Creative Commons Licensing Video

         The minute you create something, whether it be a photo, a written piece of work, a song, or a doodle on a napkin, it is automatically copyrighted to you. When something is copyrighted it means “all rights reserved,” but with creative commons licensing, only “some rights are reserved.” Creative commons allows you to share your work with people all over the world so that they can learn from you and continue to build on your creation, without the hassle of them having to ask you for permission. As this video explains, creative commons gives out free copyright licenses that let people know exactly what parts of their copyright they are happy to share. This is a new world of copyright where collaboration dominates. 

Issues in Educational Technology

          Copyright, which is a form of protection to the authors of original works, is a serious matter and it is important to know the laws that come along with it because it could cause you to get into serious legal trouble. However, copyright laws are not the only legalities when it comes to educational technology. The No Child Left Behind mandate, together with the National Educational Technology Plan, put forth a framework of guidelines for schools to follow in order to close the achievement gap. The No Child Left Behind act came about due to the declining reading scores in America and has four basic reform principles: results, local control of local issues, effective methods that bring about results, and choices for parents. The philosophy of the NTEP is to use technology to better meet the needs of students, teachers, parents and administrators. They will ensure that teachers are trained and prepared on how to incorporate technology into their curriculum, which will also help in the closing of the digital divide-the gap between those who have access to technology and those who don’t. The goal is to integrate the application of technology into the classroom so that all students can have the same resources and take part in a more dynamic learning process.

            In this weeks readings we also explored the issue of copyright and fair use and because of the fact that the No Child Left Behind mandate doesn’t pertain to my major, I am going to explore how copyright does. In a field such as telecommunications, which is all about communication and getting issues out to the public, it is absolutely necessary to watch what you say. It is important that I make sure to use my own words when telling a story, especially if it is something I’ve researched from another source. Even if I were to use some cute catch phrase to conclude a story I was reporting on, you never know where that phrase may have originated, and it may in fact, not be mine to use. Being in a field that has you in the public eye, whether on TV or online, it easy for people to follow you and track everything you say so I will definitely be researching the laws on copyright and where fair use can be applied.

            I felt that this video called The Digital Divide, although it is only 38 seconds in length, has a powerful message! It switches back to the topic of the digital divide and shows us how unfortunate many people are, especially those in other countries. It basically asks us to think about our lives without digital technology and how we would be living if this trend had never started. For 300 million people it hasn’t started. Hopefully with the integration of technology into more and more classrooms, some of those less fortunate will be able to experience what the vast majority of us take for granted everyday. 

Web Technology

           It is unbelievable to think about how computers and the Internet have evolved over so many years. The first computer was created in 1959 and could only perform one task at a time…could you imagine? The Internet has come a long way since then and evolved into the vast networking system we know and love today.  Rapid change and growth will continue to define the future of the Internet as we continue to become a more and more technological world. There are billions of people connected to the Internet in this day and age and that doesn’t necessarily mean through computers. Internet usage is departing from computers because so many individuals have access to it through their mobile phones. With our constantly moving society where people are always on the go, it is so convenient for them to check their email, network with friends, and get updated on the recent news stories all through their cellular devices. Kids, today, are growing up in this expanding technological trend, essentially growing up online, as the Frontline series points out. Teenagers use the Internet to talk to friends and create their own profiles on websites such as Facebook where they can network with people they know and even people they may not know. This is a rising concern for parents who worry about their children’s safety. Educators also have to step up their game in the classroom because with all the media that kids consume it is hard for teachers to keep their attention with a chalkboard and lecture. This generation of students no longer reads the newspaper and as Steve Maher, a social studies teacher, says in the article that goes along with the Growing Up Online documentary, "We almost have to be entertainers."

            This expanding Internet trend and mobile usage of the Internet could really be beneficial to me in my field of telecommunications. Being able to access information in a matter of seconds will allow me to look up a fact that I may need to find to produce a better report for my viewers. Whether I have access to a computer or not, chances are, I’ll be able to look up anything I need to find online and that will make me a more knowledgeable professional and allow me to do my job much more efficiently. Specifically, field reporters, who do news broadcasts on location will definitely benefit from the ability to access information from their mobile devices. It would also enable them to update the news online on their news website immediately after they have reported on it. Such advancements in technology and the Internet will allow me to get my message out quickly so my viewers can follow my reports and I can be superior at my job!

            When talking about web technology, I find the expansion of mobile technology to be an exciting trend in the way we live our everyday lives. I found an article on mobile technology which kind of explains the idea in greater detail and what it allows us to do and the benefits and drawbacks of such. It does, however, relate it specifically to the business field and how it can be useful to professionals but I see the same ups and downs applying to a lot of career fields. It explains how mobile technology gives you the ability to connect to the Internet wirelessly, therefore giving you the power to access information and ‘customer’ accounts quickly. Just as businessmen and women can update information away from the office, as a news reporter I could also update on-site news stories to the web while away from the actual news desk or office, like I mentioned in the previous paragraph. Although it can get costly, the growth of mobile technology is increasing flexibility in the work force and lets individuals connect to the digital world at any time, in any place. 

Designing Instructional Media

When designing for instructional media you want to keep it simple, clean, and concise. The acronym C.R.A.P., lays out the four key guidelines for instructional media and those are contrast, repetition, alignment, and proximity. Points should be clear to the reader, bold in size, and visually appealing! There is no need to overcrowd the slides with too much information and/or graphics or to use obnoxious slide backgrounds and fancy transitions. It is okay to use transitions and graphics in moderation but too much of any of these things can be distracting from the points you are trying to convey in your presentation.  The focus in any layout design should be the material and making sure it is organized in an effective way rather than the features that will appear on it or the background of the power point.

            I’m only a second year telecom major and therefore am not completely invested into all the aspects of my field yet, so it’s a little tricky for me to relate this subject to my studies. However, telecommunications is all about communicating in a clear and effective way and there are also different tiers to my major; it’s not just in front of the camera. The web designing guidelines would really be useful to help make sure a news website is easy to follow and not crammed with too much information as to distract the readers. It’s never good to use too many graphics but putting a picture alongside a news story, in some cases, may be very helpful to help make sure the viewers are really making sense of the event they are reading about. Properly designing for the web is very important in order to communicate effectively with the public and keep them coming back to your site for more news updates.

            The key feature of modern web design is simplicity. It can’t be stated any simpler than that and this article continues to emphasize the importance of that for the current style in graphic design for the web. I thought this was a useful outside resource because it shows examples of some excellent graphic design technique, allowing you to really understand how a clear and easy to follow web page should look. This article explains that you should design the content, not the page. Graphics should be used sparingly, alignment should be centered, text should be nice and large for your audience and there should be plenty of white space. Seems like we already know these facts but they truly are the main guidelines to follow for excellent web design. This site just lays it out in a different way and helps you make a design from scratch.

The Partnership for 21st Century Skills

The partnership for 21^st century skills is a national organization that has created a framework of skills that are beyond those of a student’s core academic training. The partnership wants to share this with educators in order to expand the skills in which student’s in this day and age are learning, to better prepare them for the future.  The Framework for 21^st Century Learning, as this vision is called, focuses on the importance of critical thinking, problem solving, communication, collaboration, innovation, creativity, and technological literacy.  It also emphasizes the idea that 21^st century interdisciplinary themes, such as global awareness, economic literacy, and civic literacy, should be woven into the core content students are learning, like English, mathematics, and science. It is important that students leave school with a more dynamic educational background to allow them to thrive in our ever-changing social atmosphere.

Being a telecommunications major, I feel that 21^st century skills go hand in hand with my studies. Having all of these skills would prove beneficial to me in my field but there are a few that would aid me more so than the rest. Communication and collaboration are two main aspects of my major because I am hoping to be a news reporter and it is essential to the success of my career. I need to be able to communicate clearly with my team about the ideas that I have for our broadcasts and as a reporter it is of utmost importance that I am able to clearly communicate ideas and information to my viewers. I also believe that information, media, and definitely technology literacy are very valuable to my selected major. I may not start off as a broadcast reporter as soon as I step out of the collegiate realm, I may be working behind the scenes with cameras and computers and such. Technology is constantly changing and becoming more complex and it is pertinent that I can use it appropriately in my field.

In this video, 21st Century Learning Matters, the speakers continue to emphasize the concepts of 21^st century learning and how it is important to incorporate these skills into students’ education. It can be learned, but not unless we change the framework of learning that is tradition. It is mentioned in the video that this is a systematic change and it is important that we overcome the inertia we are already used to in order to open ourselves up to the idea of these 21^stcentury skills. This video has a lot of qualified speakers who support the change for 21^st century learning and want to make sure that kids in all parts of the world are getting the education they need to succeed in their future, in a digital world!