Week 4: Review and GIF Maker

Class Review

Sean Kennedy who is the COE Research Librarian and in charge of Open Source Textbooks, and Steve Kauffman who is a DDS expert came as guest speakers this past week in class. They spoke about Current Trends in Education and how they relate to technology.

One of the things I learned during their presentations was the difference between being a Digital Native vs. Digital Immigrant. A digital Native they referred to as students who have grown up with technology at their finger tips. These students have a high technical literacy in comparison to their teachers. The teachers, most of the time, are being considered Digital Immigrants being described as individuals who have to learn technology and didn't grown up with it at their finger tips.

The other thing I learned about was the Digital Divide in the country. The Digital Divide is the gap in access to information, resources and services between those with the means to access them and those who don't have the ability to access that same information, resources, and services. Also mentioned was the fact that 23% of homes don’t have access to internet. It really makes you reconsider assigning online homework or assignments to students as the teacher could be setting them up to fail because they don’t have the resources to complete the assignments.

Sean and Steve also introduced us to GIF Maker. A very easy to use tool that allows you to make your own GIFs. Students would have a blast making their own GIFs and adding to the social media trend. It is very easy to use and create your own costume GIFs.

Here's a link and a screen shot of the GIF I made:

https://media.giphy.com/media/l378o5O0012FoWv84/giphy.gif