While reading the article, I honestly laughed to myself a little because, wow this article hit the nail on the head for when social media really started to get popular. Everyone was bragging about how they did not have a Facebook account, even my husband many years after this phase has a Facebook account. He doesn’t post on it ever, but he gave in to the social media black hole. I really liked how Jurgenson pointed out at the end of the article, that we can still have an offline life with an online life together. I think that’s the key, finding a balance between no online life at all and being totally consumed by it.

When I think of the nine elements of digital citizenship, there are too many elements ha-ha. Personally, I think these elements could be combined a little to make for a quicker read and better understanding for kids. I think I would do that in my classroom. Having quick easy terminology readily available to the students will be more effective than having a huge list of things to read.

Teaching students that they can have a fun online life, while being safe is a crucial element in our world today. If we can teach them the basics of what it means to be a safe, and responsible online person, and the benefits of the internet, along with some of the not so good stuff, and how to avoid it; we should hopefully be successful teachers at guiding them to make good choices.

I access the internet at least 100 times a day. Whether it’s checking social media, checking my emails, doing homework, or googling something, the use of the internet is a staple for everything in my life. I grew up experience the technology boom, I went from landlines to iphones, desktop computers as big as my bedroom to my phone being stronger than my desktop. I remember YouTube in its beginning and the numa numa dance had my grade in a choke hold! The superman dance, HELLLOOO? the original tiktok dance haha. My generation started with T9 texting, I was so good at it I could text all day and never even look at what I was typing. Now? PFFF well I literally look at my screen and still spell things wrong, thank god for spellcheck, but also it’s ruining peoples spelling knowledge, even with it people cannot spell via text and it literally kills me inside.

While the internet itself is amazing, I also think it is addicting and it is ruining the youth of our children. “Since 2014-15, there has been a 22 percentage point rise in the share of teens who report having access to a smartphone (95% now and 73% then).” (Atske & Atske, 2024) Having a cell phone infront of their face at all times can be extremely lonely. Kids cannot connect the way they used to, while they may be talking all day to someone online, I find that once they do not have their cellphone, they cannot for the life of them make decent conversation with eachother when they are bored. Sadly the adults in this world are no better, I am now at the point where I am fed up with social media and people aimlessly scrolling their phones, but it is truely ADDICTING!

I grew up with access to texting and calling, as well as MSN and other online sites, but I could only access them on a desktop computer. The creation of social media APPS I think is what really changed us as a society. Sometimes for the better, were connecting to eachother all over the world. Learning amazing things from other cultures as well as news stories, and making friends. Look at the video of the numa numa guy, (Michael Wesch, 2008), he created a phenomenom of people connecting together and creating something fun and amazing, and it is like TIKTOK today, connecting and creating amazing things. Yet there is of course a HUGE dark side to these apps as well.

I do not think social media is going away anytime soon, but I do think people are finally starting to realize how dangerously addicting it is and how it could be bad for our mental health. I did a trial month with 0 social media on my phone and I was shocked at how I felt. I felt relief? I did feel a little out of the loop, because those around me were still using social media, but honeslty it was really nice not seeing everyone of my kidless friends hanging out without me and feeling depressed because I am not there. Also I noticed how fricken annoying it was when your trying to make conversation with people because your not scrolling and everyone else is literally so immesered into their phones they are zombies. I get why my parents were so angry when I was younger about that, now tables are turned and I am mad at them for doing it haha.

For my classroom, a healthy balance is necessary. I would love to be able introduce safe ways to access the internet while also allowing them to be genuine kids by building connections with other humans in person, not just through a screen. Showing students that technology can be used for so much for then just social media, will also be very important. Yes social media is useful for lots of things, but there are so many other cool things technology can do for us!! I also think the cellphone bans in school are a start to give kids a break from social media. 6 hours a day to connect to others without a screen will be benefical for literally anyone not just kids!

My relationship with technology has been an ongoing one that has changed throughout my life. I grew up having no internet at all, to having dial up, cd players to mp3 players, flip phones to smart phones, and etc. It was never something that I felt particullary addicted to even when facebook came around. We all went on for our alloted hour in the evening and then we were off, texting our friends and hanging out. Now, well I have just started myself on a social media detox.

I use technology for almost everything, school, family calender, work, TV, communication, promoting my business (well trying) as well as everything else we use it for. When I was working full time I relied on my cell for communication within the school as well as staying organized with google calender. Google calender has honeslty saved my sanity, it keeps myself and my husband on the same page and there is no more of, I definitely told you my parents were coming tomorrow, when he definitely didn’t. (Also spellcheck with google, as I sit here trying to spell definitely). I use my laptop everyday for school and editing photos, and sometimes house stuff because it’s just easier on a bigger screen.

Overall though, this past year on maternity leave I have found myself doom scrolling social media non stop, and all it does it makes me depressed, seeing friends hanging out, wondering why I wasn’t invited. I am the only one of my friend group with kids and it makes really hard. I got so sick of it the one night, sitting there depressed and wondering why the heck I do this to myself. I started looking at phones that are “dummy” phones that only have texting and calling, but I realized that would not work for me. So I decided to just delete facebook/ insta/ tik tok off of my home screen. They are there incase I need to go on them to see a message, or access markpetplace, but I don’t open my phone and instantly start scrolling social media. Its honestly been very refreshing, and hard but only because everyone around me dooms scrools, so I am sitting here bored and wanting to talk but everyone is nose deep into their phones.

I honestly think social media has ruined our kids childhoods, and I have no intentions of giving my kids a cellphone until like 16 or maybe older. We’ll see how that goes haha. I just can see the kids at schools have no ability to communicate and enjoy being kids when they have no phones, they don’t know how to just experience life without the lense of a camera. I think we need to get back to basics when it comes to technology and remove the addictive aspects and apps.

Hello everyone! My name is Kacey, and I am in the Pre-K-5 Elementary Ed Degree Program! I currently live in Regina, Saskatchewan with my family. I am married and have three sons. I also have a cat named Skye and a golden retriever named Sport. I am technically employed with Regina Public Schools as an Educational Assistant, but I am currently on maternity leave. I have slowly been working towards my Ed degree for the last couple of years online, and my class preference is online. I have my first in person class this semester and I am enjoying it a lot!

My experience with educational technology is limited. I have used some programs while working with in the school division since as google classroom, Padlet, iPad, google read and write, google docs and Microsoft office programs like PowerPoint. Other than that, I have not played around with a lot of technology. I have just started myself on a social media purge as it was becoming addictive, I think social media is ruining our kids, though it has its benefits for sure. Overall I am excited to see how technology can be in the classroom and learning how to use some of these new skills will help me teach them to my students.

Blogging for me is a new experience, unless you count the old age of MySpace, I have not done online blogging. Blogging takes a lot of work and the people who keep up with it are amazing. I, however, do not have the patience. I really like pictures though and I think a picture blog would be more up my alley. Blogging during this course will be a bit of a challenge for me I think, so we will see how it goes!