Miller (left) is a teenager living in the USA. It's always interesting to hear what young people think about educational technology, so I was delighted when Miller agreed to have a go at answering questions about it.

Miller works on the digiteen site

The questions below are all genuine, ie they have been submitted by real people, not just made up by me (although I can assure that I am a real person!).

Equally, Miller's answers are genuine too, which is to say she didn't receive any prompting or assistance from either her teacher, Vicki Davis, or me.

This week, Miller answers these questions:

 
 
   
1. Do you or your teachers make use of any social bookmarking tools (like Delicious). If so, which do you use?  Thanks, Ian
   
2. Should teachers stay out of your facebook? Or would you like learning stuff and school info to roll through like status updates? Or maybe an application you can install to see your school related stuff?
   
3. What role would u like to have in helping less savvy adults understand new media?
 

If you would like to submit a question to Miller, please complete the extremely short questionnaire. This feature on the ICT in Education website will run only for the next few weeks, so be quick!

If you have any feedback, whether about the idea itself or Miller's answers, please let me know by leaving a comment here.

Do you or your teachers make use of any social bookmarking tools (like Delicious). If so, which do you use?

Miller replies:

Hi Ian,    
Social bookmarking is a great tool to use. Not only does it help you to stay organized, but also helps you to keep everything together in one place so that it will be easier to gather your information together. My personal favorite bookmarking website is Diigo. I prefer Diigo because it was the first bookmarking service that I have ever used. My teacher introduced us to Diigo back during the November of 2008, and we have been using it ever since. Now that you have mentioned Delicious, I will have to try it. Thanks for mentioning it.

The reasons that I like Diigo is because it allows you to download a toolbar on which all of your bookmarks appear. Diigo also allows you to make sticky notes and highlight the things that you want to save so that will appear when you or your friends view that piece of information. I would definitely recommend using Diigo.

Thanks for reading,    
Miller

Should teachers stay out of your Facebook? Or would you like learning stuff and school info to roll through like status updates? Or maybe an application you can install to see your school related stuff?

Miller replies:

Hello Reader,    
I believe that your Facebook should be separate from your school. I believe it would be OK to have a sports schedule or test schedule or even a social event calendar of your school's, but that's it. Your school life should be separate from your personal life. In saying this I repeat my belief that you should act just as appropriate online as you do offline. Your teacher, unless  allowed with the consent of the student should not be nosy around the student's Facebook or Myspace.  Just as the teacher has their right to privacy in their room at school, the student should have their right to their privacy online. However, if the teacher should think that something bad is going on with the student over Facebook, after informing their parents, they should intervene.

I propose a solution. If the teachers want to keep tabs on their students, they should create a personal Ning . A Ning is just like Facebook, except that it is private among the students at the school. A Ning allows you to create your own social network. You can chat, invite friends, blog, add pictures, videos, or music. The teacher can control anything that goes on. It is a great way for students to communicate with their fellow students in a supervised environment.

Thanks for reading,    
Miller

What role would you like to have in helping less savvy adults understand new media?

Miller replies:

Hello Reader,    
I would have to say that the role that I would most like to have would be presenter. By presenter, I mean the person that takes the media, and teaches the adults, hands-on, what they need to know. I would like to be that person who takes the adults into a fun and relaxing environment, and just have fun. I would teach them how to make funny movies and upload to YouTube . I would like to show them how to use an online program like Slideshare . Slideshare is a program that allows you to take PowerPoint slides and make them into a slideshow. I would also like to show adults how to use Jing. Jing is a program in which you can take screen shots and record your voice so that it makes a demonstration video. To tell you the truth, I really don't care what position I have in adults learning to be more savvy with media. I just want adults to learn more so that they can fear less.

Miller's acknowledgements

I would like to say thank you to the readers that support Mr. Terry's newsletter. Thank you to Mr. Terry for giving me this opportunity to write for his wonderful newsletter. Thank you to my Computer teacher Mrs. Vicki for giving me the knowledge to be able to answer the questions that everyone has asked. Thank you to my family for supporting me and allowing me to write for this website. Thanks to everyone for their support.

Sincerely,        
Miller

My acknowledgements

My thanks to Vicki Davis for introducing me to Miller in the first place, and for managing the communications between all concerned, and allowing Miller time in school to answer the questions. Thanks also to Miller's parents for allowing and encouraging her to take part in this little experiment. And, of course, to Miller herself for taking time out of her busy schedule! Finally, thanks to the people who have sent in questions for Miller to answer: keep 'em coming!

Disclaimer

Miller's views do not represent the views of her school, her teacher, nor any other organization which she belongs to, but are solely her own views and opinions.

Next week...

More of Miller's answers will be published next week. If you would like to ask her opinion on anything concerning educational technology, you may do so online -- it will take you just a couple of minutes! And if you missed the first set of Miller's answers, just click on the link just given!

If you enjoyed reading Miller's views...

Then you will probably enjoy the following:

 
• What are your kids learning while you're not looking? That was the title of a presentation that Miles Berry and I did at the BETT Show 2009. Based on original research, it made it very clear that teachers make life more difficult for themselves, and less than interesting for their students, by ignoring what their students can already do. For more information, including a link to Miles' blog on the subject and a slide show, see my article on What are your kids learning while you're not looking?      
  
 
• What does Miller think about digital citizenship, social networking and online safety? Listen  to a discussion we had via Skype. It lasts just over 26 minutes.      
  
 
• Miller lives in the USA. What does Edith, an English schoolgirl of around the same age, think about the same sort of issues? I've just published an interview/discussion we had with Edith, who without a doubt was the star of the show at a recent Teachmeet.      
  
 
• Miller wrote a cracking article on the subject of social networking and digiteens for the special social networking issue of Computers in Classrooms. That is now out. If you don't want to miss it, sign-up for it now -- it's free!      
  
 
• Miller will answer more questions next week. If you want to make sure you don't miss that, then subscribe to this site's RSS feed now!
  
  
• Finally, find out the views of an English teenager: How good is the teaching of ICT? An interview with Edith, an English teenager

What do you think? Please leave a comment.