Teaching computer skills in an urban high school setting

¶ … Concrete Experience

Initially, I wanted to take this Technology in the Classroom class to broaden my own level of general edification, as well as to assist me with my own pedagogical endeavors in the classroom (I teach a computer class at an inner city high school). This class was facilitated in a distance learning environment which helped to reinforce many of the principles and generalizations I learned regarding the usage of technology in the classroom. One of the areas of focus of this class was communications, networks and the internet, and there was a great deal of material covered in this course that was explicitly related to utilizing the internet and various computer networks to communicate. Moreover, there were instructions and guidelines for the most efficient and effective means of communicating utilizing this medium, which is highly prevalent in the digital world today. One of the most vital parts of the learning experience that related to this particular subtopic was the forum for discussion that was utilized during and following the completion of the majority of the class's assignments.

Reflections

Now that the class is finished, I realized that I learned a lot about communication via the internet. There are a number of subtleties to such communication within a physical environment that are reflected in the virtual environment as well. For instance, tone, nuance, sarcasm, and virtually any other aspect of verbal communication can be expressed through writing via a delicate manipulation of capital and lower case letters, italics, bold characters, etc. Additionally, I found that there is a greater valuation for and necessity involved with communicating in a way that is grammatically correct and properly punctuated, which can convey certain intangible assets such as respect and care. There were certain course objectives that helped me to learn about this process.

Generalizations, Principles and Theories

I was actually exposed to a number of principles during this course related to communication and the internet of which I was not previously aware. The concept of digital citizenship is something which I had not fully conceived of previously -- certainly not in those terms. However, I was also able to learn a number of important safety precautions related to maintaining the health of my computer and my network -- such as denoting various types of credibility associated with web sites, distinguishing between .coms, .orgs, .nets, and .govs, as well as the proper etiquette for communicating with others and identifying behavior that is and is not appropriate. Moreover, I was able to learn these techniques in a didactic fashion that has a number of applications to my teaching, especially as they relate to social media and online presence in general.

Testing and Application

One of the most advantageous aspects of my taking this course is the fact that I can readily apply its principles to the computer class that I have been teaching. One of the chief was that I was able to test many of the concepts that I learned in this class relating to communications, networks and the internet was by having my students get their own class-mandated social media profiles. Doing so gave me an opportunity to impart much of the wisdom I had learned regarding how toe effectively utilize social media in a professional environment, as well as a viable medium for monitoring their progress and seeing how well they were actually able to implement those principles. Their communication had to adhere to the guidelines that I learned via the class, and they were tasked with finding summer programs to participate in and leveraging their social media profiles during the application process.

Description of Concrete Experience

Through the aforementioned computer class, Technology in the Classroom, I was able to experience a number of different facets of ethical considerations in an information society. This class not only focused on various aspects of considerations pertaining to ethics, but also on the multifaceted landscape than helps to comprise an information society. Furthermore, because this class was accessed online, there was a certain pragmatic application to ethical considerations since students such as myself had to actually participate in today's information society in order to learn about these various principles. One of the facets of this course that specifically pertained to ethics was the interactivity it involved among classmates and the instructor. We had many opportunities to comment on the thoughts and assignments of one another during the discussion forum, which helped to provide a practical means for enacting ethical principles that we learned about.

Reflections

Although this class was not necessarily centered on ethics, it was able to contain a fair amount of information about this subject. I actually would not have minded if there had been more time spent on ethical considerations related to today's information society, since this facet of the internet is swiftly emerging as one of the most widely discussed topics related to it. The issues of privacy that have emerged within the wake of big data, the NSA revelations and others attest to the value of this topic, and which is why I also wish the class could have spent more time exploring the various facets of things one needs to be aware of from an ethical perspective in regards to the internet. Nonetheless, what I did learn was of value and important for shaping my conception of what is really going on when people access this medium.

Generalizations, Principles and Theories

The main principles linked to the course outcome that I learned regarding ethical considerations in an information society pertains to the concept of digital citizenship, and what that actually means. This is actually an extremely valid idea and is much more than theoretical in nature -- it is reality. There are many parallels between the virtual environment of the internet and that of the physical world, especially that which takes place in public domains. Practically everything that an individual does in both of these environments is available to public scrutiny; moreover, in the former every click of the mouse is able to be recorded, monitored, and analyzed with the presence of Big Data. Thus, it is important that individuals conduct themselves ins a respectable, ethical manner because there is little autonomy within the internet environment. Additionally, the frequency of its use gives it a preeminence that can even transcend that of the physical world at times.