Keeping Students Safe Online

This article brings up really important issues with the way we use the internet. I think we have all heard about cyber bullying and predators on the internet. As teachers, we have a responsibility to educate our students about these things and to teach them how to protect themselves and others. I agree with all of the points the author of the article made. All of the tips and research outlined in it are valuable resources for teachers.

I also think our education system needs to put a higher value on health education. Mental and emotional health are so important and I do not think we spend enough time or effort teaching our students how to live a healthy lifestyle. If we focus more on the health and well-being of our students, I truly think we will see a reduction in the amount of bullying. The internet is here to stay and social media is an enormous part of most students' lives. If our students are educated about mental and emotional health at a young age and it continues as a core part of their education through their entire schooling, I think they will be more equipped to use the internet. It will improve the lives of the people doing the bullying as well as those being bullied. I even think the amount of predators will reduce if those who may become predators grow up with a better health education. I don't just mean we need another health unit sometime during school like the two months I got during my Freshman year in high school. I mean we need to make health education a central subject all throughout education. I realize this kind of shift will take time, but this way, the internet will be a safer place for everyone.

Transliteracy

Many people tend to take their reading skills for granted. When I read this article, it made me think how many times per day I read. I could not even count it. I read signs, books, articles, and everything covering the internet. When I stopped to think about it, I realized how amazing it is that we can read so many things in so many different forms and contexts without even thinking about it. It is crucial for our students to be transliterate so that they can be active members of society.

When I read the part about slogans to keep students focused, the one that really caught my attention was "We need to read, not speed." It said that students only spend two seconds to assess and decide whether an article or website is worth their time. I am definitely guilty of this! I cannot even say how many times I have glanced at a website, decided I didn't like it, and moved on without reading more than a sentence or two. This slogan is one that I am going to focus on.

I agree that education needs to change and evolve with our transliterate society. Not everything needs to be electronic or on the internet, but our students do need to learn skills so that they can be successful in those areas. I think it is a balancing act and education needs to teach skills in all areas of literacy.

I Can't Think!

Just like when I read many other articles, this one made me feel super overwhelmed with information! It made me think that maybe the author intended to overload the reader with information to make a point, but I am not entirely sure if it was intentional. Once I got past that, I found that I agree with many of the points in the article.

In our culture, we are constantly bombarded with information and opinions. People demand information, so that's exactly what we get. We can get reports, reviews, and anything else by the click of a button, and if our computers stall for a few seconds, or if our phones loose reception, we get irritated and stressed. This article did a great job discussing the various ways we receive information and the true problems they pose. I have thought about some negative implications of information-on-demand before, but I had never really thought about it effecting our decision making processes in depth before. When discussing the science of decision making, the author says, "... decisions requiring creativity benefit from letting the problem incubate below the level of awareness-- something that becomes ever more difficult when information never stops arriving".

Another point in the article is that decision making science shows that some of our best decisions are made through an unconscious process. This was very interesting to me, but it also made me wonder why I have never really heard about this before. Is it because we feel the need to make many quick decisions all the time? Do we choose to ignore the benefit of the unconscious decision making process?