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How can I effectively use my online identity to support my offline teacher identity in the classroom?
My online identity is comprised of many of the activities I am involved in on a daily basis. I have spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to best 'summarize' all of the parts of me that appear online and channel them into one concrete digital identity. I am first a foremost a mom and a wife, daughter, sister, aunt. I teach middle school kids, advise the Grade 6 Student Senate and host a Grade 5 Tech Board. Outside of the classroom, I help run the Durham Farmers' Market, keep chickens and am a beekeeper. All of these identities are relayed through various social networking sites; Facebook, Twitter, Blogs and Websites.
I think that the best way my online identity supports my offline teacher identity in the classroom is by keeping me current. Through Twitter and Facebook, I see the latest viral videos and am made aware of many new technologies that are introduced. While our students are not technology 'experts' and continue to need a lot of support in the management of their electronic lives, they are exposed to far more than I. My online identity and the social networks in which I participate are an important part of staying connected and current.
In what ways could you leverage the power of the Internet to expand work process and product by students?
Eric Williams writes that providing opportunities for students to create online content promotes student engagement; when students are more engaged, they tend to show a higher commitment to learning (Williams, 2013). If we engage our students through their interest-driven media practices, they will continue to learn sophisticated skills about new media. Online engagements through new media need to be perceived as having value. It is the teacher's job to link these new media practices to standards and literacies in the classroom. (Ito, 2011)
Teachers can embed the skills and strategies and necessary tools in classroom learning in ways that combine both the process and the product (O'Byrne, 2013). We must, as educators, remain flexible as changes in new technologies come into play. Continual examination of the knowledge, skills and dispositions that affect students are necessary if teachers are going to make connections and provide experiences for students to build and create online content.
Resources:
O'Byrne, W. Ian. "Online Content Construction." (2014): Chapter 16. Web.
Williams, Eric. "Promoting Student Engagement." : Moving from Students as Consumers to Creators of Digital Content. N.p., 20 Feb. 2013. Web.
"Cultural Anthropologist Mimi Ito on Connected Learning, Children, and Digital Media." YouTube. YouTube, 4 Aug. 2011. Web.