As we embark on the first fall semester of our Trekking with Technology for Boosted Learning (EETT funding) via ECBOCES, we’ve started to explore what it is that’s pushing us toward the true focus of students today. How do they learn? What will engage them in the classroom? But beyond all of the hype of technology, tools and gadgets for the sake of them all….we’ve now started to explore the purpose behind it all. The purpose that so many of us don’t even think about in our everyday lives. We use the technology, tools and gadgets to make our lives easier, more efficient. If the technology, tools and gadgets didn’t accomplish a that, they would be sitting in the closet with the rest of the things we’ve put aside that no longer assist us.
So, stop thinking about technology, tools and gadgets as the “extras” and start thinking of them the way students do…must haves.
The International Academy of the Visual Arts and the Communicator Awards selected Duckworth Design as one of the year’s Award of Excellence Recipients. Duckworth Design, for its creation of a new employee orientation video for a Denver-based corporation, received an Award of Excellence for Corporate Image, an Award of Distinction for Employee Communications, and an Award of Distinction for Recruitment.
You can find Duckworth Design listed among award recipients at The Communicator Awards website.
Last Friday, I was a guest on Fox31 News. We discussed many relevant topics, but one in particular has got me thinking about how much information is too much? Colorado Senators are considering something known as “Katie’s Law” which would require all individuals arrested on felony charges to give a DNA sample….a sample that will be kept on file forever.
Some call this a breach of our rights, while others believe it’s a protective measure. I, in a somewhat joking sense, make light of it on the show by quoting Jim Carrey from the movie Liar Liar….”stop breaking the law…!” I was somewhat serious because I would venture to say, if you don’t entertain situations or company that would put you in a greater risk of being arrested for a felony, this conversation or topic would be a mute point.
Regardless of your belief about DNA samples being kept on file, the bigger question could be how much information is too readily available about all of us?
I’m constantly bombarded with folks contacting me on Facebook or my website in general, so I understand that putting to much information in the public space can be risky. For those who don’t understand how much information can be gleened from a basic profile in the public space are even more at risk. Unfortunately, this means our children are at risk.
Now, before you go off and buy the newest spam filter or parent control for your web browser, please know that I’m a believer in teaching online responsibility, not sheltering or even hiding people from online confrontations. Yes, that teaching includes teaching our children. Helping them explore responsibly and to better take in information in order to make a decision as to whether or not it’s valuable or worth interacting with….that is the key.
The question of how much is too much isn’t that big of a question for me. BECAUSE I’m moderately educated when it comes to technology. I don’t ever take the position that I know everything about technology, because I don’t. And, anyone who tells you they are, is lying. Technology changes far too quickly for any one person to know everything there is to know about technology. Okay, with that chip off of my shoulder….
The question you need to ask yourself is how educated are you about technology? About information sharing? How much do you follow what’s going on with technology and how will that continue to affect you and generations to come?
The movie Minority Report is a fictional look at year 2054. But with technologies like the one below emerging, how soon will fiction become reality? And, if this is reality how much information is too much?
