This is a video I created for one of my teaching classes. In the video, you will learn what social literacy is, the components of social literacy, and how to use social literacy in your classroom! There are also screenshot videos of examples of things you could do in your classroom! Take a look :)
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Bullying
A few weeks ago, I came across this video when a friend posted it on my Facebook. (You should watch the video before reading further). I am studying abroad this summer in Australia, so he just sent it to me as a "ha ha, look at what you're going to have to deal with" kind of thing, but this video really struck me.
The first time I watched this video, I was shocked. I watched it a second time, and I just could not believe what I was seeing. I have seen cases of bullying in my placement classrooms from name calling and arguments, to yelling and hitting, but I have never seen one child pick up another child and slam him on the ground. I think this is appalling, especially for middle schoolers!
I understand worse things can happen, but this makes me think...What can we do as educators to prevent bullying from going this far? If bullying is starting at such a young age, I feel that there are things that teachers can do to prevent the amount of bullying in school and preventing it from getting this far. If this were to happen, maybe bullying would begin to diminish once children started getting older. I know that we can't live in a perfect world, but I wonder what would happen if steps were taken and bullying was addressed to kids at an earlier age, I wonder if it would decrease or if it would just introduce the issue at an earlier age and make things worse?
The first time I watched this video, I was shocked. I watched it a second time, and I just could not believe what I was seeing. I have seen cases of bullying in my placement classrooms from name calling and arguments, to yelling and hitting, but I have never seen one child pick up another child and slam him on the ground. I think this is appalling, especially for middle schoolers!
I understand worse things can happen, but this makes me think...What can we do as educators to prevent bullying from going this far? If bullying is starting at such a young age, I feel that there are things that teachers can do to prevent the amount of bullying in school and preventing it from getting this far. If this were to happen, maybe bullying would begin to diminish once children started getting older. I know that we can't live in a perfect world, but I wonder what would happen if steps were taken and bullying was addressed to kids at an earlier age, I wonder if it would decrease or if it would just introduce the issue at an earlier age and make things worse?
Monday, March 21, 2011
Tikatok
The new technology that I chose to explore this week is called Tikatok. This is a website that allows you to create your own book, completely online, and when you are finished, you can view online, email, embed, or even get a hard copy of your book printed. When I was exploring with this resource, I found that it is very easy to use and could be very kid friendly. The creation process is very outlined and you can just click to add text or a picture. It is also very easy to customize the look of the book and gives you color, font, alignment and style customization options.
One thing that I really liked about this application is that it could be used in many elementary level grades. I think that this would be a great alternative resource to use when students are creating books because it is all online and the customization and editing process would be a lot easier, compared to creating a book on paper. If I were to use this in my classroom, I would have my students compose drafts of their story, and we would edit them until they would come up with a final draft of their story and a final outline of what they want their book to look like. That way, when we begin using the program, students will just have to copy what they have on their draft and put it right on the website, to create their final product.
When you create a book on this website, there are three book options that you can choose from. You can choose from a Memory Book (students write about a memory or are creating the book to give as a gift), StorySpark (students choose from a topic and writing prompts to help them create their story) or you can start from scratch. I think this is a great way for teachers to decide which option is right for their lesson, or their students' age levels.
Here is a screenshot of the main screen on the webpage.
One thing that I really liked about this application is that it could be used in many elementary level grades. I think that this would be a great alternative resource to use when students are creating books because it is all online and the customization and editing process would be a lot easier, compared to creating a book on paper. If I were to use this in my classroom, I would have my students compose drafts of their story, and we would edit them until they would come up with a final draft of their story and a final outline of what they want their book to look like. That way, when we begin using the program, students will just have to copy what they have on their draft and put it right on the website, to create their final product.
When you create a book on this website, there are three book options that you can choose from. You can choose from a Memory Book (students write about a memory or are creating the book to give as a gift), StorySpark (students choose from a topic and writing prompts to help them create their story) or you can start from scratch. I think this is a great way for teachers to decide which option is right for their lesson, or their students' age levels.
The book choices that the user can make.
Different categories that students can choose from in a StorySparks book.
Screenshot of the editing and customization process.
Frontline - Digital Nation
Check out this video through the link below! It brings up issues of our society and education, and how we are all affected by technology (good and bad!) Since we all surround and use technology in our daily lives, I think that this would be a great video for anyone to watch!
Link to the Frontline Video
Link to the Frontline Video
Blogging About Students?
Last week, I found this article, which explains one teacher's experience with blogging. This article explains how a teacher referred to her students as being "lazy" and "whiney" and her frustrations with teaching these students. However, she never used her name, student's names, information about the school or any other personal information to her blog readers. About a year and a half after she started her blog, officials in her school district found out about the blog and suspended this teacher with pay. In the school's defense, they said that these topics were very inappropriate to write about on a public blog, even if she never used student's names. In the teacher's defense, she said that she just used the blog as a way to let out her frustrations and draw attention to the question of why today's youth is so lazy?
In my opinion, this teacher walked some fine lines when posting things about specific students on a public blog, even if no names were used. As an educator myself, I can understand these frustrations that this teacher was experiencing, and this was a way for her to get all of these frustrations out. But was it right to do it in the public eye? School officials still ended up finding out about this blog, even if she didn't use any identifiable factors when writing, but that didn't seem to stop administrators from displaying this issue on national news. (The article I found is on MSNBC.)
As a teacher, I do not think that I would ever do something like this because I think there are better and more effective ways to removing your frustrations, rather than blogging about it. I understand that there are going to be students that just do not have motivation to succeed in school, or lack the drive to complete an assignment or participate in class, but I think these issues should be brought up IN the classroom, not through a blog. Blogging can be an effective tool, but when you misuse it, there can be extreme consequences. The bottom line is that as a teacher, you are going to have great teaching days, and other days are going to be frustrating, but that is just what comes with the profession.
What do you think? Do you think this teacher acted inappropriately and crossed the line? Or do you think that students need "tough love" and these issues needed to be addressed?
In my opinion, this teacher walked some fine lines when posting things about specific students on a public blog, even if no names were used. As an educator myself, I can understand these frustrations that this teacher was experiencing, and this was a way for her to get all of these frustrations out. But was it right to do it in the public eye? School officials still ended up finding out about this blog, even if she didn't use any identifiable factors when writing, but that didn't seem to stop administrators from displaying this issue on national news. (The article I found is on MSNBC.)
As a teacher, I do not think that I would ever do something like this because I think there are better and more effective ways to removing your frustrations, rather than blogging about it. I understand that there are going to be students that just do not have motivation to succeed in school, or lack the drive to complete an assignment or participate in class, but I think these issues should be brought up IN the classroom, not through a blog. Blogging can be an effective tool, but when you misuse it, there can be extreme consequences. The bottom line is that as a teacher, you are going to have great teaching days, and other days are going to be frustrating, but that is just what comes with the profession.
What do you think? Do you think this teacher acted inappropriately and crossed the line? Or do you think that students need "tough love" and these issues needed to be addressed?
Sunday, March 13, 2011
Technology Integration
I chose to update a lesson plan that I had for last semester and integrate technology into the plan. The lesson plan that I chose to update is a social studies lesson plan about teaching truth and honesty to first grade students. I chose to use Pinocchio as my base for teaching these concepts. The part of the lesson that I chose to transform into technology was the book. I think that if I were to make the actual book into something that the students can watch will allow for higher comprehension levels, especially for visual learners, since the students will be able to watch the story as well as listen to it at the same time. Although I have not used this type of technology integration in the classroom before, I really think that students will benefit from this.
The other piece of technology that I chose to use was the ELMO. This technology was already included in my lesson plan, before editing, because my CT uses the ELMO quite frequently. I think that this is a great tool because you can put just about anything up on the board, so that all students can see, whereas when you have an overhead, you have to make special sheets in order for them to work. As I learn more throughout this course, I hope to learn of more ways that I can improve this lesson plan and include more types of technology.
Here's a link to my website to check out my lesson plan:
Friday, March 4, 2011
Slideroll
For this week, I chose to explore Slideroll as my way of telling a story with technology. I chose to show a short video of my trip to Paris, that I took this past summer. I chose to use Slideroll because I haven't ever used it before, so I thought I would give it a try. It was pretty easy to use and I think it would be a great tool to use in the classroom. I think students could easily make videos using this program because it is completely drag and drop, and you can easily add your own text. The only thing I didn't like was that once you added an image, you couldn't remove that image from your project, so you had to start a whole new project. If I gave my students the opportunity to use this tool to tell a story in my classroom, I think they could come up with some pretty creative things!
I tried to get the video to upload, but it wasn't working. Here is a screenshot for now!
Thursday, March 3, 2011
Integrated Technology Lesson Plan Idea
Michigan First Grade GLCE'S
W.GN.01.03 write an informational piece that addresses a focus question (e.g., What is
a family?) using descriptive, enumerative, or sequence patterns that may include headings,
titles, labels, photographs, or illustrations to enhance the understanding of central idea
W.GN.01.01 write a personal narrative using illustrations and transitional words such
as before, after, now, or finally to indicate a sequence of events, sense of story (beginning,
middle, and end), and physical descriptions
Technology Choice: Slideroll, Scrapblog, or other online slideshow tool
When thinking about my final project, I would like to incorporate some writing GLCE's into my lesson plans and technology usage. I think it would be beneficial for my students to write a story and then transform it into something digital. It is important that my students understand that they will have to incorporate a beginning, middle and end to their story, along with supporting details that add details to their story. The images and illustrations that they will incorporate will be thoughtful and will make sense to match the content of their story. I believe that using Slideroll, Scrapblog or another online slideshow tool will be beneficial to this assignment because it will be easy for them to use (with an adult's help) and they can choose their own design and template to show their story.
W.GN.01.03 write an informational piece that addresses a focus question (e.g., What is
a family?) using descriptive, enumerative, or sequence patterns that may include headings,
titles, labels, photographs, or illustrations to enhance the understanding of central idea
W.GN.01.01 write a personal narrative using illustrations and transitional words such
as before, after, now, or finally to indicate a sequence of events, sense of story (beginning,
middle, and end), and physical descriptions
Technology Choice: Slideroll, Scrapblog, or other online slideshow tool
When thinking about my final project, I would like to incorporate some writing GLCE's into my lesson plans and technology usage. I think it would be beneficial for my students to write a story and then transform it into something digital. It is important that my students understand that they will have to incorporate a beginning, middle and end to their story, along with supporting details that add details to their story. The images and illustrations that they will incorporate will be thoughtful and will make sense to match the content of their story. I believe that using Slideroll, Scrapblog or another online slideshow tool will be beneficial to this assignment because it will be easy for them to use (with an adult's help) and they can choose their own design and template to show their story.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)