The Unplugged Challenge

We wanted students to consider balance when incorporating technology in their lives. So we asked them to challenge themselves to unplug from all digital technology for 24 hours as a social experiment.

The Unplugged Challenge was to take 24 hours to unplug from your devices...no cell phones, smartphones, tablets, e-Readers, computers, TV, or video games, etc.  After students finished the Unplugged Challenge, we asked them to write a blog post reflecting on the challenge of being unplugged. We wanted them to include their thoughts and feelings of being unplugged, the benefits and drawbacks of being unplugged, and how they occupied their time, or what others could do while unplugged. We gave them a time frame of a month which included two four-day long weekends.

Unfortunately, very few students even accepted the challenge. A few however did and here are their reflections on being unplugged...

Ian said...
I spent Saturday, November 23 unplugged. Some people may consider that easy, but being a teenager in the 21st century, I found myself going through withdrawal. Believe it or not, there are actually a few benefits from not using electronic, a few. One benefit was, for the whole day, I was way more observant. When I was in the car (the car does not count as an electronic device) I noticed how amazing the views were off of bridges. These bridges have been within ten miles of my house my whole life and I just realized after 15 years how outstanding they look. Of course, there are many drawbacks. Most were little things that were extremely annoying, like to tell the time, I would have to look around for a clock instead of check my phone. There was another bad thing about not being able to use electronics, and that was from when I woke up which was 10ish to around 1:00 I had almost nothing to do, so I ended up going on errands with my mom. Eventually one of my friends that knew I could not use my phone called my sister and asked me to hangout. this could be considered cheating, but know that I never held the phone or talked into it, I told my sister what to say and she told me what my friend said. I went to my friends house and we were outside for 4 hours straight, playing basketball or walking to a town market. and then at like 7:00, I was still with some friends AND IT STARTED TO SNOW! and it snowed a lot, so we spent some more time outside and then went inside to eat and warm up. we were all so tired that I ended up spending the night at my friends house and we were all asleep before 10:00. Then when I woke up, the 24 hours without electronics was up, and we celebrated by watching a movie. If you find yourself without electronics for 24 hours, you can hangout with a friend, but the plans may be hard to arrange. Or you can just spend time outside, there is probably lots to do. 

Michaela said...
I recently had to deal with something that I thought I would never have to deal with before, and it seemed impossible at first. I was told by my teacher that I had to go 24 hours without technology between then and the beginning of December. I couldn't believe my ears when I heard it, and I thought I wouldn't be able to make it. To my surprise, I did it accidentally without realizing it until it was over. What happened was I went on a retreat with a bunch of friends from my church, and we went up into the mountains of New Hampshire. Our leaders took away our cell phones and we were suppose to go the entire weekend without them. It didn't even phase me at that point that it meant that I would go over 24 hours without any devices.

I didn't miss it either. We played games and did activities the whole time so I didn't even notice. We even went out and did random acts of kindness for people. I was kept very occupied the entire time. So if you would like to participate in the "Unplugged Challenge" then I would suggest doing it with friends so that you can keep each other occupied. Hang out together, go outside, play games (board games, team games, scavenger hunts, etc.) It would also be a good idea to give all your devices to someone that you trust who isn't participating in the challenge, such as an adult you trust, so that you aren't tempted by them. Other than that, just go for it. There are plenty of ways to keep yourself occupied during the challenge, and it shouldn't be as hard as you would first believe it to be. Just go for it and have fun!

Online Privacy is an Oxymoron

Our class looked at the misconception of many adults and teenagers that what one does online is private once the privacy settings are adjusted. We read excepts from Lori Andrew's I know Who You Are and I Saw What You Did and Eli Priser's The Filer Bubble and examined Exif data on photos. As part of the Unit evaluation we asked students to explain why Online Privacy is an Oxymoron...

                                                                       Photo Source: SaFoXy's PhotoStream

                                                                       http://www.flickr.com/photos/77068017@N07/6779368830/

Liah discusses data aggregators...

There is no online privacy. Its a huge scam that comforts people into believing that they are protected online when they really are not. Once something is online its online forever. For example, data aggregators take all the information about you from what you search and post and create a "second self" or an online image of you. They use this image and sell it to say your insurance. Say you searched cancer. Now that your insurance knows that information that you searched cancer, they can now raise your insurance because there is the chance that you could have cancer. Also anyone can get around the barriers of the finite privacy walls that enclose your online profiles. Anyone can find you online from almost anything you do or say.

Search Vs. Research

We began the course by giving students the Final Project. The idea was that all the skills and tools we taught would be taught through the content of the final project.

At the beginning of our 21st Century Research Unit, we asked students to screencast themselves searching as a baseline of skill. We used 21st Century Information Fluency to create a "Search" pre-assessment.

                                                                    Photo Source: A life too ordinary blog                                          

http://shootingellie.blogspot.com/

Dylan's screencast exemplifies how many students do research. If he wasn't doing the challenge we would have accepted the first answer. 

Before the Unit
http://21cif.com/rkit/core_competencies/matrix_core_locate1a.html

At the end of the unit we again asked students to screencast themselves, this time about doing research....

After the Unit

Isabelle, Cam and Michaela really thought about what it means to do research in the 21st century...

Isabelle's Research Screencasts
http://www.screencast.com/users/izzylake123/folders/Default/media/cb39e540-060c-4e34-9b63-ce03eb267c5e

Cam's Research Screencasts
Part 1
http://www.screencast.com/users/Cam101/folders/Default/media/b3d86df8-2eb1-49f1-9e73-8415c8657c85

Part 2
http://www.screencast.com/users/Cam101/folders/Default/media/7fbac4a2-3970-41be-ba5c-f4d17206b0af

Michaela's Research Screencasts

http://www.screencast.com/users/Michaela_W/folders/Default/media/ef0a9702-73f2-4b33-b02b-08c8cfb45df0

Is My Cyber-Self A Reflection Of The Real Me?

This lesson gets student's unnerved. As part of our Digital Citizenship Unit, we explore the concept of Digital Reputation, and it's easy to give opinions about other's online habits, but once we ask students to explore their own digital reputation, the class gets tense. We ask students to gather up all their social networking posts for the last month (Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Vine, etc.)  this represents their cyber-selves. Then we ask them to ask their parents, siblings, three friends and one teacher/coach to each give three words to describe them, this represents their real selves. Then we ask them to use Wordle to create two word clouds, one for each side of them. They then analyze the word clouds and reflect: 
  Is my cyber-self a reflection of my real self?

Julia's word clouds are similar...

Real Self:



Cyber Self:



I think that my digital self is very similar to my real self. Online I talk about things that come from my real self and have to do with my life outside of the internet. Outside of the internet I do the same things and talk about the same things that I do on the internet. There is not really a difference between my real self and my digital self they are both pretty much the same. I am not fake online or in person and I don’t hide behind a different identity. I am me, online and offline.



Patrick thinks he act's different online...

Cyber-Self



Real Self



My cyber self is not like it seems. I have an Xbox and sometimes when people are mean to me I am mean back. Sometimes my friends and I troll people for fun and they get mad. On my social networking I don’t do that stuff. II don’t use it. My real self is nothing like my cyber self. I am usually nice to people but when they tick me off I am mean back.

Digital Nation

The PBS FRONTLINE  film "Digital Nation" provides a provocative look at how technology is transforming the lives of Americans. 

                                          http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/digitalnation/view/

What impact did the film have on you? 

Cam on multitasking...
The movie “Digital Nation” was about how technology can change your life. Lots of people, mostly younger children and students have the difficulties with using too much technology. Also multitasking is something that people think makes them a lot faster at doing things, when really it makes them a lot slower. Lastly that there is something called the virtual world I believe. The virtual world is when you make an avatar and it seems like you are actually in a second world. You can talk to and meet new people. This film has really changed my thinking a lot. When I’m doing homework, I’m always on my IPod and listening to music. But now that I think of it, I feel like it makes me a lot slower. And it makes my time doing homework a lot slower. I also feel like that virtual world is very interesting and cool. And looks very fun, with a great way to meet new people and friends.


Michaela on jobs and war going virtual...
This was a very interesting movie. I got quite a bit out of it. The things that stuck out to me the most was in the office, and the virtual versus reality segment. I didn’t really like the part about the office. They had a huge building made just for meetings, but they don’t use it anymore because they have virtual meetings. That is a big waste of space! It just doesn’t feel right to me. And some of them have never seen each other in real life at all. That isn’t how we were supposed to be. We are social creature and we need to see each other face to face.

The virtual versus reality part really opened me up. The first part of that was when they tested thelittle kids to see if they can implant memories by a virtual experience. AND IT WORKED!! That makes me feel queasy because they could plant some bad experiences in those kids’ heads. The second part was the Army Experience. They have a large building for kids 13 and up to play army games, and the military uses it to recruit people. This one doesn’t hit me as hard, but it’s still really interesting that the military uses video games for something like that. It was a very informative movie, but I will always love my electronics.
 

The Password Crisis

America is in the midst of a Crisis: Weak Passwords

                                       source: http://www.clubcloudcomputing.com/2013/01/infographic-on-hacking-statistics/

Our lesson looked at the problem of weak passwords in America resulting in 75% of Americans becoming victims of cyber crime due of weak passwords. Our job is to curtail cyber-crime associated with hacked passwords.  Educate America about creating un-hackable passwords.

Patrick has a solution...

1. In America people have been creating passwords that have been most common to them. Hackers all over the place can hack them of their social networks or even banks.

2. My formula for an un hackable password is to get a book any book. Preferably one that you know. Then look at the book next to it on the shelf and write it down. Then change all the letters you can to numbers and make the rest of the letters capitol. Try to have it as long as possible and remember able. Example The Maze Runner could be next to ALCapone does my Shirts. Then AL Capone turns into 4L C0p0N3 d03$ my $h1rt$. That one might be too long but it could work for an un hackable password.

3. My formula is un hackable because a hacker could figure out what book you have checked out the most, but if u haven’t checked out the book next to your favorite one then he will never guess it. Plus if you change it up like I did he will never guess. My password will be extremely hard to hack.

And Katie has a solution...

There is a crisis in America… people are losing their money, there losing their reputations! This. Is the password crisis. There is another way to protect your social media and other accounts. You need to create the unhackable password…. Your password should not be a pets name, your or a friends name, “1234” or “password” those are easy to guess.

A good idea for a password is something that you remember from childhood or from a story from when you were little that only your family knows. It should be 8+ characters and randomly switch letters for symbols and numbers. Here is an example; when I was a child I misspelled Asia, aisai (take a moment to laugh at me…) and after my friends were done laughing at me some people asked us what our phone numbers were, so the number she gave him was 123ASIA! and we ended up calling that number. So a password for me would be 123aisi! And switching letters for numbers and symbols 123@isi!. there, a unhackable password