Rural Tech Educator

 YouTube: IBM Technology     When I started this week's readings, I seriously thought I was rereading one of my husband's computer science books. The terms open source software, freeware, and shareware are ones that are familiar to me, but I haven't read or thought about them in a long time.      As strange as these terms sound to many people, they are the underlying programs that control all that we use and do online. This blog will break down each one and how it helps in learning. OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE      Open source software (OSS) is software for which the source code is viewable and changeable by the public, or otherwise "open." When the source code is not viewable and changeable by the public, it's considered "closed" or "proprietary" (Midrack, 2017).       The Open Source Initiative (OSI) has set a standard—the "open source definition"—by which software qualifies for an open source license.   The software must ...

 "Each great advance in computing has brought computers closer to human speech." - Tim O'Reilly,   founder of O’Reilly Media.     I remember my first personal computer. It was huge! This big monitor and tower. We had to buy a special desk for it, and I was so excited to turn it in and play solitaire. We have come a long way since then.      The World Wide Web quickly invaded us shortly after I got this PC and our world changed, and is still changing.     The web has evolved in essentially three stages: Web. 1.0, Web. 2.0 and, what is now being called, Web. 3.0. Web. 1.0 was pretty static with few hyperlinks and little creativity (Modard, 2012). That was just the beginning. Quickly, the web would evolve again. YouTube: Calibraint Web. 2.0      The term “Web 2.0” appears for the first time during a brainstorming organized by Tim O’Reilly and MediaLive International in 2004 (Bartolome, 2008). (Bartolome, 2008)  ...

     I am blessed to be the mother of two kids. My daughter is about to turn 7 and my son is 8. Like many parents, we face the same issues at our house when it comes to technology use. How much is too much? What content are they watching? How do we balance online with technology-free time? What age should we get them, the next techno gadget?      It’s a battle that my parents did not have to deal with. Unlike my own children, technology wasn’t a big factor in my life until  I got to college after high school. Today’s students use instant messaging, texting, Instagram, SnapChat, YouTube, Vine, and many other digital tools – ranging from incredibly simple to highly complex – to consume, create, and share digital media products with family, friends, acquaintances, and sometimes even strangers (Wilson et al., 2017) .      The video above shows my children playing a game and watching a show on their tablets, their favorite activity. In fa...