Discussion Question

I think the doctor telling the patient to not look to the internet for research on her illness was the best strategy for her. There are a lot of sites out there that people create of their opinions and not based on facts. There are high hoping people that give false hope of treatments and cures that do not exist or have not been proven yet. There are also nay sayers that would go on and on about how bad the illness is and how there is no hope for sufferers. Neither one of these would be good for the patient to read. The book shows that Kate's top results showed a webpage of a cure that is not true. Not everyone knows how to properly validate a website and even if they do, some websites are very misleading and can be hard for anyone to validate. People can be pretty convincing. The book gives a good example of how to avoid this. If warned ahead of time, the patient can narrow her results by excluding ones that include selling cures. A safe extension to use is .gov because only government agencies can purchase them. It would be better not to go to the internet at all, but if the patient wants to they need to know how to correctly and precisely validate a website and look past ones that sell cures.

Interesting Articles

CARE
Breckinridge-Franklin Elementary School in downtown Louisville, Kentucky is beginning a program they call CARE standing for Community Autonomy Relationships Empowerment. It is all about making sure the kids have social and emotional learning support in the classroom. The teachers make a point to greet all of the students in the hallways by name as they enter the building. Then each teacher has a circle time with their students at the start of the day discussing issues with bullying, friends and family. They play out real life roles and ask how the people in the situation would feel and how the students want the atmosphere of the classroom to be. It brings up all kinds of tough things like gossiping, cyber bullying and home life problems. The teachers are showing the students that there are people that care about them including their peers. Their social skills increase and they feel more emotionally secure at school. It is growing into a national program and I think it could be very beneficial. Students will want to succeed and do better in school knowing their teachers and peers care about them and that they do not have to be scared to go to school. All teachers can learn from this, especially new teachers.

Bring Your Own Device
As technology is being used more and more in the classroom, how long do teachers have to take to teach students basics of the device because they are not ones the students use on daily basis? Hanover high school students are skipping this step and going right to the lesson by bringing their own devices to class. The high school is now allowing students to use their own cell phones and laptops as long as they are placed in plain site to make sure they are being used solely for classroom purposes. They use their cell phones to text in an answer to a question that the teacher creates on the screen. As they answer, the answers are instantly being tallied and turned into a graph right before their eyes. They also use their laptops to do the daily activities while the teacher can walk around and make sure everyone is on topic. I think this will help cut down on unnecessary instruction time and get to the lesson faster. Plus, students will feel more comfortable with their own devices that they are used to, thus getting more accomplished in class and they will be more able to carry the lesson with them home and keep learning and communicating while they are at home.

Restricting Social Media

There needs to be regulations between teachers and students when using social media. It can be a very valuable source for teachers to get to know students on a more personal level and see the way they think or feel that you do not always see in the classroom. It can also help the students feel more comfortable talking to the teacher about things they do not understand or feel uncomfortable about. It takes away the pressures of the other children around and puts them on a more personal level. However, there are things that could go wrong. A teacher or a student could take the bonding the wrong way and try to create an unhealthy relationship or  have an unhealthy obsession. The social media used between teachers and students should not be solely social websites like facebook. They should use social sites that have a learning side to them and less personal information and pictures. These sites include blogs, a class website and twitter. The parents should also have access to it so they can see if anything inappropriate is forming. Less personal sites create a discussion for the students to follow and show the teacher what they know and how they express themselves. Social media can be a major benefit only if its used in the right way.
Article in the US News

NETS

It is most important for students to meet the NETS standard number 4: critical thinking, problem solving and decision making. This standard teaches the students to use critical thinking skills to solve problems, conduct research and use appropriate resources and digital tools. By mastering this standard, the students will be able to find and analyze information, conduct the research, solve the problem and make informed decisions off of the results. It will also help them see alternate solutions using different methods. This will help them all throughout school. How else would they be able to do more advanced work in middle and high school if they can not think critically? Every project in school requires a thought process. Then at work when their boss shows them declining statistics of their product, the boss is going to want the worker to be able to use the data to solve the problem.
Then for teachers, it is most important for them to meet the NETS standard number 1: facilitate and inspire student learning and creativity. Children are constantly looking to adults for examples of how they should do things. Teachers are the examples of how the students should use their knowledge to solve problems and find new methods of research. It is important for children to be creative so they take initiative and use innovative thinking. Teachers can model this kind of thinking for their students. Plus, if the teacher uses real life issues for the lessons, the students will clearly see the concepts of understand and the creative thinking processes. This can be done face to face or virtually.

Backchanneling

I think backchanneling could be a very helpful resource for teachers in the classroom. It allows students to ask questions and give more insight to others that are hearing the same lecture and combine their ideas. It keeps them actively involved without making them constantly raise their hands and talk in front of the class where they may feel shy and insecure. Everyone is constantly learning. Then the teacher can read over it and see places where there is extra instruction or explanation needed. It also shows which students have a higher grasp of the concepts than others and the teacher can pair them up accordingly. I see it as a good technology tool for teachers to use. Both the students and the teachers can benefit from it. It can become even more beneficial when they students are given a specific topic or discussion question to base the backchannel off of.
However, I can see one drawback to this new teaching method. I am not very good at multi-tasking. In class today, I became very distracted by the backchanneling on my screen and then I missed parts that he talked about. The only reason I know I missed things was by the discussion going on online. It will be important for teachers to consider students that are like me and need to concentrate on one thing at a time to be able to retain the information. It is a good tool, but should not be used all the time.

Digital Storytelling

A digital story is a personal story about a person, place, thing or experience that is created with media including pictures, videos, sound and music.  They are useful in education because they can examine historical events, explore a time period or show a science exploration. It helps the visual learning students to see what they are learning brought to life and added to a personal story with audio and visual aids. They promote thoughtful and emotional writing. I do not have much experience with digital stories. My teachers in school sometimes showed videos but not often and I have never created one. All I have used close to it is power point in my graphics design class in high school. Generally I think digital stories could be very helpful in classrooms. Kids retain information more when they see it from different angles and from different sources about the same topic. Visual students can benefit from this by seeing their topics in school being brought to life in a story. I do not really have any questions right now but I probably will later when I try to make one since I never made one before.

A Video Game Idea

Two Cents Worth
This post is about creating a video game that would let the gamer design a school and build onto it. The gamer would run the school daily, earn money and use the money to add onto the building or to buy things that the classrooms need. I find it interesting because I play games like that on my phone and I think this would be a fun game for new or aspiring teachers to play. The other three comments consisted of the same ideas that I commented on. They said it would be a great idea and that the goal is a very good one. The one just said that there will be a need for detail and fine-tuning, which is true.
This was my comment on the blog:
I think that is an excellent idea for a game. I get addicted to all of those types of games, where you have to run or manage some type of store or restaurant. I think the most popular game on Facebook is Farmville which has the same basic goal to it. Even though the timing and work load in the game would not be representative of real life but I think it would help new or aspiring teachers to get a glimpse of what its like. I think it would be important to see that the school has to be built and did not just come into existence. This could be a deciding factor when students are deciding their majors. Who would play it? I think a lot of young people would. Make it a mobile app and even more people would play it. Good ideas you have there!