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When I first saw the title to this article, "Infographic: Citizenship in the digital age," it made me smile. The popularity of technology and the world wide wide is growing rapidly. It's not only for personal use anymore. We truly have reached a "digital age." Anything and everything can be done and is done through the internet. With technology growing and becoming more and more available in the classroom and at home. Children as young as 3 and 4 years old are having access to things we never thought would be possible. As funny as it may sound it is extremely accurate that this article compares all of the similarities between actual citizenship and digital citizenship. As up and coming teachers it is important that we not only address this issue to our students but to practice it and show it's significance. This especially applies to bullying. Bullying has become such a huge issue in our classrooms recently and the majority of it is cyber bullying. With the world wide web  being such a big part of our everyday lives, its scary to think about it's permanency  and possible effect on our lives. 

Today ISTE Standards list digital citizenship as one of aspects, which all members of a school district should support. Today digital technology is growing at a fast rate not only in schools but also in society as a whole. Mike Ribble and his college Gerald Bailey wrote a book called "Digital Citizenship in schools." The book defines 9 key elements on how use technology in school, home and within the community. Among the 9 elements are 3 categories: Respect, Educate and Protect. Respect covers using technology correctly and not stealing others property. Educate covers helping users communicate to each other properly and to use literacy correctly as well as buying items online correctly. Protect covers educating others to know their privacy rights. Mike hopes to have these 9 elements created into a curriculum so teachers can use technology at various levels. Mike wants to make sure that educators make sure to help students understand the issues they may encounter online while also showing the positive impact technology can have.

This insightful article written by Bill Smoot stresses the importance of the ubiquity of digital devices impeding the growth of the individual. In today's day and age we are all hyper aware of society's dependence on media. This realization led educator Bill Smoot to assign his students the challenge to spend 48 hours, from 7:00 p.m. Friday to 7:00 p.m. Sunday, without electronic media. The result, "by their own admission, their soulfulness and their capacity for human connection are limited by their media-obsessed way of life." I think these findings and this article as a whole prove very helpful to our class, as although the power technology lends to us is undeniable, it has slowly disconnected us from numerous realities and relationships in our own lives. We soon will have to face this specific issue within our own classrooms. I chose this particular article because I believe we need to remain aware that we are going to be teaching a different generation, one that lives and dies by their digital devices. As educators we need to be prepared to react to this aversion to real life experience and connection. We need to strike a balance for our students so that they realize that technology is provided to enhance our lives, not consume it.

This constructive article written by Nicole Krueger stresses the importance of developing student's abilities to tell their stories through the use of many technological mediums, focusing primarily on video. In today's digital age, sharing our stories or work with the world is an integral part of making learning meaningful and positioning oneself to take place in digital society. While many teachers are still hesitant to integrate video projects into their curriculum, "creating a video can provide an authentic learning experience that brings together critical skills, such as analytical thinking, problem solving and collaboration." Therefore, I think this article is very helpful to our class and other educators alike as it promotes the use of technology in a very creative, innovative, and opportunistic way for students to think beyond the classroom, develop essential abilities, and strive for excellence. The progression of utilizing video projects in the classroom can only implicate stronger motivation for students to exercise technological tools as a major pathway of transferring their learned knowledge and skills to real world application.

This article is helpful to our class because it establishes how important technology integration into our classroom is, and that in order to do so we teachers must be trained professionally. This improves our quality as educators.

Digital storytelling is a way of bring the story to life. Tinkering allows us to express our creativity. Group assignments bring students together, allow them to share their thought among one another, and create something together.   

Web 2.0 Tools, digital video, images for education, search engines, content management systems, mobile phones in education, educational online games

Web 2.0 Tools, digital video, images for education, search engines, content management systems, mobile phones in education, educational online games

This article is great for any new teachers or for any teachers that want to advance their technological teaching skills. It explains in a step-by-step way that is easy to understand from integration to evaluating the new methods. The article also goes into describe Digital Learning Day, a day that inspires educators to utilize technology in teaching to give students "access to high-quality digital learning opportunities, no matter where they live".

Andrew Marcinek Director of Technology and EducatorU.org Co-founder, Boston, MA An acceptable use policy is a document that is present in every school district around the country. The purpose of this policy is to provide safe parameters for exploring digital resources and using school-issued devices properly. The article talks about the importance of developing internet use guidelines that students can understand by avoiding overly complicated words that may confuse or intimidate students. These guidelines should focus on how students should use the technology rather than focusing on what they should not be doing. The article also focuses on the importance of involving parents and helping them understand how their children should be using technology. Furthermore, the article mentions the importance of being aware of the new apps and their implications in the lives of students. This allows school districts to stay one step ahead and decide whether or not they want students to have access to these apps.

A brand new article, Technology changing the culture of the classroom is about as up to date on the benefits of technology as you can be. In the Southwest Allen County school district, they take technology very seriously. They have a 1:1 ratio of student to ipad. They also use assigned technology for 1:1 learning and allows students to work at their own, as well as letting them to use their own imaginations and minds to work through critical thinking.They digitize the entire process so that work can be done at school and at home. Digital literacy is becoming just as important a skill to learn as regular academia literacy.

The article speaks about President Obama's delivering his State of the Union address, and his first line was about the commitment of passionate teachers who have help increase graduation rates across the country. The important thing delighting education technology leaders, Obama made the announcement about delivering high-speed broadband to 15,000 schools. This would result in 20 million students with new digital learning opportunities. President Obama also spoke about the Race to the Top program, which he said "has helped states raise expectations and performance." Obama talked about how it requires everything from more challenging curricula and more demanding parents to better support for teachers and new ways to measure how well our kids think, not how well they can fill in a bubble on a test.

This is an excellent post that discusses the pros and cons of digital reading versus paperback reading. You may want to read up and think about how have your students optimize their digital reading if they will be reading off of ipads instead of paperback books.

This article outlines how the 6 essential science tools use technology in the classroom. The 6 tools are digital projectpr, document camera, livescribe SmartPen, student response system, pocket camcorders, and probeware. These tools allow for the students create instructional videos, demonstrate lab activities, take a "clicker test" used for quizzes and assessments, and record brainstorming sessions.  Overall, these technologies lead to differentiation in instructional methods for teacher and allows them to make effective assessments of the students.

Digital age learning is driven by two facets: the pedagogical side and the wires-and-lights-in-a-box side. But truth be told, you can't have one without the other. Schools must create a unified vision for their tech integration. They must use tools with a proven track record. Implementation should be widespread; across departments.

The digital age has created an explosion of opportunities for student entrepreneurs like Sean McCulloch, 16, who has created his own brand of clothing that he sells on the website he designed and built himself.

In this article Education Secretary Arne Duncan highlights how the achievement gaps within our schools can be closed by the increase investment in technology use in all classrooms. He states that 2/3 of teachers wish they had more technology in the classrooms which is being limited due a high percentage of schools not having adequate bandwidth or access to high-speed internet. As future teachers who are learning now how to integrate technology into our classrooms this article is important to our class because it shows that most schools do not really have the opportunity to utilize this knowledge. But, the actions of Duncan and other reforms are trying to ensure that we as teachers receive the professional development and resources available so we can integrate our technological knowledge in the classroom.

As time goes on we will see less and less paper in the classroom. OneNote is a digital three-ring binder. This program is used as a way of interaction between teachers and students. OneNote has three different sections which are collaboration space, content library and the student's private space. Taking advantage of the new technological advances is good because the more you know of a program, the more efficient you will be able to be.

This article introduces the idea of classrooms going completely paperless. The idea behind going paperless is amazing. The impact that it would have on the environment and on student's learning abilities is something that needs to happen. By using Microsoft's OneNote, teachers can connect with students in a different way. In many ways our INTC class is paperless already. 

I can completely relate to this article for the fact that I get confused trying to incorporate and use as many tools as I possibly can. It's important to remember that there are many tools out there, many of them made for the same reason built in different ways. It's good to listen to your students and get feedback about which tools your students like and don't like. The reason so many tools are out there is because different variety of teachers and students like different ones. After reading this article I understand it's also really important to remember to assign one tool for one thing and not to overlap and cause confusion for you and your students in your classroom. This can be especially important in elementary classrooms where students are just becoming friendly with certain tools. Although the majority of the tools out there can do a variety of convenient things, it's better to assign one tool for them all or one tool for each. 

This bookmark can helpful by giving us standards on teaching with technology.