Reading Reflection #8

Technology has opened up a whole new world of communication, what started with Email and instant messengers such as AIM and MSN messenger has grown into Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat... the list goes on and on! People able to communicate anything from life changing epiphanies and social commentary to the mundane details of every day life. Our ability to communicate has opened a whole new world of being able to share with others without being face to face. For some people, such as special needs children that lack the ability to make eye contact or speak clearly (or for some, at all), it allows them to have an outlet in which they can express to themselves to others without having to worry about the usual issues that may impede their social integration with others. 

I, myself, have gotten to know a few of my students through their youtube channels. I've been involved with students have trouble speaking to others due to shyness or even autism. This lack of verbal communication sometimes gives others the impression that they are not interested or engaged when in reality, seeing their youtube channel reveals that there is way more then we see. I saw that not only are their practicing their skills at home, but they are using social meeting to contact with others in sharing new skills and admiring the work of others. 

However, like with all children, social media can be a double edged sword. Social media is like inviting people into your home, accept there can be a level of anonymity. This anonymity can make these children susceptible to cyber bullying, inappropriate content, and online predators. For this reason, I wanted to share the article I found on NPR, which gives a good guideline for special needs parents and teachers for social media. 

http://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2016/04/07/473085222/what-special-ed-teachers-and-parents-need-to-know-about-social-media?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=education

As many of you may notice, the guidelines here are not only good for special needs children, but all children. All children should be well versed in online safe and responsibility to ensure that online interactions are safe, productive, and enriching. Setting rules and boundaries teaches children about responsible internet use as well as time management.  And finally, all parents and teachers should be alert and monitoring a child's social media use to make sure it is being used responsibly and safely. 

Reading Reflection #7

I found this article through NPR's education section whist checking my feedly and I found it not only relevant as an educator, but as a current student as well.

http://www.npr.org/2016/04/17/474525392/attention-students-put-your-laptops-away

In a world where technology is becoming more and more common in the classroom it makes since that students would evolve to take it upon themselves to incorporate laptops and tablets as tools for note taking. Note taking on a laptop is something I see very often in my own classes with my peers and I can understand its appeal as many of us now type faster then we can write by hand, especially since cursive is no longer taught to children. Many students feel that by being able to tape faster, they get more information onto their notes, which may be true, but as this article brings up, it may not be the amount of information you take in, but the way that you take it in.

According to this article, studies have found that by forcing limited note taking (i.e. hand written notes) students must use short hand and are forced to be more selective in writing their notes rather then writing them down verbatim. Reflecting on when I was in school, many times we were forced to answer home work questions form our books and movies "in you own words". I remember talking to my teacher and asking them why I couldn't just copy the words from the book and they responded in saying "when you put it in your own words, you remember it better". Essentially, that's what note taking forces  you to do.

In addition, while having to think about short hand and information selecting, a student becomes more immersed in the lecture versus having time to do other things, such as being tempted by distractions on their tablet or laptop. Although helpful sometimes, tablets and laptops offer distractions such as games, texting, and social media which are tempting to students during a dull lecture.

This is good food for thought as we get students that one day will ask "why do I have to write it in my own words" or even "why can I just use my laptop. Perhaps some of you tablet/laptop note takers disagree, I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Reflection of PLNs

I actually found the RSS feeds were very helpful in not only locating articles for discussion in our class but for discussion with my colleagues at San Marcos High School as well the other education class that I am in. I subscribed to Education NPR, Discovery News, and Smarter Everyday Youtube just to name a few of my new favorite resources. I learned the most from the education section of NPR, which offers a board insight to the current issues in our education system today such as common core, funding, and privacy. One of my favorite discussions was from an article that talked about California standards for the education provided by the state based on the constitution. We had a long discussion among my peers about whether we should give our kids an education or a “quality” education. It was very insightful.

I actually started my own twitter to help me communicate with my students. I subscribed to everything related to the arts and music programs within our district. Once the entire team (45+) began to follow I was able to communicate with them without having to people up a group text. It was really great to be able to communicate with them in a public forum so that we can always be connected without overstepping the student/educator boundaries.

Classroom 2.0 with Ning was very unfamiliar to me at first. I grow very frustrated with pay for use services since I find that there are too many annoying advertisements coming about. However, I can see this becoming a great source of information for educators that may not mind the clutter or paying for services.

Pinterest was okay but I think it works best as a novelty for the board rather than a resource for a classroom.

My overall PLN experience was positive, it brought me in touch with my students as well articles that keep my on my toes with where education is turning. I feel that society is fluid and it our responsibility as educators to be fluid as well to keep up with the parents and students of today and of the future.   

Blog #6 Teacher's Technology Safety

Those of us on route to becoming teachers have heard it a million times (especially for those of your that have Professor Halcon) "do not have questionable pictures of yourself on your phone or social media." Children are taught over and over again "ones its on the internet its there forever" and yet people still make questionable judgement calls at a time they may not be thinking these through. Perhaps you are in need of money, swept up  in a whirl wind romance, or you had a crazy weekend, whatever the reason, you slip. We've seen the outcomes of these situations and the following teacher is not an exception.

http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/03/03/469047582/students-use-petition-to-call-for-teachers-return-after-racy-photos-emerge?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=education

Leigh Anne Arthur had a few lapses of judgement. She took a racy picture of herself for Valentine's day. That's not unthinkable, after all many have as have read the cover of a Cosmopolitan magazine giving women the impression that is it our responsibility to keep the fire in our marriage. Her next mistake, leaving her phone attended in her class room, her third mistake, not having a pass code. The result? A 16 year old male student got a hold of this picture and spread it via social media. Now before I go on about Mrs. Arthur, I want to make it clear that this boy should have consequences for his actions. In world where were are trying to stop cyber bullying, sexual harassment/abuse, and victim blaming, this boy should have consequences and be made an example out of. If gets away with it young boys will think that if its okay to do to a female teacher, its okay to do all to all women, including their fellow students. I would hate to see that type of thinking continue into college.

Back to Mrs. Arthur. I do feel that teacher have to be super human, they are held to the highest public standards and scrutinized for the smallest mistakes. Its sometimes unfair how much of our lives we have to make sure we act accordingly to ensure it does not affect our job. But as future teachers, we are educated and warned about our futures. We do need to be extra careful. We spend years and thousands of dollars preparing ourselves for this job, its important that we prepare ourselves through technology and social media as well to prevent us from getting into these situations. 

Blog #5: Software and student safety/privacy.

In the past year or so I have had all too many experiences with depression and suicide in both my professional life and my personal life. Too many of my students know somebody who has taken their own life and the effects on everyone reach far beyond the family. More students then we know are at risk and what I have learned is that is is VERY difficult to tell who is going through what. High achieving students are overlooked because "they can't possibly be serious" and low achieving students are overlooked because "they're just acting out". For these reasons, suicide prevention is a major concern of mine.

NPR did an article about a school that was able to provide their student population with Google Chrome book laptops. I find this to be an excellent way to ensure all students have the same resources and therefore are all equally set up for success. As always, the parents and school had to find a solution to an computer age old question. How to we keep our students from abusing their technology? The answer: GoGuardian.

GoGuardian was a program developed to block students from inappropriate/time wasting content. Since the program has the ability to monitor what the student was looking, it also had the ability to key in on "red flags" for search queries that would allow school officials to zero in on students that would be at risk for suicide. As any parent who has lost a child to suicide and they would say that if they were able to find any sign of their child's troubles, they wish they did so they could have saved their life. Other parents understandably worry about their child's privacy. Whats to stop the program from picking on the wrong kid that maybe is looking for a friend? Doing some research for a school project? Or worried about a family member?

Our society is overwhelmed right now with tying to find a happy medium between safety and privacy. This seems to be the next frontier, any thoughts?

Reflection #3 Flipping Classrooms

I read the article about the flipped classroom by Mary Beth Hertz (http://www.edutopia.org/blog/flipped-classroom-pro-and-con-mary-beth-hertz) and I thought she made some excellent points.

First off, I LOVE the idea of have the lectures at home and the homework at school. I remember many times I’d be at school and we would finish the lecture and a few example problems or questions and then would sent home to practice the material. Going home confident and then being confident with the material and then being at home confused material was one of the most frustrating thing I felt as a student. By flipping the classroom, I feel that more practice can be done with more guidance from the teacher.

I do agree with Mary Beth Hertz when she brings up the fact that sometimes, technology is still not readily accessible to all students. I can end up being more time of the students and the teachers trying to figure out how to make it work for a few individuals.

Finally, she states that she learned that flipped classrooms are nothing new. True, how is having a child coming to class prepared by watching a lecture or video different from having a child coming prepared by reading their text book? Consider the number of times a teacher would be disappointed to learn that a reading they had assigned had not been completed by the classroom. How do we ensure that not covering the material before coming to class does not happen is this generation? 

My opinions of mobile devices in the classroom

There are many considerations when educators begin contemplating the idea of using mobile devices in the classroom. As mobile devices become more popular outside the classroom it is important to consider introducing these devices in the classroom. First of all, mobile devices now offer a variety of apps to aid in learning of different subjects. I believe these devices can be definitely be used as a supplement to learning but its important for educators to insure they have a plan for its use and not let it come a crutch. If the technology fails in the classroom (for example downed wifi, power outage, or malfunction) educators need to be prepare with a backup lesson as to make sure no classroom instruction is lost. I myself have been in a classroom where the technologically failed and the lesson stalled. Class time is precious and should be preserved even with malfunctioning equipment.

It should also not become a possible excuse for student not to learn or complete assignments in a timely manner. I've seen many cases not where students looking to by some extra time have simply stated "my internet was down", when asked about the assignment and their progress it was learned that the student has not even attempted to start the assignment. Even worst, is when a student does have a true malfunction or difficultly accessing classroom material and are not able to be prepared for the next class and then are lost through the next lecture. This is often the case with underprivileged students which a pet peeve of mine.  

Making the internet more education friendly

The internet has proved to be one of the biggest things to ever happen to human beings. Within the last thirty years alone, it has gone from the hands of few to the hands of many (almost all). It  an amazing source of endless information.

Endless amounts of information, we are finding, is not always a good thing as I came to find out from writer Michele Molnar. One of the biggest challenges facing us today is figuring out a way to sift through endless amounts of information, separating the relevant from the irrelevant, the appropriate from the inappropriate, and the credible from the non credible.

Luckily, it seems as though our education system is well on its way to addressing this issue. One district in particular, the Houstin Unified School District, made large forward strides in trying to figure out how to phase out expensive textbooks and utilize the internet in the classroom and at home. With the use of Cincinnati- based company netTrekkers’s Knovation programming, they were able to start ensuring that the information reaching their students was appropriate at in line with Texas standards. This system of weeding through information is high tech, which means algorithms are used to select desired resources and data.

Other districts are playing with a combination of high tech and high touch (meaning educator evaluated) to direct the flow of desired content to students. An example is OpenEd, a program which subject-matter confirm the findings of the program. Ratings on the data allow the machine to “learn” what data is desirable to educators and becomes more efficient at finding desirable data.

Today, it is hand held, portable, and at our beck and call whenever and wherever we want it. There is enough information at our finger tips to replace the heavy and expensive textbooks of today in schools and homes as we begin to effectively utilize it in the education system.  

http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2016/01/13/flood-of-open-education-resources-challenges-educators.html

My thoughts and reflection of Sugarta Mitra's findings regarding student driven education

I just watched Sugata Mitra: The child-driven education. (TED Talk, 17:13) and am very surprised at what I learned regarding child-driven education.

I’ve been involved with education for approximately nine years now and I, at times, have had the impression that child-driven education is not something that is practical. After having watched this video, I am rethinking what the classroom could be. As this video explains, there is a shortage of teachers where education is needed the most, countries with limited resources and poverty. In the late nineties, Sugata Mitra began experimenting with ways to bring education to children that would otherwise miss out on the opportunities to learn. It started with computers being set into walls in slums. What he found was the children took the initiative to explore and figure out this machine, once they did that, they used it to learn about things that interested them. One of the most amazing things that he did, in my opinion, is that children began speaking better English through the use of the speech to text programs in the Microsoft computers; they would have to figure out how to speak English in a manner that the computer could understand them.

This had an overlap of ISTE standards but this ted talk exhibited most impressively that standard regarding research and information fluency. As mentioned earlier, these students were asked to answer a questions. The most impressive thing is these students were given very little direction and were able to use google as well as trial and error to find the answers to the questions posed to them. 

Sugata Mirta was adamant that children will want to learn when they have interest. Thinking back to my childhood and the children I see with their parents at a young age, it makes since to me now. I remember being bored at home and finding encyclopedias around the house (we didn’t have cable), and I would end up looking up things I was interested in, like birds and whales. My curiosity continued through elementary and middle school when I would go to my own library at school and I would check out books on these topics. I think back to young children that I babysat and anyone would agree, they ask “Why?” more then you can count. Children are naturally curious and so long as that is nurtured from a young age, they will continue to seek knowledge through their lifetime.