2011+IT630+Module+7


 * Module 7/Week 12 **
 * Reflect on how you perceive yourself as an online learner? Are you well-prepare to be an online leaner? Tell us about what you need to improve in order to be a successful online learner. **

==== 1. **Description.**  After reading the material for our module about online learning, I happened to hear the online radio broadcast (below) and started thinking about young children and the move to digital formats for reading material, and Sherry Turkle's research with children and their connection to what is alive, and the question of being alive enough. There are some very interesting points made about life and living online, which is pretty much what you do when you are an online learner. Is online learning "alive" enough for us? I desperately miss human interaction in a classroom. I need it. I love gadgets and I love online learning, but I am convinced that for some of us, we are longing for human contact. Being a student is more than the sum of its parts. It is supporting eachother and getting to know each other. Perhaps online learning is not "alive" enough for me, but then again, I can't say that it won't be "alive" enough for the next generation of digital natives. Look hard at what we've lost going to an online environment. I think in isolation, and I write my thoughts and reactions freely with little editing. I need short bursts of interjection by other students to help form my thoughts. I need to improve my organization skills and since the internet is 24/7, I need to improve my "no study" time. ====

==== 2. **Impact.** ﻿I've learned that being an online learner is different (not better or worse) than being a traditional learner. There are ways of teaching online that we have not perfected yet or even explored and it is a very exciting time to be an educator. ====

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3. **Intent.** After listening to this radio program and reading the material for this module, I'm concerned about the plugged in status of our elementary aged children. More research and attention needs to be paid to the age at which we introduce some of the more addictive and possibly life altering technologies. Students have a right to our attention and so digital etiquette is an area that I need to explore with parents of elementary aged students. I took a poll of how many 4th graders had facebook pages and it was consistently 30%. I mentioned that they should be 13 before signing up and I suggested that they all "friend" their parents. And those that didn't have parents on FB, I asked that they convince them to get a FB page, just so they could be a friend to their parents. I need to study the evidence that the digital, electronic and wired world we are handing off to the next generation is changing the way young kids think. Sherry Turkle's observation of her own child at a zoo exhibit woke her up to the reality that being alive meant a different thing to this very young child. She makes the comment that a robot would have been alive enough for the exhibit, meaning that there was no need for the Smithsonian to bring in a real turtle. It didn't matter to the child whether the turtle was alive or not. This is a huge shift. This idea will go with me as I address parents about the internet, computers, online learning and online resources during our beginning of the year meetings. =====

Is this alive enough? http://being.publicradio.org/programs/2011/alive-enough/ [|Sherry Turkle on being alive enough] Summary: Sherry talks about Mark Zuckerberg who makes the claim that privacy is no longer relevant. Technology is changing our sense of aliveness. Sherry studies computers and how children see them as "alive". How do children decide what is alive and what is not alive. Piaget said that children defined things that were alive as being "something that physically moved on its own". Clouds were "alive" until they understood that wind pushed the clouds. When the computer came, Sherry's studies of children found that they no longer cared whether a thing moved, they cared about how a thing thought. This was a huge shift in how children thought about "aliveness". Her daughter makes a comment about a sleeping turtle at the Smithsonian. The phrase emerges, "a robot would have been alive enough" for the purpose it serves in the museum. We need to make note of what things children are missing if they don't think it's important to be alive. For example, when people plug their earphones in, and are texting, and out walking, they are not attentive to the life met along the walk. If you don't know how to be alone, you are doomed to always be lonely. A child has to live in his/her generation, but there is a loss.

Here is a way to manage the 24/7 plugged in generation. Dinner tables are a sacred space, but it's not reasonable in a car to say this is a sacred space. Technology is "on" 24/7, but we are not. To make our life livable, we need to create spaces where we are fully present to each other and we are not competing with the roar of the internet, facebook, and phones. Places in your daily life need to be kept for yourself only. It is a terrible moment for a child to be on the jungle gym, and look to the parent and see that they are texting instead of paying attention, and they are not "with them". Sherry's research and data led her to a story of parents leaving their children feeling lonely. She is not promoting an unplugged life, but she is saying we need to look carefully at being always available to anyone at any time. Is there time in the day at home when cell phones are off and everyone is unplugged? It's about balance.

====Sherry discusses the huge anxiety associated with email and its management. We send our opinions out into the world without editing. Eventually, we will become our own editors. We won't send as many emails. I'm taking an email sabbatical. Some people have declared an email bankruptcy. The message sent is, "There are 10,000 messages in my mailbox, I'm not going through these emails, if you have continuing business with me, please send me another email, otherwise, I won't be answering these". ==== ====Where are memories kept? Today's memory closet is locked in someone's hard drive. We have no letters from this generation.This generation will be shaping technology to honor what we hold dear. Sometimes, kids talk about taking a vacation from facebook. ====