Global Collaboration

I feel that global collaboration is an important thing for students to have. The only global collaboration I have participated in is the Flat Classroom Project, and I learned a lot through it. The project revolved around how technology is changing our world. But the more important thing I got out of it was how to work with others better, and deal with a wider variety of problems that could interfere with the progress of your project, like time zones and differing cultures.

I think that up until high school, it is not necessary to have a global collaboration experience, because once in high school, you begin to need collaboration skills for group projects. It also starts to get you prepared for the real world where tons of jobs require collaboration, and some even on a global scale.

The World is Flat Video Reflection

In class today, we watched the author of The World is Flat, Thomas L. Friedman, talk anout his book and plans for his next book. It started because someone said to him "The global economic playing field is being leveled, and you Americans aren't ready." Which he took to mean the world is flat.

He said that there are three stages if globalization, and we are in the third. Some of the new technologies that played a huge role in globalization were the Personal Computer (PC), Netscape (brought us the browser which our internet is based on), and fiber opitc cables to allow for faster uploads and downloads.

At this point in the Flat Classroom Project, I'm wondering what exactly it is we're going to do. I know that we are working on something with other students from all over the world, which I am really excited for, but it will be interesting to find out our groups and what we're doing for our project.

Digital Citizenship and what it Means

Digital citizenship is basically being a good person online, but a more professional definition is "a safe, reasonable, and ethical approach to functioning in the digital world."

In my opinion, a good digital citizen will not make public anything about anyone else without their permission to do so, they will also be honest when talking about themselves and not try to paint themselves as someone they are not, they will respect others' work and get permission to use their work, and must give credit to the author, artist, etc. Lastly, a good digital citizen will be respectful to others and their opinions, and not use digital media to bully others.

I honestly don't have much of an online profile, I don't have a YouTube account, Facebook, or Google+. And I just got introduced to Twitter this year in Digi Tools, and don't use it outside of school. So, if anyone could find anything about me online, I guarentee it wouldn't be bad. Most of my friends are similar to me when it comes to online accounts/social media. I think all of my friends have Facebook accounts, and a few have Twitter accounts, but none of them use them frequently.

If I ever do get any of these accounts and use them outside of school, I will remember what I learned in this unit about Digital Citizenship, and make sure to not post anything that could be conisdered bad or hurtful.

About Me

Welcome to my blog, this is just going to be an intro, and a little about me, but eventually I plan on posting tips on being a good digital citizen. So here we go...My name is Jeff, I'm a Jr. at Valley High School, and am currently in a class called Digital Communication Tools, but we all call it Digi Tools. The class is meant to teach us to better utilize new technology, such as Evernote, Google products, etc.

Along with the rest of my generation, I use technology every day, between texting, surfing the internet, etc. I'm hoping that this class will help me to be a better person online (not that I'm bad now), and to use all the tools available to be more productive.

How often do you use technology on average? What do you use it all for?