Day: January 22, 2011

Privacy vs. Transparency

Denise Krebs11 Comments

Screen shot 2011-01-22 at 5.14.42 PM

Twelve years ago I started a school web site. We were painfully careful not to show the faces of children in photos. We took large group photos from a distance or we showed the backs of their heads–only photos that were unidentifiable. Over the past decade, with so much of our lives online in Facebook, Flickr, YouTube and others, things have changed. We are not fully transparent, but we definitely have changed the standards of what is appropriate regarding privacy issues on school web sites.

Now I am trying to understand how much privacy I should maintain with my blog. Can my new friends help me, please? Will you answer any or all of these student blog and privacy questions?

  • Do you put up photos on your blog that identify your school?
  • Do you identify students by name in photos?
  • Do you use real names or netnyms (pseudonyms for the web) for your blogs?
  • Do you use first names only?
  • Do you link your blog and school web together?

It’s only been in the last two weeks, since the Kick Start Your Blogging challenge began, that I’ve felt like my students and I were developing an audience for our blog. I’m delighted and excited, but I’m also concerned about the privacy issue. I would love to get comments back from you about how you do it. Thanks so much!

Art: No known copyright restrictions. Source: New York Public Library http://bit.ly/fqf8sc

Avatars: Big Blue Creatures or Picassoheads?

Denise Krebs5 Comments

Avatars. What are they? I had never given much thought to them until 2009 when the movie Avatar came out. I thought avatars were the little pictures we use to represent us on webpages, but then I saw that they were big blue critters. I was confused for a time, as I often am these days learning a new digital language. This post is about the little pictures I use to represent myself, not the James Cameron avatar.

I have one colorful picture that I use as an avatar for everything.

My Picture
My Picture

I do like that I have a familiar web presence. When I search for my username, I see much evidence that I am out there. Even on a Google image search, my colorful picture comes up–along with dozens of other unrelated images, of course.

For my colorful photo avatar I used Photo Booth on my MacBook. I do prefer a photo because I like to be a “real” person commenting on others’ posts. However, I like this playful image because it doesn’t look too stark or exactly like me, with all my middle age imperfections.

Just for fun, for this blog challenge I did create a new avatar. It was made on Picassohead.com. What fun to create! It is just another reminder to me that the world is having so much fun creating and using all these cool sites.

The Picassohead resembles me, with the one green eye and crooked lips. Not really :).  Actually, my hair is about the same length and color as on my Picassohead.

Every time I do something new on my blog,  my students have fun looking up the new websites and trying for themselves. I’m sure they will certainly want to check out the new ways listed below to create their own avatars.

Picassohead

Voki

Lego Avatar

Portrait Illustration Maker

Picassohead
Picassohead

Why? To Create, Contribute, Curate and Connect

Denise Krebs3 Comments

WHY do we do what we do in the classroom? WHY do we use the wonderful Web 2.0 apps and platforms? We need to remember to ask WHY, start with WHY.

Too often, we start with the WHAT. Smartboards, blogs, wikis, Glogster, Animoto, and on and on. Yippee, look at this new gadget! Let’s jump on board!

Secondly, we approach the HOW. OK, we’ve got this cool new app, how do we use it? We pore over help pages. Professional development time is spent learning how to use a new gadget or platform.

Angela Maiers has been challenging us these last three days at the digital literacy class #digitalliteracyiv at Prairie Lakes AEA, “Building Learning Communities: A Hands on Adventure,” to go beyond the WHAT and HOW.

Many of us, in effect, skip the WHY. According to Simon Sinek we need to Start with Why. Angela told us the WHY for everything in technology is to CREATE, CONTRIBUTE, CURATE, or CONNECT.

If the new gadget I’m considering doesn’t help me do one of those things, then I’ll find something that does.

How do you stay focused on starting with WHY?