Mr.J’s Blog!

In each of the blog posts that I write, I like to share my thoughts on topics that are current or making an impact on my teaching / life as an IT professional.  Sometimes I have a bit of a rant and other times, what I say is very considered.  However, in the past few weeks I have had meetings with more than 1 person that has told me that they read something interesting on my blog.  In some cases these have been people that I have not met before.  There is a saying that most of a first impression is made in the first thirty seconds of meeting someone.  Perhaps in this new digital age, we should amend this saying somewhat?

Everyone has a digital identity.  Like it or not, it is out there and people do get an impression of you (both personally and professionally) via the www.  The media is full of examples of employees who have been laid off after aspects of their social life have intruded into the workplace via the web.  For each one of these examples, imagine the number of times when employees have been passed up for promotion, applications for positions have been turned down or private lives have been exposed negatively and the story has not made the news.  References and referees on job applications are worth so little these days – as most employers will Google their job applicants to gain a real impression of who they are.  I have heard of cases where applications have not been shortlisted based on inappropriate images on FaceBook or MySpace pages.  Sometimes these decisions are simply based on the friends that someone lists on their page.  A person’s photo and bio may be quite acceptable, but add a couple of photos from linked friends with images of them drinking or appearing irresponsible, and it becomes a situation of ‘guilt by association’.

Digital identity is something our students both understand and fail to comprehend at the same time.  Discuss digital identity with your students and you will discover that it is something that comes with the territory of growing up.  It is infused with who they are and who they would like to be.  They create their own spaces, communities, links and web presence and yet they do not comprehend the ways in which what they say and do could affect them now and in the future.  My current Year 12 students were born around 1993.  They are the oldest students in the school and yet they have never not known the Internet.  They have grown up with connectedness and yet they lack a good understanding of the dangers of the Internet and the importance of digital identity.  This is an area where we need to do more.  We do much to spread the message about cyber-safety and cyber-bullying – now is the time to bring digital identity to the fore.

It is said that you never get a second chance to make a first impression.  Should we also be saying ‘you never get a second chance to make a first digital impression’?  If a first impression is made within the first thirty seconds, is a first digital impression made in the first 30 Google results? 

If you don’t make a habit of ‘Googling’ yourself, perhaps you should.  The ways in which my identity manifests itself on the www never cease to surprise me.  Sure, my web page features and booksellers that are distributing my books for example.  VITTA obviously features prominently, but what often surprises me is the links that will appear to mailing list posts that have been archived on web-sites or when others have mentioned my name within their own posts.  A comment that I placed into a feedback form on a web-site appears – totally unrelated to my professional life.  Depending on how you have various profiles configured, you may also get hits from Ebay, Yahoo groups or other online communities that you belong to.  Move over to Google images and you may be able to find a photo of yourself. 

The topic of digital identity is one for now.  Talk about it with your students whenever you have the chance.  There will always be stories from the media to spark the conversation and students will no doubt be able to relate their own perceptions and experiences.  You can always Google yourself in class as a demonstration – but (like all good teachers), you will already know the answer to the question! 

There are certainly a lot of challenges to teaching ICT. Not only does the technology itself continually evolve, so too does the landscape of our students’ knowledge. We are perpetually challenged to rise above the skills of the ‘digital natives’ that we face on a daily basis and be exemplars of the discipline. I don’t know about you, but this takes a great deal of my energy – and there are times when it is harder than others.
At the start of this year, I was determined to tackle this problem head on. I set up a wiki hosted at the wikispaces web-site and proceeded to create a structure that my Year 12 Software Development class could use and make their own. I was reminded of the mantra ‘if you build it, they will come’ from a best forgotten 80’s film about baseball. The danger in such a mantra is that it is tempting to put all the work into setting things up and then standing back.

I introduced the wiki to my class during the first week of term. It is fair to say that the class was indifferent about all the work that I had done in setting it up and my plans for the ways in which it was going to be used. Interestingly, they were not particularly vocal in their criticisms in class, but in true ‘digital native’ style, let loose in the forums on the wikispace. They asked ‘what is the point of all this?’, ‘do I have to used the wiki?’ and variations of these. All good questions, but ones which we were rapidly cutting through my enthusiasm. But I was determined to address their concerns and ‘sell’ the concept to them.
As teachers of ICT, the fact that we do not know everything, is an important admission to make to our students. I do this at the start of each year by giving students an idea of where my journey started, the types of computers and technology I have encountered and the languages or tools that I have used. Most of us have been using computers for a longer time that our students have been alive and this gives us a wealth of experience and perspective. This is the advantage that we have.
Our students, on the other hand, use the latest technologies and adapt quickly. Talk to them about technology and they will use terminology and refer to programs and devices that you have not heard of. It can be a scary experience, unless you open yourself up to the fact that it will always be this way.
This is where tools such as wikis really come into their own. In setting up the wiki, I challenged my students to shape the content of the site and build a resource that would be valuable to the class as a whole. When introducing theory topics to students, I have begun by giving them a solid grounding in the core concepts and given them examples of my own experiences. As I have always done, I have then opened the topic up by asking them what they know about it and what their experiences have been. However, this year, I had a tool at my disposal that has taken this to a new level. Instead of simply having a discussion in class, I asked students to create content, append links, images and media, start or contribute to discussions. In many ways, the content and structure of my class has become extremely dynamic.
I started this piece by discussing how hard it is to stay abreast of technology and compete with the knowledge of our students. It’s hard work, but tools such as wikis make the job a lot easier. I’ve always felt that the challenge of staying up to date is not so great if you are open to turning the problem on its head. Use the resources that you have in your classes – the students themselves. If you do this, you can create a learning environment in which the education and enrichment is not just flowing from teacher to student.