Week 14

I completed items 1-3.

Internet Safety Reflection

1. I read "Rated A" by Marvin J. Ashton of Council of the Twelve.

2. I watched the PBS Frontline Documentary Parts 1-4. The parts were "Living their Lives Essentially Online", "A Revolution in Classrooms and Social Life", "Self Expression Trying on New Identities", and "The Child Predator Fear". All the parts basically focused on how the internet is taking over childrens lives and that people are using the Internet as another life. Parents are concerned about the effects Internet is having on their children and how other people might hurt their children.

3. What I gathered most from the videos and the readings is that the Internet, though beneficially, can have serious dangerous effects. Children can be exposed to all sorts of things that are not age appropriate and are putting themselves at risk for predators on the Internet. One major problem with the Internet is cyperbullying. Kids are using the Internet as a means to make fun of and ruin other students lives. Cyperbullying can be so cruel that it can lead to such horrible events as murder and sucide. Cyperbullying can be an even more drastic problem than just regular bullying because it can happen 24 hours a day, seven days a week and there is no escape from it. I also learned that people use the Internet to create alternative lifestyles or project images of themselves that aren't like reality. Children are spending more and more time on the Internet rather than socializing with actual people. The danger in this is that people are losing the ability to interact with others. The Internet is also turning into a social competition and causing problems that don't really exist. I also learned that the media is breaking apart the family unit and that people are spending more time on the Internet rather than with their families. People need to hold themselves to higher standards and not subject themselves to anything immoral that can be found in the media.

4. I talked with my mom about cyperbullying.

i. She didn't know how prevalent the problem was. She thought of cyperbullying as people just saying me things to one another and didn't realize how serious it could actually get. She wasn't aware of the serious consequences, such as murder or suicide, that could result from cyperbullying. She also didn't think cyperbullying was as big a problem as it is. She hadn't had first hand experience with this so its easy to think that the problem isn't as prevalent as it actually is.

ii. She was shocked at what I shared with her. She hadn't realized how horrible this problem had gotten and how drastic the consequences could be. She was surprised at the many different ways in which people can cyperbully each other. The person I talked to isn't very technology savvy so she was surprised to find out the many ways bullying occurs and how harsh kids can be to one another. I think the aspect of cyperbullying she found most dramatic were the cases the ended in kids either being murdered or committing suicide. Everyone would like to think that children aren't capable of such horrible acts but the truth is that it happens and people need to be aware of the problem.

iii. There wasn't anything that really surprised me about her reaction. Everything I learned was shocking and scary and that was her reaction as well.

iv. I think the person I talked to will be more aware of what her kids are doing on the Internet. She realizes that she can't always be there to monitor what her kids are doing but she needs to be aware of what could be going on. She wants to know what are some of the ways kids can cyperbully each other so that if she does witness it or come across she'll know better how to handle it.

Week 13

TPACK Reporting

Here's the link to my google docs presentation:

http://docs.google.com/present/view?id=dccjv4sv_27gw9j2mp8

TPCK Reporting Presentation

Week 12

My practicum experience was in a first grade classroom and my mentor teacher did not use technology. I think there are several reasons for this. First, there are twenty-two six and seven year olds and one teacher. Using technology becomes difficult because it is hard to manage that many kids while either the teacher or the students are using technology. Management becomes a problem. Second, the volume of questions using technology would bring would limit the amount of time students were actually working with technology and it would waste valuable class time. Having been in first grade for almost a month now I have realized that first graders ask a lot of questions. They are almost all hypothetical and rarely important, but nonetheless they ask questions. If technology was used the number of questions would only increase. Not all students are on the same level and I see very little technology that would not present a problem. Third, there is not very much technology available at my school. There’s a computer lab, some projectors, and a video camera. With the student’s short attention spans, using a computer projector takes more time than it’s worth. The one thing I wish I could have seen my mentor teacher do would be to take the students to the computer lab. I was given a very brief knowledge of what programs there are available for student use and I would have appreciated getting to see them in action. Another tool that I think my mentor teacher could have implemented and it would have gone fairly well is using a Powerpoint presentation. Though it’s a very basic form of technology I think it would work very well with first graders. Rather than writing things on the board or using magnets to hold up pictures or words, a Powerpoint presentation could have been created. It would have been new and interesting to the students so they probably would have enjoyed it very much and paid close attention. It also would have been possible to implement a Google Earth tour. The teacher should probably be in charge of showing the students the tour, not giving each individual student a computer; first graders tend to be kind of destructive. But using Google Earth would have allowed students to see real-life pictures and be introduced to a new form of technology.

Week 11 cont.

Social Studies Lesson: http://docs.google.com/View?id=dccjv4sv_24cf57rgfj

Language Arts Lesson: http://docs.google.com/View?id=dccjv4sv_26gcvdwdd3

Science Lesson Plan: http://docs.google.com/View?id=dccjv4sv_25ftxsrshr