My Goals for the Semester

My first goal is to survive the semester with my job intact, my daughter intact and B's or higher in my four classes.

My second goal is to learn how to use the wiki portion of this class. I am very confused at this point in time as to how to use it. I have set up a home-page but I still have may questions and concerns about the wiki.

My third goal is to learn about creating a healthy balance between the use of technology in the classroom and the limitation of screen time. I feel strongly that children have far too much screen time daily and I feel that there is a lot of damage done to children because of this including:

Struggling social skills

Obesity

Increased sexuality

Awareness and practice of bad language and behavior

Low self esteem

My fourth goal is to learn effective ways of introducing technology into both elementary schools and preschools. I am currently a preschool teacher and we do have a preschool computer with some educational games but beyond that we do not have any of technology lessons in our plans.

Chelsea Szidik

Will the internet be God?

In opening Kevin Kelly stated that all of our technology including computers, cell phones, ipods, GPS etc. is really connected to this one big machine. He seems to be saying that we are not individual, and that in the future our technology not need any memory capacity because everything including word documents, excel sheets etc. will be connected to the internet. That was a lot for me to wrap my mind around. It seems to me that I am slowly going to loose my privacy through my use of technology. It led me to wonder how individuals that don't use technology will fit into the word in the next 5000 days of the internet. I became even more concerned when Kevin Kelly stated that we will all be addicted to this massive machine that controls all of our technology. I know many people who don't have access to the internet in their homes and I also know that there exists a whole sect of people who do not believe in using technology. Will they fade out of existence in the next 5000 days? Will they be seen as a sort of rebellious sect of people that is different and therefore segregated? The consequences of relying so heavily on the internet seem in my mind to outweigh the benefits.

I do not want to be an extension of a machine as Kevin predicts. I love to use technology to social network, use the online phone book, online dictionary and of course to take classes. However, I still enjoy existing in "the real world." I do not want all of my personal documents to be available online. And I certainly do not want to be an extension of the big machine that controls all technology. I do not want to be totally dependent on the internet as Kevin states will happen. I do not see the alphabet and writing as a form of technology and I don't see being depend on that in the same way that I see being dependent on the internet.

It also scared me to hear that in the next 5000 days this super machine will actually surpass humans capacity. It will in a sense become smarter than we are. I feel that this is dangerous. Dangerous in the sense that if this happens this super machine will be considered "God". Humans in my opinion are so easily swayed and manipulated. If we look at all of the different images of "God" we can begin to understand this. There seems to be a sense that anything bigger than ourselves whether it be mother nature or this image that some people believe in called "God" is meant to be worshiped. If the internet becomes bigger and faster and smarter than humans as Kevin as predicted won't we view it in the same light?

Chelsea

First day of class...

This is the day that I will begin the journey of juggling working full-time, being a full-time student and being a single parent to a toddler. My hopes are high and I am praying that I have enough makeup to cover the bags that will soon be forming under my eyes!

I already learned quiet a lot upon entering the Internet Detective tutorial. I realized that I have been lucky thus far. Lucky in the sense that I have relied heavily on the internet for my research without any adverse affects. I have never been accused of plagiarism, nor have my professors rejected my work because of badly chosen sources. This does not mean that I am proud of the fact that I have relied so heavily, if not exclusively, in the past year on internet research. I honestly wish that I had found the time to go to the library.

When reading about the process of academic publishing it made me wonder if it's possible to know how the content in web sites have been published. Even on some credible web sites such as government web sites (yes I say credible...in terms of statistical data such as information gathered by the census) it's extremely hard and sometimes impossible to find all of the information necessary for a works sited section. I am forever leaving out the date of publication or even the authors name section. I dream of the day that each web page is followed by an information page that it is linked with the date of publication, revision, authors, where the information is from (including country) etc. Of course even if this was possible it could all be filled in with false information.

I was ecstatic to learn of the search engine metacrawler.com. My biggest frustration is that I know of only a limited number of search engine such as ask.com, google.com, and bing.com.

When taking the quiz I was annoyed to read that "when in doubt leave it out". The internet is a place that raises a lot of doubt in myself. I guess this is a wake up call of sorts in terms of only using sights that I know to be credible. How in world could I ever be 100%! Nothing online will ever be 100% but I will pledge to do the following in an attempt to ensure that I receive information from credible sources.

• Check all web sites on fraud check web sites before using the information.
• Use journal articles and articles found on the ccv online library for all information or to check the information used by other sites.
• Always ask Who? What? Where?
• I will look at the entire web site to assess credibility such as the about us section and any place that lists information on authors etc.
• I will look at the URL of the web site to determine valuable information such as where the information is coming from.

I look forward to delving deeper into the topic of internet search and I feel more confident in my research abilities. I would love to see this tutorial used in middle and high schools when students are using the internet for research. Educators need to take responsibility for the misuse of the internet in terms of research instead of taking the easy way out and merely telling the student that what they found or did was wrong.