Good morning readers!
Today, in this very first entry for ETC 447, I will be talking about Socially Responsible Digital use, the topic which we have been exploring for the last few weeks. In conjunction with this, I will be comparing them to Scratch, an online program which we discovered and presented in class that's a tool to create stories, games, and animations with others around the world.
Here is what I've come up with and I hope you agree, and learn a thing or three.
Equitable Access- With access to a computer with internet, Scratch is a website which is equitable for anyone to access. The site is entirely Free to sign up for, with no age limit, and clear to follow written directions to navigate it. Anyone from students, to adults, to anyone who is bored can join to play the flash games, chat with others, and see what everything has to offer. There are no restrictions to who and where it can be accessed, there is even the option to pull it up on mobile or tablet devices!
Safe, Ethical, Legal- This website is legal for the fact that it presents sources to which information is pulled, and all of the animations were original and created by the website for use by their members. The cute illustrations of cats, and other things were created by them independently and are not things which were simply pulled from wherever on the internet and used for their gain. They are ethical in their presentation of materials to students in this way as well.
Socially Responsible- Because Scratch is a free website and not a program, there is no real risk for stealing the program or downloading/pirating it illegally for use in a class or independently. Additionally, because it is geared toward young students, any other extensions of the website such as .com, .net, .org, do not lead to any other inappropriate websites. Through checking this, it either did not bring up a website at all, or simply something about safety tips, nothing that would be socially irresponsible for them to access. Also, by keeping their password and username to themselves and not sharing it with others, students would also be practicing socially responsible digital use and taking care of their online personas.
Global awareness and cultural Understanding- By giving members the option to post their work and share with others around the world creates an online community which spreads worldwide. People can speak to each other on opposite sides of the planet instantaneously, and discuss, post comments and feedback, and appreciate each others work in a creative and exciting environment. This encourages good conversation and garners knowledge of other cultures and even awareness of time zones when a 'pen pal' of the class replies at 3am our time. This can lead right into a lesson even!
- In what learning environments would the technology resource I presented NOT be appropriate?
Safe, Ethical, Legal- Students may get excited to create these animations and stories, and potentially use and upload images which are not theirs legally, and might be copyrighted and they didn't know it. Unless students are properly educated on what materials are ethical to use without permission (no need to cite) and which ones ARE, they might make the mistake of creating a game or story which is unintentionally plagiarizing.
Socially Responsible- What might be dangerous about signing up for any website is giving away personal information which could lead to jeopardizing student safety-- And in contrast to the above there is always the chance that a student could include photos of where they live, their family, even too much information about what they like or do for fun which could lead to telling untrustworthy strangers these too-personal things. This is easy to do even if you don't mean it and are just trying to do a good job on your project! This is dangerous.
Global awareness and cultural Understanding- The downside to the website being entirely open to the public, is everything which you share is never really private. Although there are options to limit your audience slightly, there are still many ways for people around the world to see what young students post or create. According to the website, there are over 6 million projects which have already been posted and ready to share-- and some of these things might be culturally insensitive or accidentally racist towards students. Even with a full staff which surely works on this site, there is no way to fully monitor THAT many daily postings to ensure all is safe and appropriate.
- How might it be modified to be appropriate?
Equitable Access- Ease of access, a program which allows for changes in the computer's output options, can be enabled for students which accessibility of this website is an issue. Contrast can be increased on the screen, the words can be read aloud, and text can be enlarged for students who might be visually or motor impaired in some way. Additionally, students can be asked to work in pairs or groups on particular projects to collaborate and allow the strengths of multiple students to come together to create a project-- and avoid drawing unnecessary attention to students who might have difficulties in certain areas.
Safe, Ethical, Legal- By instilling in students that their password and username important to keep safe, and follow the acronym for internet safety YAPPY, the teacher ahead of time could create appropriate accounts for the students and simply tell them which one is theirs when the time comes! For example, instead of letting Timmy decide his username is TimmySmith, his true first and last name, the teacher could create T0101, which does not give away any personal information or jeopardize him in any way. By making it FOR him, she can simply provide a sheet of paper that keeps track of login credentials in case a student should forget. Better safe than sorry, and parents are more likely to favor this option.
Socially Responsible- In order to modify the website to be more socially responsible, the teacher should go through the discussion postings beforehand to be sure that all topics are relevant and appropriate for the age group before allowing students access into the particular thread. This could be a way to ensure students are not going to view or read things which are negative or don't pertain to the particular lesson or topic in class. By instructing that students only use materials which can be found on the website and not uploading their own images, etc. he/she is also ensuring that students are not stealing images to use that do not explicitly belong to them and they just found on google images.
Global awareness and cultural Understanding- To ensure safety with conversation with strangers around the world, this can be completed as a class-- with the teacher initiating conversation and reading the responses ahead of time to be sure they are okay with the class to avoid negative surprises. For example, if a project is posted by the class, and an individual from India or Japan comments or wishes to talk about it, the teacher will mediate conversation by actually typing it out while students provide input on what they would like to say or ask this person. This fosters global awareness by getting to interact with a stranger in a safe way, because we never know if that person on the other side of the screen is really who they say they are! This is just an extra safety step while acknowledging cultures and countries other than our class' own.
Thank you for taking the time to read, and if you'd like to check out the website in question, here's the link! Get an idea of what you think of it for yourself!:
www.scratch.mit.edu
