7 minute read
Chapter 1: My Digital Life
CHAPTER 1
My Digital Life
LEARNING INTENTION
To reflect on and describe your use of digital technologies, communication tools and the internet in your day to day life.
CHAPTER OVERVIEW
In this chapter students will reflect on their relationship with digital technologies, communication tools and the internet. This chapter will explore the use of popular digital technologies and communication tools such as social media, blogging, wikis and forums. Many students will be familiar with these digital technologies, but many lack the accurate vocabulary to discuss how the digital technology works. Looking at digital communication tools such as SMS, MMS, Email, IM and VoIP, students can gain a better understanding of how communication tools are used in creative ways to provide a varied internet experience.
LEARNING OUTCOME
1.1 Describe how the students use digital technologies, communication tools and the internet in their lives. SAMPLE
MATERIALS
Digital devices with internet access eLearning platform: Microsoft Teams, Google Classroom Microsoft Word Wordpress.org Audacity
ACTIVE LEARNING METHODOLOGIES
Individual and group research Walking debate Reflection journal
PRACTICAL SKILLS: Creating charts Creating podcasts Creating a blog post
OBJECTIVES
By the end of this chapter students will be able to:
Define
Digital technologies Digital communication tools Internet SMS Describe Debate Explain Evaluate Create MMS VoIP IM Who and when these communication tools were invented? Some of the uses of the communication tool Their relationship with this tool Who they believe invented email Blogging and its characteristics Podcasting and its characteristics Wikis Forums Their relationship with the internet Why wikis may not be the most reliable source of information Charts SAMPLE Blog Podcast
Students will study the definitions of digital technologies, digital communication tools and the internet. They will be prompted to give their own examples of these definitions.
ACTIVITY 1: DIGITAL COMMUNICATION TOOLS AND TECHNOLOGY SURVEY Students will take a multiple-choice quiz to evaluate how much of their lives are connected to the internet.
SAMPLE
ACTIVITY 2: RESEARCH TIME Students will then study the different digital communication tools that they are possibly familiar with, such as SMS, MMS and Email. They will explore the internet to investigate the history of these digital media tools.
ANSWER KEY:
What company developed it first?
What are some uses of the digital media tool?
What year was it developed?
How I use this tool? (What social media websites)
What do I use this tool for?
SMS
GSM Cooperation
DIGITAL COMMUNICATION TOOLS
MMS
GSM network – Sony Ericsson
VoIP
VocalTec AOL
IM
Sending text messages quickly using radio frequencies Sending image messages Speak with people over the internet Talk to people in real time using chat rooms.
1984 2002 1995 1997 SAMPLE
ACTIVITY 3: RESEARCH AND WALKING DEBATE Students will research “Who created email?” and debate the reasons that they believe the person they have identified in their research created it.
POSSIBLE ANSWER KEY:
Who created email Reasons why I think that
Shiva Ayyadurai Extremely intelligent: working on an email system at 14 for the University of Medicine in New Jersey in 1978. He copyrighted his software called EMAIL in 1982. Shiva says that Ray Tomlinson invented an extension of SMS text messages but not email as we now know it.
Ray Tomlinson Credited as the inventor of email by most. He says he invented the technology in 1971.
ACTIVITY 4: SOCIAL MEDIA AND DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY Students will choose a social media platform that they are familiar with and note down all the digital communication tools it uses. ANSWER KEY: Social media platform: Facebook MMS: Emojis, stickers, gifs Instant Messaging: Facebook messengerSAMPLE Email: Facebook uses email to contact its users.
VoIP: Face Time
ACTIVITY 5: CHARTS
a) Students are asked to examine the chart beside and list:
ANSWER KEY:
1. The most popular website in 2016 was: Facebook 2. The third most popular social media website in 2016 was: WhatsApp 3. The number of people who had accounts on YouTube in 2016 was: 1.9 billion
Students will then:
b) Research how many users use these platforms today. Create a bar chart comparing the two figures. c) Research how many users are on four social media platforms of your choice. Represent these numbers in a bar chart. Creating a Chart in Microsoft Word TUTORIAL: TO CREATE A CHART IN MICROSOFT WORDSAMPLE
DIGITAL MEDIA LITERACY
for Secondary Students www.4schools.ie
ACTIVITY 6: BLOGGING Students will now examine a different type of digital communications technology – blogging. i) Tell the class to explore a blog that is of interest to them. Students are required to read three blog posts and examine the language used, the type of content promoted and the different types of media on the blog. ii) Students will create their own blog on WordPress.org and write a blog post about a topic that interests them.
Highlight that it is not recommended for minors under 18 to create a blog about their day-to-day life as it’s an increased internet security risk. Remind students to post the link to their blog on your eLearning platform.
TUTORIAL: BLOGGING Setting up a blog on www.wordpress.org. www.4schools.ie Creating your own Blog DIGITAL MEDIA LITERACY for Secondary Students SAMPLE
https://vimeo.com/578071591/2e290a8c00
Scan the QR Code to watch the video
ACTIVITY 7: EXPLORATION AND ANALYSIS The next digital technologies we will examine in this chapter are wikis and forums. Students are asked to explore and analyse examples of both wikis and forums.
Wikis
Wikis are a collection of webpages that allow users to collect lots of different information on a topic. Anybody with a computer and internet connection can alter and update the information if they have an account registered on the website. The most famous wiki is Wikipedia. www.wikipedia.org
Forums
Forums or internet boards are websites that can be used for discussion in the form of posted messages. Usually the posted message must be approved by the moderator to ensure that it fits in the theme of the forum. One post with replies is called a ‘thread’ or a topic. Some examples of forums include:
Ask about money - www.askaboutmoney.com Boards - www.boards.ie Reddit - www.reddit.com
ANSWER KEY:
Any person can edit wikis. Boards.ie: Current affairs, Coronavirus, Living Abroad
Some sites may be blocked through school’s internet filtering system. NOTE SAMPLE
ACTIVITY 8: PODCASTING The final digital communication tool that this chapter will examine is podcasts. Podcasting is a digital communication tool that is often used to spread information orally around the internet. Using a headset or earphones with a microphone, audio is created to be uploaded and shared on the internet. A common software used to create podcasts is Audacity. There are many other IOS and Android apps that can be used to create podcasts on a mobile device. After studying the characteristics of a podcast, students will search the internet for a podcast on a topic that interests them and discover the following requirements:
TUTORIAL: PODCASTING Students will then create a podcast discussing the role that the internet and digital technologies has in their life. Tutorial posted below.
Creating your own PodcastSAMPLE
DIGITAL MEDIA LITERACY
for Secondary Students www.4schools.ie
ACTIVITY 9: REFLECTION JOURNAL The final part of this chapter invites students to reflect on their relationship with digital technologies and the internet. Students will fill out the table below and create a reflection journal on the eLearning platform of your choice.
SAMPLE
