Embedding Internet Safety to Blog practice

Today we are going to try and embed your video(s) in your blog.  The first thing that you will need to do is make sure your video is loaded into your class/hour group on GoAnimate!  Once that has been taken care of I can then copy and send you (through email) the embed code that you will need to post to your blog (some of you might notice that you have already been sent the email).

Additionally, when you receive the email that contains the embed code from me you will need to forward that to your partner since they will also need to embed your video(s) on their blog.

To complete the Internet Safety project you will need to embed your video(s) on your blog.  If you have only one video you will embed it in one blog post - if you have more than one video you will have to embed each video in a different blogpost.  Once you have embedded all of your videos you will need to send me an email that contains the names of you and your partner(s), as well as a link to your blog and your partners blog.  Here is what I would do if I were Jimmy Fallon:

Mr. Pardoe:

Here are the links to our groups blogs for the Internet Safety project:

Jimmy Fallon - tonightshow.blogspot.com
Tina Fey - funnylady.blogspot.com

Thanks!

Jimmy Fallon
Tonight Show host

After completing this, what I want you to do is choose a practice website to go to and practice.  Use your speed skin while you are practicing.

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Vocab definitions due! Internet Safety project

For those who have vocab definitions due please remember that your definitions needs to be posted to the Wikispaces webpage by tonight!

We will be working on our Internet Safety project during class today.  I have new login information for you - please be sure to write this information down!!  You will have to start over with a new video, but you should be ok because you would have only had a maximum of 30 seconds from your last video.

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Continue Internet Safety project vocab definitions due by tomorrow week 4

We will continue working on the Internet Safety project today.  You should be gathering information and forming what you gather into a cohesive movie.  If you have questions about Go Animate! I will do my best to answer your questions.

This is a vocabulary week - definitions are due on the Wikispaces page by tomorrow night.  This weeks theme is Software.

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Internet Intranet and Extranet

This is a free online course from Education Portal. The class is Business 104: Information Systems and Computer Applications.

Not all of this applies to the CS Principles class, but the section on the Internet offers some good explanations ns of the Internet at a more technical level.

http://education-portal.com/academy/topic/internet-intranet-and-extranet.html

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Internet video

Today we are going to watch a video on the History of the Internet.  Dont forget that tomorrow is the last day of the quarter...if you have any missing assignments you need to get them turned in no later than tomorrow.

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A history of the Internet

This is a vocabulary week - please make sure to get your vocab definitions completed by tomorrow night for Week 7!

Today we are going to watch the video below on the history of the Internet.

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Internet Safety 2 days left! Alice programming introduction

There are 2 days left to work on (in class) your Internet Safety project.  Tomorrow is the last day you will be allowed to work on it and it should be done by the end of the hour.

If you are done you are going to begin working on Alice - an Educational software program that teaches you computer programming in a 3D environment.  To use Alice, go to Finder on your computer.  Next, double click on the Alice folder.  Then, double click on the icon labeled Alice - you will need to agree to any user agreements.

Once you have opened Alice come back here and go to the following video and watch an introduction on how you will interact with the Alice interface.

Alice introductory video

Once you have watched that video you will begin working in Alice with Oracle Academy.  You will work through a series of Lessons that will help you to better understand how Alice works and how to manipulate the Alice programming environment.  Here is where you need to go:

Oracle Academy

Once at that website, click on "Get Started with Alice 3" under the red rectangle on the left side of the page (the red rectangle says "Self Study: Getting started with Java using Alice").  Work through each of the sections of that lesson - if you complete all of the sections move to the next lesson ("Add and Position Objects"); if you complete the different sections of that lesson move on the next lesson, and so on.

We will be using Alice often in the last quarter - you will be getting a head start on learning the software.

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Are American High Schools working in the Internet Age

(continuation of  Redefining Teachers in the Internet Age)

Before we can redefine teaching we must examine schools themselves.

One of the core issues the Internet in education raises: does this always mean we need to visit a teacher in person? Traditionally the most efficient way for an expert to share knowledge was to collect a large number of people in a room at the same time and talk. Now, the Internet has the potential of bringing this conversation to a much larger group that do not necessarily need to be housed in the same place at the same time.

For the traditional American high school this raises some large questions. A lot of modern educational theory centers around manipulating large numbers of mostly unwilling participants into absorbing information and skills that they do not inherently care about. We train teachers in both delivery and assessment, and spend an inordinate amount of time on behavior management. (* In case youd like to see an example: http://teachlikeachampion.com/the-classroom/ . *)

So what if we took this off the table? Lets say we now face the same questions education faced at the beginning of the last century when moves towards compulsory education first began. At that point there were not large buildings meant to house 2000 or more teenagers in order to teach them. At the time it was a new model centered around the need to be physically present with a teacher.

So, does this model still work? There is a lot of discussion currently around what is wrong and why in education. Perhaps part of it is the buildings themselves. Our underlying assumption that we have to put thousands of 16 year-olds in a building in order to effectively educate them might not be true anymore.

If we were, right now, building a compulsory education system from scratch would that the solution look like? Think about it for a minute. If you had to build an educational system from scratch, right now, with no infrastructure, school districts, buildings...what would you design? Would every student have access to high quality classes? How?

There are advantages to both in person and online teaching. Neither alone holds the solution to the myriad issues of quality and access that plague our educational system.

But it is time to start investigating - Are we doing it this way because it works or because of the infrastructure we already have in place?

And ultimately, what is the best way to introduce our children to collected human knowledge?

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Internet Safety project continues!

We are still working on our Internet Safety project.  Since I havent said anything about it in a while, please make sure to check the rubric at the bottom of the Internet Safety page on the blog to remind yourself what you need to accomplish.  Also, keep in mind the theme of "Would a 3rd grader understand what you are creating?"  In other words, make it simple.

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Vocabulary Internet Safety

After watching the video on some of the vocabulary words, please continue working on your Internet Safety project.

One caution I would highlight - we seem to be having issues with students who are using Chrome.  Usually what happens is there is a window that pops up asking you to allow or deny something regarding GoAnimate!...and then you are unable to choose either (in other words your computer basically locks up).  So, I highly recommend that you choose to use either Firefox or Safari in order to avoid that happening.  When this does happen you will not be able to save your information - Im sure youd hate to do 30 minutes of work only to have it not save because this window pops up.

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Mapping the Internet

Whenever we start a new topic I love having an activity to set the tone. I came across the Mapping the Internet a few weeks back.

The projects asks people to "Please draw a map of the Internet, as you see it. Indicate your "home".

Yesterday I wrote about HTML in my Internet Unplugged unit. I think this would be a fun way to start off that unit.

My Daughters Maps

They have a taxonomy of these maps. Which of course is data - another big idea from CS Principles. From here it would be interesting to collect the students drawings and do some discussion board topics about what they drew. Were there common themes? How did your map change after learning about the physical parts of the Internet? Did it change after learning HTML and CSS?


Another thing I try to do is set a presence for computer science in my school. Wherever we can I do art projects and hang them in the halls around the building. This would be another great way to get computer science out of the lab.

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Internet Safety

Please continue to work on your Internet Safety project with your partner if you have not yet completed your 4 topics.  There have been several people asking about length - there is no minimum or maximum time that your video (or videos) need to be - you just need to clearly explain 4 of the topics of Internet Safety.

If you are done with your project today I want you to go to the practice websites on the blog - you will use your speed skin as you type.

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Redefining Teachers in the Internet Age

Is teaching still relevant?

Throughout history, to become educated was to join the collective of human thought. To participate, we needed a pass key. Our very oldest tradition in handing over the key is teaching: One human sharing collected knowledge with another human.

As time moves on humans continue to acquire tools, many aiding this process of teaching -- of passing knowledge to the next generation. Songs, stories, written language, paper, books, an eventually the printing press brought ever wider groups of people into contact with this always-expanding collection of human knowledge.

And so we can read Pliny the Youngers first-hand account of the eruption of Mount Vesuvius at Pompeii and can see the notebooks in which DaVinci captured his inventions. This collection of knowledge is the single most powerful human creation.

Aiding each generation passing along and preserving this living trove of our collective genius, there were teachers. Not always as we think of them now, tethered to school buildings. But individuals able to collect, communicate and pass their knowledge along.

Today the latest development in storing and retrieving human collective thought, the Internet, brings a major disruption to this tradition of human-to-human conference.

Anyone can access this collective -- nearly all of it -- with a handheld device that most of us carry in our pockets. Individuals have available much more information than ever before. Some of it factual and well reasoned, some of it incendiary and one sided. Quite a lot of it is trivial and frankly salacious.

So now, more than any other time in human history, the individual chooses how and what parts of this vast and ever expanding collection are compelling and meaningful to them.

This rise in access to information parallels in this country the decline in regard for teachers. This hardly seems coincidental. Since we no longer need to visit a building and interact with an expert to gain facts and information, what use have we for a teacher?

While the point of access has changed the need for filtering these facts with experience and wisdom has not.  In redefining this role we must analyze what is needed in this new era. Is the acquisition of facts and data enough?

This is the second role of the teacher. Not just a distributor of information, they also provide context. Knowledge is more than just a list of facts. It is also this context and analysis that can change facts into action and expression.

The Internet offers a vast and deep sea of information. In this era of omni-availability of data we must recognize the importance of offering guidance as students interact with information. Self selecting the latest celebrity gossip about Kim Kardashian is simply not the same as participating in a lively debate about the sociological implications of the suffrage movement.

Teachers are not just there to distribute information, but now serve as cartographers of this new ocean. They tell the stories that give our collected knowledge context. They expose us to new ways of combining our experiences and introduce us to subjects we might never have self selected.

As our education becomes ever more personal and individualized there comes an even more pressing need to have an expert guide us at certain points along the way.

Comment below to define the debate - is the Internet fundamentally redefining teaching?  What do you think?

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Start Internet Safety Project

Today we will begin working on the Internet Safety project.  You will be working with a partner on this project, so we are going to discuss how you can make sure that you both have access to the same information using your Google Drive and documents.

Once we complete that we will take a look at the Internet Safety page on the blog.  Here you will find all the information you will need for this project.  You are welcome to do your own search outside of what you find on the blog, but my research has shown me that what is listed here is plenty to help you cover what you will be doing with the project.

You and your partner will need to decide on 4 areas of Internet Safety to present on.  You can choose among these areas to research:

IDENTITY THEFT
PASSWORDS AND PASSWORD PROTECTION
SOCIAL NETWORKING AND USING SELF-CONTROL
RELIABILITY OF INFORMATION FOUND ON WEBSITES
CYBERBULLYING AND/OR HARASSMENT
ACCESSING INAPPROPRIATE WEBSITES (WHAT TO DO)
EMAIL AND/OR PHISHING AND/OR SPAM (PITFALLS AND HOW TO AVOID)

If the Internet Safety page has a link to a website that no longer works, or takes you to a website that doesnt have anything to do with Internet Safety please let me know so I can fix it (or delete it, depending on the situation).

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Underwater Spaghetti Internet Cables

So sometimes in teaching you add a little fun fact into a lesson and that one little grain of sand takes over.

Underwater Internet Cables

I know, it seems totally random. But for two years in the APCS Principles pilot the students have been totally transfixed by this. It was a tiny picture off to the side of the notes and their questions. It led to a great conversation about the physical structure of the Internet and equity of access.

So look at this map:

I asked the kids what they notice first - many of them talked about how many parts of the world have very limited connections. This makes for a great writing prompt for their journals.

Just found these interactive maps - they let you explore these cables ad see where the connections are.

• Interactive Cable Map - this one lets you click and see details about where the lines are connected to various countries
• Interactive Cable Map with List of Cables - This one has a nice listing to the side of all of the major cables
• Collection of Maps-picture 5 - 8 that moves through the growth of users from 2002 to 2008 is pretty impressive

As an interesting comparison, here is a map of the first underwater cables laid int he mid 1800a that made up the telegraph system:

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How to Teach the Internet Dont

Today my Computer Science Principles classes are starting Unit 2: The Internet Unplugged.

So rather than a terrible exciting lecture on the structure of the Internet - translation "Heres what I think you should care about" - we started with questions.

Telegraph Lines

They were asked to write their own definition of the Internet, and share at least three questions they have about it.

Really, we all use it daily, so we should all have our own working understanding of what it is. By starting with their understanding I can see where we need to add information and what the emphasis should be.

The questions help me plan our activities. By the end of the chapter I want them to understand that the Internet is a physical thing, and be able to describe how it works. I want them understanding how content is posted and to discuss the implications ethically of its content. I want them to know a little HTML and CSS and have the confidence to look up what they need.

But first, I want them thinking.

Questions they asked:

• How is it possible that the internet can be censored in some countries?
• Who owns the internet?
• Who made the internet?
• How does it actually work?
• Why was it originally created?
• When did personal computers have access to it?
• Who owns data on the internet?
• Why is internet copyright so important?
• How hard is it to break the internet?

Right now some of my favorites are Who owns the internet? and  How is it possible that the internet can be censored in some countries? 

Frankly we could start by investigating those two things and cover everything we need to know.

Bookshelf:

• Tubes by Andrew Blum
• Story of how theInternet is constructed - I summarized it here
• As We May Think by Dr. Vannevar Bush
• Originally published in 1945 this is the first description of linked text - "Thus he builds a trail of his interest through the maze of materials available to him." Really, read section 7 if you are short on time.
• Blown to Bits by Hal Abelson (also available free here)
• Good reading for students, especially the appendix
• Stuck in the Shallow End by Jane Margolis
• Also read this by Jane - great food for thought in this era of "tech fixes everything"

Some Lessons Well do:

• Cups and Strings
• Mapping the Internet
• Underwater Cables
• Why do HTML

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Crossword Puzzle due Internet safety

Please hand in your crossword puzzle to the gray tray on my desk.  You will need to make sure your name is on the handout!

Today you will use the hour to work with your partner(s) on your Internet Safety project.  If you havent created an account at GoAnimate! you may want to get that done ASAP.  

As you are creating your movies/videos, here is a suggestion to help you simplify what you create:  list the topic you are going to cover, next explain what the topic is, then provide as many details as you can about the Internet safety topic, and if you havent already provided details on how a person can avoid having that happen to them.  

There has been a change to the vocab lists - I found out yesterday that the week of ISAT is the week of March 10-14.  Originally the ISAT testing was scheduled for the week before, and when the vocab weeks were setup the week of March 10-14 was a vocab week while March 3-7 was not a vocab week.  We will now have to switch those weeks - for those of you who were originally responsible for week 5 vocab words you are still responsible for the same words, its just that you now have one less week to complete your definitions.  If you had followed my advice early in the semester and entered your definitions for all of the weeks as early as possible you have nothing to worry about.  If, however, you have not posted your definitions for week 5 you will need to have them posted by Tuesday, Mar. 4th.

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Internet Safety last week Vocab week 5 missing assignments

This will be the last week that you will be allowed to work on the Internet Safety project.  It will be due at the end of the hour on Thursday.

Additionally we have another list of vocab words this week - list #5 (it is the first of 3 Internet lists).  As usual the vocab definitions need to be completed by Tuesday night and we will have our quiz on Friday.

Lastly, I have printed out new missing assignments lists - if you havent checked Skyward recently you may want to look at the new sheets posted on the wall.

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Vocab Quiz 4 Internet Safety

You will get a few minutes at the beginning of the hour to review for the vocab quiz.  Do not go to Classmarker until I say it is ok to do so.

Again...once you complete your quiz get with your partner and keep creating videos!

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Internet Safety and passwords

Today we will be covering passwords.  Below are 4 different websites that offer the ability to help you generate a password for a website.  Having unique passwords on the various websites you have usernames for will be very valuable in the future.  Right now you probably dont have a bunch of websites that you have a username with that protects your private information...but you will in the future, and using different passwords on those websites will be crucial for your Internet Safety, and for your financial safety as well.  Imagine someone who has the same password for their checking account, savings account, retirement account, cell phone provider, cable provider, etc. - if a person were to figure out what their ONE password is they would really be able to make that persons life completely miserable!

Here are the four websites:

Norton Password Generator
Random Password Generator
New Password Generator
Password Bird

After looking at these websites we will begin looking at Go Animate!  This will be the website we use to create your Internet Safety video.  The website has some pretty cool characteristics that we will go over...my guess is by the time you get done creating your video you will be much better at using the website than I am.

You and your partner will need to create a username and password.  You will be solely responsible for remembering what that information is - I am not going to ask what your username and passwords are so make sure to keep them written down in your Google Doc that houses your passwords.

There are some restrictions with the website, the most notable of which (at least for our cause) is that you only are allowed 2 mins per video.  To further restrict our goal of creating an Internet Safety video in which you cover 4 topics, you can only have one action and one character talking per scene. I would recommend thinking about creating 2 videos where you use each video to talk about 2 of your topics (this is not a requirement, but after looking at the following instructions you may find that creating 2 videos will make your job easier).

As for your video, you will want to keep the following in mind as you create your video:  would a 3rd grader be able to understand your video?  Do you explain your topic in easy to understand terms (terms that a 3rd grader would understand)?  Do you provide a lot of details so that a 3rd grader could watch your video and then NOT have any questions afterwards?  If you can keep those things in mind as you create your video you will go a long way towards solving the first two criteria of your grade (Clarity of Presentation and Depth of Understanding).

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