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