Article 3: "Keeping Students Safe"

     This article, "Keeping Students Safe: What Works" is about the way that schools need to come up with more effective ways to teach students about safety when it comes to technology, the internet, and cell phones. It starts by discussing how the approach of teaching safety from a fear perspective is no longer working and schools need to move towards a more research-based method to help kids understand how dangerous the internet can be.
     I think that it is so terrifying how much power a person can have by being tech-savy and literate on the internet. We want all of our students to be up to date with technology, but it's also scary to see how some people can use that ability for such horrible things. The thing about the internet that's always scared and amazed me the most is that once you post something on the internet, it's there forever. Even if you think you've deleted it, it will live there forever, and all it takes is someone who knows how to dig deep enough to uncover your past--even if it is just that--your past. I think it's interesting that the article says that teaching from a fear perspective doesn't work, because all it takes for me to watch the things I say and post a little more closely, are horrors stories about other teachers and students like me getting in trouble because of the internet.
     Another thing the article mentions that I find to be really incredible but also very frightening is that fact that you can make something so widespread on the internet in literally no time at all. It's even possible with cell phones. All you have to do is send a mass text or message with any information, pictures, or anything you want, and it can be in the hands of hundreds of people instantly. I have even seen teachers become the victim of this kind of harrassment. In junior high students made a Facebook page for a teacher that wasn't well-liked and they posted cruel and malicious jokes about her and she wasn't even aware for the longest time.
     I really liked that the article talks about how the most effective way to keep kids from falling into these behaviors is to simply teach them how to treat people. If we start from the youngest kids and instill in them the value of doing good and the value of being kind and caring for people, it can make a huge difference.

Transliteracy

     I find it so amusing that when  most of our teachers from elementary school and grade school were becoming teachers, they probably didn't even have an Instructional Technology class dedicated to teaching ways to incorporate technology into instruction, how to use it, the pros and cons, etc. There wasn't much technology to incorporate back then. Now we have multiple classes in our major dedicated to just that, and even still, once we become teachers our students will be progressively more advanced and tech-savy than we are as technology continues to abound with improvements and updates.
     One part that I found really interesting and ironic as I was reading was the bit about having to teach students to read differently than left-to-right and up-and-down because text on technology can be formatted in so many ways. Just before this, I was literally trying to figure out where one section of text ended and where it picked up again. Even though I know how to read books and I read things on the internet, this problem still comes up every once in a while when the format of an article or web page is slightly confusing or different than we've ever seen.
     I also think it's so important that we stress instruction of teaching student's how to read and comprehend dense and complicated text and really read for content because with so many articles online with hyperlinks and headings, it's very easy to skim and get the bear minimum. I know that I am very guilty of this in classes that seemed uninteresting to me, or the article was just too long. It's easy for students to read too quickly and not thoroughly enough to learn from what's being read.
     Although it has its cons, transliteracy is a fascinating new movement in education and as the article mentioned, it's important to change and progress with the times. Students aren't going to be interested in dusty old books and newspapers when they know that their friends in another classroom get to learn all the same things from a shiny, new and fast computer or iPad. We must stay up to date in order to make learning relevant and fun for our students!

Article 1: "I Can't Think!"

     This article is about how our brains can become overloaded, and essentially shut down the part of our brain responsible for making sensible decisions, when we are given too much information or too many options. Personally, I find that many articles assigned by professors, this one included, cause me to feel overwhelmed and overloaded by information. I found myself having to back through and read sentences over again because I couldn't process what it actually meant the first time through. 

     I can also really relate to being a "maximizer". I will admit I'm always on my iPhone, or always finding something to do on the computer when I'm bored or want to avoid homework. I've even noticed that sometimes if I'm shopping online, I will become so overwhelmed by all the things I'm interested in, how much they'd cost, what color I would choose, what kind of shipping, what discounts I can find, etc., I just choose to quit. In this case I decide not to buy anything because my mind as become overwhelmed by all the different options I have, and it's easier to not make a decision at all. 

     One part that I thought was really interesting and also kind of confusing was the part about just stepping back at times and "let your unconscious decision making system kick in". I think that the unconscious mind is a really fascinating and incredible thing to study but also a very complicated and baffling to try to understand. In my mind, it doesn't make a lot of sense at first to say that my unconscious mind is better at making a decision for me than my conscious mind, which could be making plans, weighing pros and cons, etc. But then again, that's just why the unconscious mind is so intriguing. 

    Lastly, I thought for a bit about how this concept of brain-overload will affect us as teachers, and also as current students. Often times, as aforementioned, I become bogged down by reading the assigned articles I receive from my professors. I'm also sure that as teachers someday, there will be times that we overload our students with information. Therefore, I think that it is imperative that we are aware of this issue and prepare our students with skills and strategies to use in order to avoid it. The article offers the helpful tip of removing yourself from the flood of incoming information, and allowing yourself to focus on the manageable amount of information before you.