Photo Stories

I definitely liked working with Animoto the most. It took only a few minutes, and it looked like I put in so much effort based on the results. Although it was more or less out of my control, the finished product still looked great. The scrapbooking one definitely highlighted the pictures more and allowed each of them to be viewed individually, telling less of a story and appearing more like a photo album. The ready-made templates were a nice touch, though. The voicethread program worked well, too, but I felt it was a little boring overall. I think the final product looked the least polished out of the three.

Growing Up Online

Link:
Brittany's blog


After viewing the Frontline special, I formed my own ideas and opinions regarding the
arguments made. For the most part, I believe that the Internet has both negative and positive side effects on today's youth. What I believe we all can agree on, no matter what our opinions regarding whether or not the Internet is a "good" thing, is that the Internet's influence on kids today is inevitable, and that we must learn, as both teachers and parents, to adapt to its presence in all of our lives. Just as teachers and parents teach kids not to talk to strangers on the street nor accept candy from anyone they don't know, they can also teach them to be wary of online strangers. Just because there are potential dangerous persons who prey on children at parks and even school playgrounds doesn't mean that parents ban their kids from going to those places. It's all about being responsible. It comes to the point that you need to allow your children to prove that they can apply what they've learned from you in a safe, responsible manner.

In her blog, Brittany stated, "And, to be honest, with how accessible the internet has made information in general, and how important we as a society has helped to make it, we have to take the good along with the bad." I think this illustrates the point that the Internet has provided us with so much that we use on a regular basis, and like other, older institutions that are significant presences in our lives, it has its positives and negatives. Completely blocking off access to the Internet, placing too many restrictions, or basically invading children's privacy is not a responsible nor effective way to deal with it. This is a rather lazy route that doesn't take the time to teach students how to find the good among the bad on their own. As stated in Ch. 4,
"we need to stop thinking of our children as victims and start thinking of them as participants."