Book Trailer

Here's a school project I did for an interesting book.

Final Post Topic 10: Online Sharing

     As part of my last Teen Learning 2.0 activity I was required to choose a website program report on it and it's usefulness. I chose Diigo, a website that allows you to create a personalized list of websites that you have bookmarked and can be used in case you need to get to a site whose URL you've forgotten. You can also share your list of bookmarks with others, as well as see bookmarks others have made. Be warned though some of the sites listed by others may link to web sites that aren't safe for work, could potentially damage your computer, or discuss political idea's that you don't agree with.


      Teen Learning 2.0 has been very informative and i'm glad I had the chance to expand my knowledge on a variety of different topics. Although a lot of the things I learned while using Teen Learning 2.0 have been useful, I can definitely see myself using Powtoons and what I learned about Creative Commons Licenses on Topic 4, and Digital Citizenship on Topic 1 long after I've forgotten about this blog. My only suggestion would be to add a lesson on computer safety and learning how to avoid malware and computer viruses

Topic 9: Evaluating Information Web Sites & Citing Sources

(sorry in advance for the clutter!)

4. Please review your TRAILS test results.  In your Topic 9 blog post, please copy and past the questions you missed, your initial answer and then explain what the correct answer should be.  If you get 100% on the TRAILS test please design an additional evaluation question and answer that could be added to the test. Post that question and answer in your blog as your Topic 9 post.

Notice!

For whatever reason whenever I try to post a comment onto someone's blog from my home computer I get logged out of my account and my comment isn't posted. I'm going to try to focus on commenting on your blogs at school from now on, but if I go a week without commenting, like this week, it's because I'm not managing my time at school properly and my home computer is acting weird.

Topic 8: Books and Reading

I created my digital book shelf with Shelfari, a free and easy to use web site that lets you compile a list of all the books you've read and share them with others. The hardest part about making your shelfari shelf is actually embedding it into your blog, but everything else is pretty easy to do. I chose this site over the other options that were listed because I recognized that Shelfari is affiliated with amazon.com and that means that I can probably trust my personal information with them more than I can with the other options (not that there's anything wrong with the other ones though!) Hopefully I'll remember shelfari years from now so I can remember all the books I read as a kid.

Shelfari: Book reviews on your book blog

Topic 7: Documents and Presentations

1. Google Driver is a helpful program that you can use when you are unable to use Microsoft word but need to write a paper. The link provided above is a timeline of events that happened in my book Memoirs of a Child Soldier by Ishmael Beah.
2. A web2.0 tool I used for this assignment was called Webydo. Webydo allows you to create a professional looking website without knowing how to code it. Here's a link to the website I made.
3. And here is a Glog that I made.

Topic 6: Creating Animations & Videos

Blog Posting:

• Embed or link the animation/video onto your blog so that I and your fellow library assistants can review it.
• Discuss why you chose the tool, how difficult or easy it was to use. Give 2 tips for new users. Finally let us know how you might use it for one of your PHS classes.

Topic 5: Creating Your Own Images

1.In your blog posting add remixed images you have created from 2 of the sites. 
2. Make sure and identify the sites that you used and add the hyperlink.  
3. Also, tell us how you might use each site for fun or for school.  
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image made on Big Huge Labs

image made on Image Chef

I might use these sites in the future for making funny jokes with my friends, but i'm not sure how I could get away with using these web sites for school.

Topic 4: Photos, Images & Giving Credit

This post is going to be oriented around creative commons licenses and how to give credit to something you found on the internet or how to get credit for something you made and then posted to the internet. To fully understand how to post your ideas on the internet while retaining ownership of the content you created, you should know a few key terms such as public domain and creative commons. This post will give you a general idea of what you need to know if you want to become a content creator of some kind on the internet.

What does public domain mean?: Public Domain things you find on the internet are basically things that anyone can use without having to worry about the creator of the content suing you for using their product/idea without their permission. Basically, if you want to put something on the internet and let anyone see or use it any way they want to, then it's public domain. Conversely, if you want to upload something to the internet but you want to make sure everyone has to acknowledge that you made it, and everyone who wants to use it has to credit you somehow for using it, then you should add a creative commons license.

*IMPORTANT! IF YOU USE PUBLIC DOMAIN CONTENT, YOU SHOULD STILL CITE WHERE YOU GOT IT FROM!

What is a creative commons license?: Have you ever noticed a small (™) sign at the end of a name of something or even a (CC)? This means that whatever your looking at is owned by someone and by using or referencing that thing without giving credit to the owner can get you in varying degrees of legal trouble.This is called copyrighting. A creative commons license (CC), is a free license anyone can get attached to their content by going to their web sight here!, filling out a quick survey, and choosing the how others can use and can't use your content. That being said, it is possible to use pictures and videos that have a creative content license, so long as you cite it properly as shown below. 


Example of properly citing a creative commons picture:

Atherton, John. Kamabai car wash crew. 1968. Flickrcc. Yahoo, n.d. Tues. 18 March. 2014. http://flickrcc.net/flickrCC/index.php?terms=Kamabai

Arraes,Duda. Water for the Kids 27 Feb. 2011. Flickrcc. Yahoo. Fri. 21 March 2014. http://www.flickr.com/photos/45770203@N05/6282512687

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Format for photograph originally posted on the web:
Photographer's Name.  Title of Photograph.  Date Photo Taken if Available.  Web Site Title.  Web Site Publisher, Date Posted. Web. Date of Access. <URL>.

(Thanks to PHS Library Assistants Do Web 2.0. Blogger. Web. 21 Mar. 2014. 

     <http://phsweb2.blogspot.com/>.  for giving me the format to cite the pictures above.)

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I choose the two pictures above to demonstrate how to properly cite a picture because they relate to the book i'm reading (Memoirs of a child soldier by Ishmael Beah) and show how the war in Sierra Leone devastated their country and left so many children to fend for themselves.

Topic 3

Your Topic 3 posting should answer these  questions:

1. How could blogging be used to enhance learning in your high school classes?
2. Tell us about two of the characters in the book that you are reading for your book trailer. What do they look like?  What kind of personality characteristics do they have?  Do they have any problems?  Would you be friends with them if they went to PHS?  
3. What about the setting of the book.  Where does it take place: in the country, the city, a high school? What is the time frame: in the present, the past, the future?  Describe one scene in the book so that we can get a feel for the setting and time.

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1.) Blogging can give students a professional and easily accessible way to share information with each other as well as discuss information that may seem confusing. 

2.)  Ishmael Beah and Junior are both important characters in my book A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier by Ishmael Beah. Ishmael and Junior are both 12 years old, mildly malnourished, and always tired because of them having to always be on the move. Ishmael and Junior might be hard to befriend because of our completely different upbringing's and that i'm pretty sure both of them are in their 30's right now. 

3.) The book takes place in the west African country of Sierra Leone,  during the 1990 Sierra Leoneian civil war. A particularly powerful scene in the book is when Ishmael and his friends are captured by a group of militants attacking a village and are forced to watch one rebel berate and threaten an 80 year old village elder for trying to escape the village and see his grand children. The book is very heart wrenching and fast paced but it is a good read because it shows how important hope is.

Avatars: Topic 2

For my avatar I used the Turn Your Name Into a Face web-sight.  I chose this program to create my avatar because it was a simple to use and neat program. To make an avatar on that sight all you have to do is type your name into the text box and press the 'into a face' button. Doing this won't create an accurate portrayal of your real face but it's still a quick and easy way to get a free avatar.

Topic 1: Digital Citizenship

This past week I've been learning about what digital citizenship is through the online everfi course, and after completing several courses I've come to realize four very important things.

1.) Putting personal information online is never really a good idea because once it's online it will stay online. Forever.

2.) Letting people you don't know have any of your personal information gives them the opportunity to harass you anonymously from the comfort of their own home. This is called cyber-bullying.

3.) Although some may shrug off cyber-bullying at first, ignoring it will never make it go away. Humans are a social creature and aren't built to withstand being harassed all day every day. The best way to put a stop to being cyber-bullied isn't to ignore it or to attack back, but to alert your friends, parents, or authorities. If you're being attacked or threatened on a social networking sight for instance you'll almost always be able to alert some type of sight admin or moderator that someone is harassing you and get their account DE-activated.

4.) Recognizing when a friend may be being harassed online could be the difference between life and death. If you start seeing abnormal shifts in your friends behavior, never be afraid to ask whats wrong. It's vital that you support your friends when they are being bullied because no one responds to being attacked online the same way. Even well known internet celebrities like TotalBiscuit can feel the force of being attacked by even one person online for no reason. Being cyber-bullied is never something to be looked over, and if you think your friend is being bullied just ask them if their o.k.

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blogging guidelines:

When blogging it's generally understood that you never want to put information that can be used to track you but perhaps the most difficult guideline to remember is to always cite your sources and determining if the sources you use are credible or not.

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Answers to teachers questions:

• What is digital citizenship?
• What are the rights and responsibilities of a digital citizen in today’s world?

1) Digital citizenship is being responsible on the internet by keeping your private data secure and staying safe from other internet users with malicious intent.

2) A digital citizen is responsible for keeping his/her self safe and to not attack others on the internet. A digital citizen has the right to access and use the internet but is liable to persecution if their activities are deemed to be unlawful.

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Thoughts on digital footprint:

The third portion of the assignment my teacher gave me was to Google my own (real) name and see what came up. I typed in my first, middle, and last name but nothing came back. I also Google'd the names of my friends to see if anything would come back but again, nothing came back. I wonder if getting a digital footprint is really as easy to get as it's said to be.

Welcome to my "school blog". The purpose of this blog will be to share my experiences in using Web 2.0 with my classmates and teachers. I will also learn what it means to be a "digital citizen", how to responsibly cite online sources, and how to evaluate an online source's credibility.