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?