The first two classes of Technology Innovation in Education have been quite busy. I am not particularly technologically adept, so I wasn’t sure what to expect coming into this course. However,  after getting a sense of what the course entails I am feeling comfortable if not confident.

So far, we have focused a lot on FIPPA (Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act). I was already familiar with the general concepts surrounding the protection of information and online privacy etc., but I had never heard of FIPPA in particular. I now have a greater awareness in regards to what constitutes personal information, and in the role of a teacher what can be shared or not. I also think that the way FIPPA incorporates ideas of consent is very important. Particularly, the clarification and promotion of the proper channels through which one asks for consent, as well as what consent looks like in an online sharing situation.

Some additional privacy and safety resources include…

Privacy Education for Kids  – Has some really fantastic resources for teachers such as, presentations, lesson plans, activities, a poster, and a  graphic novel to teach students about privacy education.

MediaSmarts: Canada’s Centre for Digital and Media Literacy – Provides resources for both teachers and parents, as well as accumulates sources for research in the field.

We also learned how to set up a blog! Overall, it was a fairly straightforward and fun process. We were able to name our blog, pick a theme, and create categories and pages for various courses to showcase our learning. I look forward to familiarizing myself with online posting, as I am sure it is a skill I will need many times throughout my teaching career. When it came time to personalize our blogs, we were also instructed on the importance of giving proper credit, or attributions, to any media content that we use. Multiple sources for freely useable images were provided to us including Creative Commons, Pixabay, and Unsplash.

I look forward to blogging in the future not only about my learning in this and other courses but also about the inquiry projects I am about to embark on.

Featured image by Becca Clark from Pixabay