Blogging with Brenda

While taking EDU 792, I learned so much new information about video production. This is not something I was expected, but it is incredibly appreciated. I'm excited to take away this knowledge from the classes I will teach and while working with my students. Image Source: GIFER One thing I will take away from this course is the importance of allowing students to create projects in non-traditional ways -- in this case, videos. There is a variety of videos that students can create when producing the information they have learned. From stop-motion animation, green screen videos, and creating a video on PowToon , they can take the knowledge they have learned from the class to a creative medium. Creating these videos not only encourages students to recap the course material, but students are also able to learn new skills related to technology. These videos should not be limited to art classes that are tailored to video production but should make their way into mainstream classes to allow...

I don't know if it's my age or unresolved teenaged angst, but it has always bothered me when I hear complaints about teenagers and how well they know social media, but are completely lost when it comes to educational technology or everyday activities. Maybe it's because I'm also someone that spends an incredible amount of time on my phone, but I empathize with my kids and their relationship to digital media. It's more difficult to learn a tool than it is a social media app since that's what we've known for the bulk of our lives. Instead of fighting the technology and the lack of knowledge on it, I'm doing my best to welcome and build on it, especially given the content I teach.  In a 2010 article , Howard Rheingold mentions five interconnected social media literacies to become a "critical consumer of digital media." They are:  Attention Participation Collaboration Network Awareness Critical Consumption While all of these literacies are importan...

When I was 11, my older cousins became my sitters. Whenever my mom had to work overtime, or late into the night, I would stay over at their house and the time was spent online. One of my favorite things to do would be to watch them go online, log into Myspace, and spend hours creating their profile pages, selecting their top friends, and playing games the site offered. Soon enough, they offered to make me my own account. I was obviously not 13 at the time, but we just changed my birth year from 1997 to 1990. Simple. Pretty much everyone in my 5th-grade class was doing the same by the time this happened. I was just the one that joined late. Danah Boyd stated, "on the internet, every child is 14." I honestly think every child on the internet is at least 18, if not older. CIPA (Children's Internet Protection Act) is meant to "protect students from online predation, cyberbullying, and inappropriate content." Filters are applied and vary depending on the student'...