Digital Citizenship – The GOOD Stuff

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The end of my semester has arrived, bringing with it the end of my experience in University 349.

So I’ll be taking this time to reflect on what I’ve learned over the semester and how my ideas on digital citizenship have changed. you When I entered this class, I was more apprehensive about the format than the subject matter, and looking back, my biggest question going in was why this class was only available and targeted to transfer students. I will say this though, I had absolutely no idea just how much there was to digital citizenship when I started studying it in September. My thoughts on it were something like “Well, it just means that there are rules and regulations regarding our lives online just like in our physical lives right? And we should be careful about our interactions, obviously.”

Right now, I can look back at that and laugh because that is exactly the kind of thinking that true proponents for digital citizenship in education are fighting to discourage. Referencing an article by John Waters that we studied a while back called “Turning Students into Good Digital Citizens,” we must remember that students are “producers and managers of information and perspectives.”

While being safe and respectful online are of course important things to do, to teach only that is severely lacking. The possibilities of the online world are limitless and with that knowledge and power, we have to do more than think twice about how a Facebook status might come across. We can use social media to learn about social issues such as the refugee crisis from the refugees themselves. We can directly impact our political system by contacting those in office and addressing our concerns with them, in real time. We can find ourselves a community to belong to when it seems as though those around us don’t have the answers that we are looking for.

And that is what digital citizenship means to me months later: in order to be a good digital citizen, you must use skills like crap detection (know what information and knowledge producers to trust), we have to be active participants in the world-wide conversation (use our resources to be true citizens rather than just interacting with people that we’ve met in person), and we should also be open-minded and willing to think outside of the box (let children and students teach us about what the digital world means to them versus what it means to parents and professors).

After reviewing the challenges posed to us in this class, it’s easy to see how much has changed. My digital footprint, for example, is much better now! Nearly all of the results on the first page of 2 different searches are linked to me thanks to this class and I couldn’t be happier and more grateful for that.

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I think one of the concepts that will most stick with me is using social media for purposes other than our personal lives. This class has shown me that lurking doesn’t have to be a bad word, if we’re doing it right! Another thing that I’ve learned how to do better is engaging – we have to use all of our resources, be persistent, and responsible with our knowledge and power in all ways.

This has been an amazing journey and has far exceeded my expectations. I will take what I have learned about new perspectives on research and issues that impact our lives in to every class that I have from here on out. Social media is a relevant resource and I hope to continue sharing that with others. I will also take all of the tools that I now have and not only use them, but keep them sharp, in the face of advances and new information in our ever-changing online world.

Thank you Jill and Michelle, you two have taught me so much and this class has been a unique experience that I hope won’t be unique for long. You two are great and I know your past, current, and future students would agree. Goodbye, #Univ349DC – it’s been real!

MGH, Professor in Training

UNIV349DC

 

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A New Beginning

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It’s as if this scene of my life came out of a Michael Bay movie. A Transformers movie to be exact, allow me to explain. In the Transformer movie if you are not familiar, there are cars who transform into some sort of high tech warrior. I’d like to consider myself an unfinished version of a human Transformer that went from being in the shadows of consciousness, lacking awareness and self determination when it came down to technology. You see there was no mindfulness, there was no need. Social media was a thing to do when you plain and simple did not have anything to do. Just scroll and like what you like, scroll pass what you don’t. Then it happened, my first semester attending Channel Islands University as a transfer. With this came a class, a particular one. A class that taught me the value of technology, and made me rewire my perception of the media, and the methods I used to analyze and better yet dissect the information around me. A class I believe all students should take, Transfer Year Seminar.

 

We began the class choosing a topic we believed to be an important social issue in our lives with the hope of either building or contributing to some sort of bridge to suggest a possible solution, it’s what students do. My choice was the Syrian Refugee Crisis which I regret not one bit. This issue has shown me how little I am doing, with such easy challenges in my life. Nothing compared to being homeless, without doing anything at all. So here we stand with our judgments and stereotypes and continue to fail by simply staying on the outskirts of the situation, miraculously hoping for a solution to fall from the sky. Ladies and gentlemen, if there is one thing I have learned is that we must contribute when we want change, not just simply sit back and hope.

 

This is where technology comes in. Just like a carbon footprint, we now have a digital footprint. It is safe to say that majority of the world is catching up to this technology movement and are relying on it more and more in our everyday lives. We must no longer rely on the media to speak for the masses as it was before. We must no longer wait a few weeks or months to hear about a certain issue due to its place of value in the medias eyes. Participatory culture has become a movement in our world through technology. We can now connect with someone across the world about our favorite popcorn, and if we analyze it a little deeper than we can now connect with someone across the world about revolting our government.

 

The most useful knowledge I have learned from this class has surprised me. As a student, I walk into a new class in the beginning of each semester and honestly think I’m going to walk out knowing words, concepts, and most importantly take a tool from there that I did not have before. It is quite contrary in this case. Transfer Year Seminar has made awareness stand out for me the most. It is a quality we all have, a quality of being aware. Never had a given social media, let alone the capstones we can create through participating. It is such a fascinating thing that the depth of the study we conducted about a particular issue at the end of the day transformed me to be a deeper thinker of everything I do with technology and media. All jokes aside when people ask me what I’d like to do with my major I respond; “I want to change the world.” People laugh, almost every time. But now, so do I, at the fact that you honestly believe I can’t do so now with this irreplaceable tool we have like social media.

Challenge 6: Component 2:1 -The End Of The Road

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So ladies and gentlemen, we’re at the end of our blog posting for our class and we are reflecting on our first voice thread. In our first voice thread we were asked what we thought about digital citizenship, and my response was that I believed it was a gateway of opportunities, a whole new world for this upcoming generation to explore. In my eyes this came along with pros and cons. Being able to keep in touch with family while being in different parts of the city, state, country, even the world was the biggest advantage to my belief at the time. How awesome is it to be able to log onto an app and be able to see pictures of a newborn family member miles away that you weren’t able to just drive down the street to see? So I’m sure many people agree with that aspect keeping in contact with family members. The biggest disadvantage I found was that so many people are getting caught up in a digital world because all of these people are being sucked into their phones and social media sites that they were missing out on so many things that this beautiful world we have has to offer. How many of you can think of a time when a person has been so engaged on their phone that they ran into a pole?   Think about it this way, what if in a split second the most beautiful sunset occurs and you aren’t able to catch it because you were looking through Instagram or Facebook, now I’m sure that happens way to often in our society. After taking this class my eyes have been opened to so many aspects that I never thought of before. Thinking about digital citizenship now as opposed to then, I can say that I view digital citizenship in a completely different way. Digital citizenship to me has become a way to promote oneself via social media and generally on the Internet. I kind of think about it like this; it is a reputation and representation of yourself, kind of like a resume, and things such as those should be taken care of. A person always wants their best qualities to shine when it really comes down to it and using ones digital citizenship wisely that person can do so very efficiently. There are so many aspects that come into play about how your digital citizenship can be affected but I think the biggest one that stuck out to me when learning about digital citizenship was participatory culture. The easiest way for me to put this, is that things you do online will always find a way to catch up to you, so think twice about how you would liked to be viewed without being able to explain anything. Only post things you would be proud to have your name come up with, such as organizations you have been involved with or volunteer work you have done. Keep the private things private and make the public ones things that you are proud of.

The End: What Digital Citizenship really Means

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When I first started this class I thought digital citizen meant leaving a copy of yourself by accident or purposefully on the web and because of this you should watch what you post because it influences others.

Through out this semester we have told the world about us, so to speak. We have also looked at social issues in regards to college students, and we did crap tests to see if sites were giving out reliable information. We then started a journey to the end of the earth and back we picked current social topics. I chose affordability of college tuition. We lurked and engaged and asked for answers. At the end we concluded with these topics with a better understanding of how some things should change and how we can become better.

In my experience on the topic specifically I found that politicians are politicians and that people lurk and like things but don’t dare comment. That used to be me!! During the challenge of engaging I commented on presidential candidates twitter feeds. I even tweeted to them. You have to engage to be heard and how can you be a citizen if no one hears your voice? But even if your voice falls on deaf ears at least they know of your existence and that you have something meaningful to say.

I have also learned what digital citizenship really means to me. To be a digital citizen is to understand that you have a voice, that you should use it and be engaged in important topics that you value. And in the end help in the progress of the solution . To be a digital citizen is leaving your mark on the world or even a handful of people via technology and media.

In everyday life I learned a great deal from this class that I can apply. I learned that you should be conscious of what you say online and private really isn’t private because there is a share button on everything.

Weekend December 4-5

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This past weekend was very productive. Starting with Wednesday, I helped assist with the high school program “Be Wet”. The program uses college students within the STEM majors as mentors for high school student. I went to Channel Island to tell them about my capstone project. The opportunity allowed me to build experience presenting my research in a non-stressful environment. The presenting continued into Linda O’Hirok’s ESRM 100 Class where I recruited helpers with my data collection the coming weekend. The ESRM student received “service learning” hours while I gained leadership and presentation skills. Friday’s group of helps assisted me with profile surveying, sand collection, and GPS tracks. We were extremely productive and collected data at all five of my transects. Saturday was also highly productive. Previous capstone students studying the nourishment at Port Hueneme, have looked at biological factors and biological diversity on the beach. Saturday’s group assisted in “sandy beach protocol” where primarily clam guns and mesh screens were used to assess the health of beaches. Measurements of infauna, such as sand crabs, was collected. My personal observations saw few sand crabs present for the majority of the beach. The data collected will be eventually compared against last year’s data. Last week was very productive and allowed me to learn many new experiences. 20151123_135914 20151204_112511

SCURR Nov. 21st

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This last weekend I attended The Southern California Conference for Undergraduate Research (SCCUR). It was my first time attending a conference and had a really good time. It was inspiring to listening to other undergraduate research and their presentations. My poster presentation was a success. I presented the research I collected over the summer with Project ACCESSO. Some of the results we found during that research was that the sand grain size impacted the heterogeneity (H’). When beaches had fine grained sand there was higher heterogeneity, and with larger gains of sand there was less heterogeneity of infauna. Along with my colleges, Aimee Newell and Jayla Fendi, we presented a poster of our work. The weekend was really fun and exciting.

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Nov. 9th New Data Collected

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This week I expanded my research sites. I collected my normal data at Port Hueneme Beach and we also collected at Hollywood Beach. Hollywood Beach is just north of Channel Islands Harbor and Port of Hueneme. Sand from the Santa Clara River Mouth travels south and builds up against the jetty at Hollywood beach. This is the dredged sand used to nourish Port Hueneme Beach. We took survey profiles, sand, and shoreline tracks. This comparison should be interesting to compare against Port Hueneme beach erosion. My prediction is that we will see similar sand types on both of the beaches. We will also see similar rates of erosion from Port Hueneme and nourishment on Hollywood. This week I also started analyzing my profile data. We can already see some of the changes occurring on the beach.

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We Are the Channel Islands

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The Channel Islands are more than a namesake for our campus. They are a living laboratory. CI has a partnership with the National Park Service allowing CI to maintain a research station on the island, providing access for our faculty and students to engage in research. A recent faculty-mentored student research project, conducted by Senior Victoria Scotti and mentored by our Archaeology faculty, focuses on historic era shipwrecks around Channel Islands National Park. The Park is a rich and well-preserved time capsule. The wrecks inside the park boundaries range from Gold Rush era lumber schooners, like the Winfield Scott, to World War II military aircraft like the Grumman Avenger. Documenting their historical value and current role as artificial reefs, this project highlights the public benefits of these cultural assets. This video documents a few of the wrecks, highlighting the opportunities for substantive research available at Channel Islands.


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Hello for the last time. (Final Post)

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Hello for the last time.

I started this semester with an air of certainty that was unwarranted.  As a person who spends an extreme amount of time within arm reach of an electronic that connects to the internet i would say i would double that undeserving confidence.  I mostly taught myself how to access and traverse the internet and when I started this class i didn’t expect much of the courses new information.  Through most of the course I believed that it was map for people who never bothered to learn the internet or weren’t born around the time that it was so ubiquitous. That the course was a crash course in how to use basic function that pertain to school or social media.  The course felt more as a doctrine or a way to propagate the message that this is the way it will become, that everything you do leaves a paper trail. It felt a bit too pushed and that when everyone slightly sees some truth in message they are more accepting in the whole thing.

Honestly now that this semester is coming to a close and I have made it far from unscathed, I can say that i was wrong on what this class meant and what I could have learned from it.  Any new way of using the internet wasn’t very interesting, I don’t believe I learned any new tricks or shortcuts with the mechanical part of using anything online, but my way of approaching social media has definitely changed.  The class has made me see that there is a lot more connection with anything that i do online to myself in the real world.  I have been very careful to change my identity online and understand that there is a schism between myself as a student and the pseudonym that I have on many different board.  This class has shown me through the affects of the project and the videos that my digital footprint is more set in stone than set in dirt or a muddy track. This course has been interesting to say the least, having to use social media as a main source for most of my project goes against everything i learned in elementary school up until now.  From the way the class was set up, hybrid and with a classroom that seemed a little chaotic constantly, i was very interested in what else was there to come.  The times we were in class I tried my best to engage and interact for many  reason, some because I was feeling guilty over forgetting to do the work but also because the class did interest me on how much importance was put into seeing the student interact online and their ideas that went along with it.

I guess the previous part was a mix with the impact and changes but continue with more focus on the impact i would say that i will continue to be stuck in my typical methods for school. While the class was interesting and engaging i didn’t see a major shift in my scholarly life with the teaching.  The bottomline I think that the course would be more useful and expand more beyond this one semester but i don’t believe that the school has changed enough for that to happen.  The major points that i pulled out the effects and community based learning from the book I had seen and studied in communication courses, the videos made me see the true modernizing of established ideas like democracy and aggregated information and work, but again I don’t believe that the environment is willing to take these changes even if the student is capable.  Just how the United states scientific community already uses the metric system pretty well and the common public is not exposed or given any reason to change, I see the same for the school system.  Students are willing to change to fit this new age with digital identity and it is effects but as it sits now those new skills will stay dormant.  The skills offered in this class were amazing for veteran users and novel ones, we just a place to use them effectively.

 

POLS 300 Final Exam

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In this research class, we closely examined Congressman ‘Bizz’ Johnson’s archive of constituent letters and responses from his office. In the beginning of the semester, before I was able to analyze the data and truly understand the scope of representation in regards to ‘Bizz’s’ term in office, I had a somewhat finite notion of what political representation is and how to identify it when it is applied to citizens and constituents. This summary will analyze the difference of my idea of representation from the beginning of the semester to a possible transformation and the idea of representation after researching Congressman ‘Bizz’ Johnson.
In the beginning of the semester, I had a fairly clear and concise way to define political representation. In summary, my belief was centered around democracy, very simply put, letting the people have the power. “My personal idea of proper political representation is when groups of people have elected a leader, by a free, fair and open election, and who is accountable for them, hears what they have to say, and acts upon the needs of the people not for his or her own benefit, but rather the true benefit of the people.” (Assignment #1). While my definition of representation and the core values of it have remained the same, my idea of the varying degrees of how that representation is actually implemented have been modified.
The absolute best way to measure representation is through the means of data. However, in the instance of analyzing ‘Bizz’ Johnson representation over his constituents there was no data set. It was the duty of the class to create a useful data set including key information which: First, showed how the constituents of the California 2nd congressional district (later renamed the 1st) felt about certain issues and; Secondly, how ‘Bizz’ responds to those letters from constituents using the means of pure position taking or not. Finally, with this data, we could begin to accurately analyze in what way ‘Bizz’ would respond to constituents with opposing viewpoints versus similar viewpoints and whether those issues were domestic issues or pertained to a foreign policy. Overwhelmingly, the data showed that ‘Bizz’ acted like “two presidencies” suggesting that members of congress respond differently to foreign issues rather than domestic issues. In addition, the data revealed that ‘Bizz’ would, over 90% of the time, obscure his position in response letters to constituents when they had opposing views. The findings were conclusive that ‘Bizz’ acted like a trustee to his constituents, that is being elected and entrusting him to act helping the greater good of his district. However, those with opposing viewpoints still did not find him unfavorable because of his ability to be seen as a delegate of their views. His rhetoric in those response letters led constituents to still feel heard and represented. Balancing between those two styles of representation enabled him to be in office for so long and lead a successful career as a politician. This information brought great insight to me as well as the entire class and shifted the way I measure the extent of representation. Now, I realize that politicians have to be fluid, and adapt how they frame views and opinions based on the people they represent. A good analogy would be how a person would tailor their résumé to fit different potential employers in order to be viewed as a more favorable candidate for the job.
After the countless hours reading, tabulating, creating, and analyzing the data set, It is obvious to me as well as my classmates that ‘Bizz’ carried out a successful career representing his constituents and in Congress. In the research poster “Political Representation and Position Taking” by classmates Jessica Zepeda and Roger Cortes-Chacon, they also conclude: “Bizz used position taking to make pleasing judgements to his constituents. This is a way that our representatives use representation to get re-elected.” A reoccurring theory as to why representatives might play the role of two candidacies, is for the sole reason of being re-elected. This theory needs more data and analysis in order to be confirmed. Such methods as analyzing Congress voting records on certain bills and comparing them to a politician’s publicized opinions are a possible way to determine their true motives. However, in the case of Harold ‘Bizz’ Johnson, the general consensus of his time in office was positive.