers, stakeholders, clients, employers, and the public about social media trends and communications concerns.”

What an informative presentation that we all thoroughly enjoyed and took a lot away from! Happy Reading Break everyone!