Reflection on Parenting

Two years ago I had the opportunity to speak at an 8th grade graduation ceremony. One part of my message to the parents of the graduates was to be a successful parent you need to know your child's friends and approve of them because you are who you hang out with. I was reflecting on that comment this morning and trying to apply it further to the Internet world we live in today.

Today parents need to educate themselves about social networking sites such as Myspace and Facebook. Most parents have never used these sites and do not understand the value, importance, or even point behind such sites. They do not know how to access them and lose track of what their child is doing on them.

I want to say first off that I love social networking sites I think they are a great way to communicate with friends, rediscover lost friends, share pictures, connect with musicians and other talent out on the web. I believe these sites have a specific value and that they are appropriate for anyone above the age of 13. I do believe parents should take an active part in their child's presence on the Internet whether it be through a social networking site or elsewhere.

How can a parent do this? You have two options, join the site your child uses (probably both myspace and facebook) or sit down with him/her and let them show you. Don't approach it from the "I want to snoop around" p.o.v. but from the "I'm interested in learning about these sites and how people use them."

Where do you go from here? Setup ground rules. Just like you have rules for when your child can go out, where they can go, who they can hang out with, curfews and such, you should have the same for the Internet and social networking sites. I am not going to give you the rules that will work in every situation, unfortunately parenting is not that easy and no such rules exist. I will give you some things to think about so you can develop your own set of rules that fits your situation.

Things to think about:

• Should you have your child's password to their email and networking sites, not to be abused and intrusive but as an issue of in case something happens to you this information may be useful.
• How late can your child stay on the Internet? Where can they access it from, family room, kitchen, bedroom?
• Open request policy that states you can use facebook/myspace if I can request that we sit down once a month or how ever often I feel necessary and we can look through your account together. This may help build trust and responsible usage.
• Who are their friends listed on these sites? Where did they meet them? If they have a friend listed and you don't think he/she should be on there make them take him/her off the list.

Remember that these sites are ways that friends can connect when their not together, a way for them to express themselves digitally, and a great way to share information (pictures, videos, writings). Just as you should know your child's friends and approve where they are going and who will be there, you have the same responsibility for their online presence. Yes this is new, but it is new to them also, they are only teenagers.

Harnessing the Internet in Education

While reading my daily news on cnn.com I found an interesting article titled, “Man Jailed For Creating Crosswalk, Vows More” (www.theindychannel.com/news/15181455/detail.html). The article sounded interesting and I read about the incident involving a young gentleman who believed he had a moral obligation to paint a crosswalk at an intersection for the safety of the local residents because the town government refused too. His actions and recent touch up work resulted in him being jailed for 10 hours. The article provided the exact intersection in Muncie, Indiana.

Intrigued by the topic and of the defendant’s belief he was morally obliged to perform this task; I wanted a first hand look of the crosswalk. I opened my web browser and went to maps.google.com I entered North St, Muncie, Indiana. The site brought me to W. North St. I knew the intersection was North and Dicks Street. I zoomed in on the area and moving from west to east I looked for Dicks Street. After locating the intersection, which is about 7 blocks east of Ball Memorial Hospital I zoomed in as far as Google Maps would allow. I clicked on Street View and was able to view the intersection as if I was standing in the middle of it. I scrolled left until straight in front of me was the painted crosswalk.

The crosswalk was very convincing and looked professionally painted. I’m sure with a little more research I could find information on the traffic in the local area. This intersection is near both a hospital and Ball State University, which tends to lead to more congested and dangerous traffic situations.

Try finding the intersection yourself. Below are a summary of the links I used plus the link to the final solution (the crosswalk view).

Article - www.theindychannel.com/news/15181455/detail.html
Map – maps.google.com
Intersection – North St. & Dicks St., Muncie, Indiana

Link to crosswalk view - The answer.

View Larger Map

Learning Something New - Wikis

As this new semester starts I was preparing to teach one of my night classes at County College of Morris, Routing I. This semester we are using an updated online book and I was reading through the first chapter to become more comfortable with the new content and organization of the book. I came upon the topic of wikis and I thought well this is a nice addition to the book. Wikis are something I do not have much experience with and had no intention of dealing with in the future. After reading through the books description of a wiki I clicked on a link that led to a video explanation of wikis put into general terms. I was so impressed by the video that I am now looking for a way to include wikis into our current technology production.

I've embedded the video I watched so that you too can have the opportunity to learn more about wikis. If you are interested in starting a free wiki wetpaint.com offers free accounts.



(credit: Lee LeFever, Common Craft)

If CEO's went back to school.

Throughout this past week if you keep up with technical news Comcast has taken the spotlight. They have been accused of traffic shaping, which simply put means certain data going through their network is given more importance then other data. The other data that I'm referring to is BitTorrent data.

BitTorrent is a protocol used in P2P networks. Data that is shared using this protocol tends to be music, picture, OS, and video files but it could represent any type of file. Generally when one thinks of BitTorrent the idea of illegal music and video downloading appears. Obviously that is an unfounded accusation because a protocol is a set of rules and who chooses to use it does not define the protocol itself.

Comcast is getting itself into a definite quagmire as what they are doing not only goes against their ToS (terms of service) but also is illegal in a few states. The process involved in shaping the traffic requires them to pretend they are the server requested by the end user. Obviously none of us would like Comcast to inspect the data we are sending via their Internet connection and would definitely not want them to pretend they are the servers we are trying to communicate with.

The benefit we can all receive from this giant communication company's blunder is to use it as an example when teaching ethics to our children and students. The importance of honesty, straight-forwardness and character that is developed by treating everyone with equality. It seems some of the executives at Comcast missed this important ethics lesson. As our children and students are the future CEO's and leaders it is important that we take every opportunity to show them how to lead ethical and moral lives. Current events is a great topic to start this conversation at the dinner table.

To read more about the current Comcast situation follow the link: http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20071023-comcast-shooting-itself-in-the-foot-with-traffic-shaping-explanations.html

Blog Action Day

Dear Readers,

Today is Blog Action Day. It is a day where a universal topic has been thrown to the blogger masses and we are all supposed to write about it, as a way to universally discuss our thoughts on a topic.

The topic is the Environment.

If we use technology in education then we must measure our environmental impact, develop a strategy to minimize it, and choose environmental offsets as the current method of helping the environment.

Many times human beings choose whether they will purchase, invest, or otherwise take into possession some object based on the cost or financial burden it will place on our business. Let's assume these objects are technology based and are used in an educational setting. Making this decision solely on financing is a fundamental error, which occurs everyday, and is part of the environmental crisis we face today.

I met a person a year ago who read me a quote that went "I fire you when I hire you." One of the main themes of this quote is that all future interactions whether good or bad that will happen between you and this potential employee occurs right now in the decision whether I should hire you. Do not underestimate the importance of that first interaction. In general, we have all the pieces and information we will ever have right now in front of us to make an informed and correct decision.

This same theory can be applied to acquiring objects. It should be our concern at the point of acquirement how we will recycle or redistribute this object when it has no value to us anymore. Our analysis of recycling fees must be added onto the TCO (Total Cost of Ownership). We should then also choose to add in environmental offset prices to help cover our environmental impact tracks. Other values that need to be considered are ease of upgrades, so the object itself can be added onto or improved without replacing it and the cost of man hours for upgrades.

Adding these costs and taking extra care to consider ease of upgrades will allow us to make an informed decision of the objects true value and TCO. At the same time we are participating with the rest of the responsible companies to help better our planet, pay our dues, and find future methods for reducing environmental destruction.

To learn more about environmental offsets visit:

• Can you be traveling green by buying offsets?, USA Today article.


• Environmental Offset Policies, Principles, and Methods by Bruce McKenney (PDF)
  

No trees in my classroom year.

One of the many goals technology is supposed to provide the world is saving of resources or at least shifting of our use of resources. We see this in many of our classrooms where money is shifted from one resource to another. For example our classrooms that have Smartboards installed should no longer require chalk, dry erase markers, or cleaning solution. This money saved helps offset the price of the Smartboards (minimally, short term) but let's look at the real resources saved long term, no more chalk, dry erase markers and their plastic casings, and chemicals for 10 years of use, which the Smartboard should provide us.

In my classroom I have set a goal that this year is a paperless year. I am no longer accepting homework on paper and I am no longer giving quizzes or tests on paper. I have 100% dedicated my three classes to complete online organization. All homework is submitted digitally and all quizzes and tests are taken online.

I look forward to providing a follow up to this blog in June to report on the success of this challenge. So far it has been liberating! I find work is graded with much more ease and quicker response time. I also believe the students appreciate the quick response time when it comes to having their tests graded.

I'll keep you updated. Wish me luck!

New school year!!

Wow! I cannot believe that another school year has started and that we are at the end of September already!

The Freshman Laptops have been given out at our Out-of-box Night. This year was great, Ms. Piasecki had the following prizes to give out: 2 Nintendo DS, 2 IPod Nanos, 1 512MB Flash drive, and 1 Wii.

I'm also excited because this year our Freshman laptops are Lenovo T61's which are the first in our building to have a wide screen and run on Vista.

There's more I want to write but I'm going to save it for my next post.