Billings Beta

by Nava

A digital identity is who you are online, on your phone, on your credit card, anything digital. Maybe it’s your real name, maybe a nickname. It’s what computer you use; what sites you go on. It’s your phone number; your AIM screen name, anything you have that’s digital. I think that young children, differing in age from child to child, should have their parents know what sites they go on, who they are calling, to keep their digital identities, and real identities, safe.

I think having a list is a useful thing to do, especially for things like keeping people safe. On one site I went to, there was an actual guideline for keeping yourself safe, for kids! It had some ten useful rules, and here are three of them

1. I will not give out personal information such as my address, telephone number, parents’ work address/telephone number, or the name and location of my school without my parents’ permission.
2. I will tell my parents right away if I come across any information that makes me feel uncomfortable.
3. I will never agree to get together with someone I “meet” online without first checking with my parents. If my parents agree to the meeting, I will be sure that it is in a public place and bring my mother or father along.’

It’s a good guideline, for children and parents both, for teens and toddlers. It can help young kids know what’s safe, and it can remind the older kids of it, too.

With a device that can be installed on phones, called Radar, parents and others can make sure that their kids are safe. If anyone calls who isn’t on their approved list, they are sent a text message. This could be a good thing. For example, if their children were being harassed and didn’t know what to do, their parents would know about it and they could help.

However, Radar could also not be a good thing. Kids should have a bit of privacy, without their parents completely running their lives. If they get interrogated about every one of their friends that their parents didn’t know, it would get very tiresome to keep telling their parents, who called; what they knew that person from, and all that. Their parents should trust them a bit, and maybe not have such an extreme grip on them, as to monitor their phone calls.

In conclusion, kids should get some freedom, and some safety. I believe that as you get older, your parents should give you more freedom, especially if you use that freedom responsibly. From cell phones to using the internet, you need some privacy, but some safety.

Articles:
Here are two very similar lists of Kid Online Safety Rules:
http://www.safekids.com/kidsrules.htm
http://www.microsoft.com/protect/family/age/upto10.mspx
Here is a site about parents being able to track their children’s phone calls.

While Cassie was in Turkey, the 8th grade Spanish students undertook a huge project.  Students wrote song lyrics in Spanish, recorded music and vocals, wrote an interview with their ficticious bands in Spanish, and then video taped the entire thing.  The results are absolutely amazing, and viewable on this password-protected page.  Enjoy!

Taking Boolean operators to the next level this week: students began using AND, OR & NOT in conjunction with IF/THEN/ELSE statements to make complex programs in Scratch. Examples will be posted when projects are complete.

We also took some time to try adding parentheses to our Boolean statements and examine the effects. For example:

(4 + 7) x 3 = 33
4 + (7 x 3) = 25

(ultimate AND hiking) OR softball
ultimate AND (hiking OR softball)

Some students discovered that if there is an “OR” in a statement, then there are 2 conditions that meet criteria. That means that we will have 2 instances (or “x”s) in our Venn diagrams when we use an OR statement.

Boolify.org actually helps you build a Boolean search, although our 6th grade students don’t need the extra assistance any more!

by Emiko

Cell phones are a very important part of the society. In my opinion, I don’t think that phones should be banned completely from school grounds. The students could keep their phones in their back packs. There has been no complaining that the students are not learning. Digital identity is when people give their information online and then their digital identity A Digital Identity is the representation of a human identity that is used in a distributed network interaction with other machines or people.

In one of the articles, by Jennifer Feals, a father named Rocky Rochford’s daughter’s cell phone bill went $170 over, all from text messaging. The messages were sent through out the day, even, during school. Though his daughter was extremely irresponsible with her phone, I don’t think that the schools should ban cell phones from the school completely; just the parents should enforce some punishments for texting too much, especially during school.

Cell phones can be used for emergencies. In one video on you tube, there is a teacher hitting his student. Probably the video was taken with some other student’s cell phone. Because if the teacher knew that he was on camera, he probably would not have hit the student. That’s one way that cell phones can come in handy.

In the other article by Lyndsey Besser, people took a survey of the use of their phones. 84% of the people who took the survey reported that they regularly use their cell phones for sending and receiving text messages. .Of those who text, 70% admitted to text messaging while in class.

Teachers probably have a hard time dealing with lots of student’s texting during class. The students are there to learn and not text message. If I were a parent, I might be disappointed in my child for not paying attention in class. The students probably would have the phones on vibrate and text when the teachers are not looking. Texting answers during a test is a new way of cheating.

Cell pones are a key part of this generation but for the learning. The two stories connect because they both involve text messaging and it being a problem in school.

Link for the story:
http://people.uis.edu/rschr1/et/2007/11/parent-questions-text-messaging-in.html
Supporting Story:
http://collegian.csufresno.edu/2007/04/23/texting-during-class-can-b-distracting-4-u/
Got the definition from:
http://www.digitalidworld.com/local.php?file=aboutdid
Video about the teacher beating the student:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aR1f2TkW6GU

Spring is the time that we engage in long-term independent projects.  The 7th grade will be using Inspiration, Word, PowerPoint and other programs to brainstorm and create projects that reflect tech learning and personal interest.

http://billingsmiddleschool.net/beta/7th-grade-independent-projects-spring-08/.

Today we began working with Boolean operators, a new concept that ties in nicely with our earlier work on Venn diagrams, sets/subsets and programming.

Isabel defined Boolean operators as “a way of constructing your research question and finding the connections between your research terms. also connection between words and phrases.”

Almost everyone knew the 3 most useful operators: AND, OR, NOT

We solidified our learning with a Boolean worksheet that made all of our brains hurt and then discussed our answers.

Next week we will use Boolean operators  to refine search engine requests and also to build a simple program in Scratch.

6th grade tech is back to 2x a week for the rest of the school year! We kicked off our final term of 6th grade with a variety of activities and conversations.

First, we reviewed typing expectations for April-June: 5 minutes/4x per week. Everyone starts this term with a fresh start - an instant A+ in typing. The purpose of typing assignments is to improve typing ability so that our brains can focus on the content of what we type, not the mechanics. Everyone that typed regularly last term got an “A” in tech, and everyone that has typed regularly this school year has improved their typing speed and accuracy.

Next we turned our attention to SPAM. Many students are becoming frustrated with some their peers’ use of school email communication to send unwanted emails. We reviewed our agreed upon lab and internet guidelines (created back in 2007) and talked about possible consequences of future account abuse.

In preparation for our class on Boolean operators, we engaged in a little Googlewhacking. We had a few close calls, but Cillian eventually took the top prize of the day when he discovered exactly one search result for “gimp humuhumunukunukuapuaas.”

The final 10 minutes of class were left for open exploration of Phun. Phun (created by Emil Ernerfeldt) is “an educational tool to learn about physics concepts such as restitution and friction” and is open-source and free!

Homework assignment: What are Boolean operators? What are the 3 most commonly used? Respond via email before Friday!

by Maya

I think that online educational resources should be available to students to use.

Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, has been the subject of a lot of controversy in the last few years. Some educators are reluctant to allow students to use Wikipedia as a resource.

One of the reasons teachers are so unwilling is because of a few well-publicized scandals involving people who submit articles under containing false information. Other times people have given false credentials while writing articles. I think that Wikipedia is a wonderful way to get good information.

Despite the attitudes many are taking to the new site, Wikipedia gives good information, for the most part. Just because of a few loud scandals, Wikipedia has been written off as “faulty” and “completely untrustworthy.” I have used Wikipedia in almost every paper I have written, sometimes to a huge degree, with outstanding results. In order to use Wikipedia, you have to be careful and check a few facts with certified websites to make sure some stuff is parallel, but otherwise Wikipedia is a great site to use for information. People who use Wikipedia without checking any facts at all deserve what they get if there is faulty information in their paper.

Wikipedia requires a little more work to work effectively (checking info) but it has more than 2,000,000 articles in its database. The number of experts who have contributed significant, factual articles is astounding, and it makes it one of the best used online research sites. Some people think that Wikipedia is not fit to be used because it doesn’t do a very thorough check to see if people are really who they say they are, or more importantly, if they have the information they say they have. The result is that every so often one may come across an article that isn’t true, but that has never happened to me, and I admit to being a little surprised. But I am not complaining. Some people are, though, and finally the founder of Wikipedia, Jeremy Wales, has finally announced that they are upping the standards an article must pass in order to submit an article.

The reason that people are so reluctant to allow the citation of Wikipedia in elementary, middle, and high schools, is that it is so easy to submit falsehoods about your age, education, credentials, expertise, etc. Teachers don’t want to have to double check to see if the students Wikipedia information is correct, and so are trying to have it banned. If the teachers don’t check the information, then the students have an opportunity to virtually make their entire paper up. If they do check everything, then it could take them days or even weeks to grade every paper. That is where a site called TurnItIn.com is covering the bases. The way TurnItIn.com works: students write their paper and cite all their sources. They email the paper to TurnItIn.com and the site scans the web and comes up with all the phrases on the web that are similar in the paper. The teacher checks to see if similarities are cited, and if they aren’t, confronts the student. But this site is more practical only for larger classes.

Wikipedia is such a huge thing because students find it much easier to use than a real paper encyclopedia because it is much faster and it isn’t in twelve volumes (or more!). Most of the students I asked said Wikipedia. Some haven’t even used or heard of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Wikipedia is an example of using a digital identity because you can say you are a Professor of Religion at Stanford, but in reality be a 15-year-old looking to pull a small prank.

A digital identity is you, represented (by yourself or otherwise) online or on the web or anywhere that you represent yourself digitally. Sometimes your digital identity is information about yourself, whether it is true or false, or it could be pictures that represent you and have your name on them or are on your MySpace or any other social networking site. It could be a movie, or even a poem or a paper or anything that is associated with or attached to you. Some people put real information about themselves on the Internet. This is extremely dangerous, because the more information someone has about you, the more damage they can do. They can say really mean things via the Internet and put your name on them. They can call your phone, they can find out where you live and where you go to school. Some people can figure all this out even with fake identities, but it is a lot more likely to happen if you put real information about any part of yourself- your age, what you look like, where you are, who you are, etcetera. Many people put fake information about themselves if others can see it. This is safer than putting real information about yourself, but it is still a really bad idea. For example, if a 12-year-old were to pretend that they were talking to a 20-year-old, they could end up getting harassed online because people would act like they were talking to a 20-year-old, and not a 12-year-old. People maybe don’t realize this, but you very differently around the to different age groups, and the 12-year-old might get involved in some conversations they weren’t ready for.

• My personal beliefs concerning the Internet are solid and simple-
• No social networking accounts (email is fine)
• Stick to your parents rules about the internet-they are for good reasons
• Don’t go to sites you would be scared have your parents catch you on
• Absolutely NO chain mail, no matter how stupid, tempting, scary or touching, even if it says it will donate money to a good cause (I have gotten into trouble over the last one!)

Although not all the sites I visit are educational (actually, it’s a far cry from that), I certainly think that people, especially young teenagers, are not using the Internet safely. Some bully, some are bullied, and some sit back and watch it all happen without saying a word to anyone who could actually do something about it all. People are not educated about being respectful, courteous, and kind even on the Internet. People are seriously racist and derogatory on the Internet, and they are not arrested or fined as they would in the real world. People have adopted the Internet as their alternative reality, so they can say and do things they wouldn’t really do- people think that using a fake name or age makes them someone else and they forget that they are doing it- just under someone else’s name.

Article: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7130325.stm
Students “Should Use Wikipedia”
By Alistair Coleman

by Becky

Digital Identity is like part of you but in the technology world. It’s like the facts about you and not your features. Digital Identity has information like your name, age, phone number, maybe your credit card number. Your Digital Identity can be found everywhere. Digital Identity is on the computer and on your cell phone. Digital Identity is part of who you are.

Cell phones are kind a like who you are. They have all of you friends and family on it and it might even have labeled pictures of them. But should kid take there cell phones to school? Texting can be used for bad reasons and good reasons. If you were in a test and you text your friend for the answer then that would be bad because wouldn’t help your friends learning and you wouldn’t be helping them learn. But if you need to call for after school activities then you could text. Some schools are starting to wonder if cell phones should be banned.. I think that schools should allow cell phones for after school only. If you are texting a friend to ask a question on a test then it’s your loss. You are the one that won’t be learning anything. It’s your life. There could be a consequence your cell phone could be taken away.

On YouTube there is a video that shows an angry professor. It shows that he had taken one of the student’s cell phones and threw it at the ground. The student’s cell phone split in to pieces and the teacher started to yell. This YouTube was taken by another student that was in the classroom and videoed it with his cell phone. This is one of the better reasons to have cell phone in school. It relates to the first article because they both have the issue of dealing with cell phones in school. But the professor did throw the cell phone at the ground because the student was distracting the teacher. That would be a bad reason to let cell phones be in the school. If that student hadn’t taped the professor then no one would be able to prove that the teacher lost his temper. The students that go to school with there cell phones have a choice how to use there cell phone. It could be for cheating could be for catching a teacher get angry There are some people that use cell phones efficiently and they shouldn’t be punished because of someone else fault.
I got my sources from:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hut3VRL5XRE