Journal #8 – Navigate the Digital Rapids - IV, V

Lindsay, J., & Davis, V. (2010). Navigate the digital papids. L&L—Learning & Leading with Technology, 37(6), Retrieved from http://www.iste.org/Content/NavigationMenu/Publications/LL/LLIssues/Volume3720092010/MarchAprilNo6/Navigate_the_Digital_Rapids.htm

Digital citizenship is about transforming myself into a professional who can effectively research technology trends, monitor the uses of technology in your school or district, avoid the fear factor that can easily paralyze you, and empower student-centered learning to create vibrant, exciting learning projects. Students thrive on customized tools, such as mobile technology, and customized learning environments. If I can involve my students in student-centered, globally connected projects, each student's learning experience cna become markedly different, and each classroom can become as unique as the students and teachers who learn there. A customized classroom and national standards can coexist and lead to rich learning.

Connecting students to other classrooms requires teachers to have a good understanding of how the technology works, especially the collaborative Web 2.0 tools, such as wikis, nings, and blogging platforms. They need to develop their own personal learning networks and have some understanding of what connected learning looks like and how to harness its power. Teachers need to monitor and become engaged in what their students are doing. Sometimes participants slip into a social-network mode of communicating. They may use textspeak or even inappropriate language, or they might upload pictures that are not acceptable in all global classrooms. This is where teachers must monitor in an engaged manner.

In Flat Classroom projects, teachers strictly moderate all online collaborative and networking sites for membership and content. When students step over the line, all teachers must understand the process to deal with it. The classroom teacher decides the appropriate action, which may include asking the student to apologize to the educational network or, in some cases, suspending or even banning the student from the network. We need to educate students as soon as they start using digital tools for communication, collaboration, and creation through connections online or offline. We encourage productive interactions and opportunities for students to connect and share differences and learn from experience how to respond and reach out to others in an appropriate way. The time to foster this is during their school years and in more controlled environments where good online citizenship practices can be molded.

As a teacher will I encounter this?

Technology today has become such a primary use in our everyday activity. Children as young as preschool are learning how to use computesr and children are being taught about the Internet in the elementary level. As a future teacher, I will be required to teach my teachers about the use of computers and I will need to teach them about Internet safety.

How will I teach my students about Internet safety and what is appropriate?

Many schools are offering workshops that students must attend to explain to students about the Internet and what is allowed at school. There are also monitoring websites that I can look at to see what my students are doing online and whether of not it is appropriate. If it is not, then I will take necessary active into account.

Journal #7 – The Beginner’s Guide to Interactive Virtual Field Trips - NETS I, IV, V

Zanetis, J. (2010). The Beginner's guide to interactive virtual field trips. L&L—Learning & Leading with Technology, 37(6), Retrieved from http://www.iste.org/AM/Template.cfm?Section=March_April_No_6_1&Template=/MembersOnly.cfm&NavMenuID=4516&ContentID=25443&DirectListComboInd=D

For students, field trips can be an exciting break from day-to-day classroom activities and a memorable, real-world experience. Lately, local field trips have become less common as travel costs have steadily risen over the past several years but today we have other options. Virtual field trips (VFTs): field trips that are conducted virtually, over the Internet and/or videoconferencing equipment, so that students can learn directly from experts in far away places without ever leaving their classrooms. VTF’s can involve touring a historic site, witnessing scientific experiments or processes at museums or organizations, watching live demonstrations in the field, attending folk festivals or other events, and much more.

Asynchronous VFTs are not delivered in real time. They are basically websites that include text, audio, or video resources about specific topics. Another type is on a websites called: www.efieldtrips.org.
This organization hosts electronic field trips with four main parts: the Trip Journal, the Virtual Visit (a streaming video), an Ask the Expert tool, and a hosted Web chat. Interactive VFTs are synchronous, real-time experiences in which students in one location learn from informal educators in another location, such as a museum, historic castle, or organization such as NASA. These take place over the internet . As of right now, approximately 300 museums, science centers, historical sites, and similar organizations that offer interactive VFTs to schools. Using the videoconferencing interface, students can interact with the experts to get a real-world angle on the topic they are studying. The experts are usually trained and adept at adjusting to the students' level of comprehension. Students usually have no problem adjusting to interaction with an on-screen instructor, and, in fact, often find the experience engaging.

The lessons, which are usually based on national standards, also often include materials targeted to the students' area and grade level as well as classroom activities for students to do before and after the interactive VFT. VFTs do remove the barriers between your classroom and those far-away people and resources. It may seem a little strange at first to be talking to a TV, but once students get engaged in lively discussion with those on the far end, the technology becomes invisible, and the classroom walls disappear. Look for interactive VFTs led by known experts and reliable organizations that use credible primary sources as the key focus of the lessons Interactive VFTs often have a fee. But when compared to the cost of a real field trip, and considering the value students get out of them, many schools have decided to work these costs into existing fee structures or to add VFT funding to their budgets. If cost is a major hurdle in getting started, many content providers, such as NASA, also offer excellent free programs.

Would I use VFT’s in my classroom?

It would really depend on the cost and the school I work at. I feel that students sometimes need a hands on learning experience so if I am able to actually take my studnets to a specific field trip near by, then I would prefer that over VFT’s but if cost is too much then I would definitely use VFT’s.

How would I use VFT’s in my classroom?

Again the cost is always a factor in schools now but I would try to incorporate VFT’s as much as possible that will help increase my students learning. Again the material of the VFT would have to pertain to what I am teaching and help inhance my students learning in order for me to use it. I would do plenty of research and try to get my students more involved in the material to make learning fun.

Journal #6 - Social Bookmarking - III, IV, V

Robitaille, A., & Seshagiri, M. (2007, May 24). Classroom 2.0 - social bookmarking. Retrieved from http://www.classroom20.com/forum/topic/listForTag?tag=bookmarking


Social Bookmarking is the ability to tag, save, manage and share web pages from a centralized source. Social Bookmarking is a method for Internet users to share, organize, search, and manage bookmarks of web resources. Unlike file sharing, the resources themselves aren't shared, merely bookmarks that reference them. Two threads that I have followed are Question on Social Bookmarking (Web2.0) sites and Web 2.0 Tutorial for Educators.


In doing so, I learned that there are many sites that allow for social bookmarking. The main one that I have only known about is delicious.com but in following these threads, they have different social bookmarking websites that account for social bookmarking news or make a social text clip sharing. There are so many different types of social bookmarking websites depending on the category in which you want to social bookmark. Snipitron (http://www.snipitron.com) - allows you to create different subjects and use tags. Each list owner can decide whether to allow others to add them to their list and/or add comments or you can reject a person if you do not wish to have them follow your bookmarks.


Teachers have posted which social bookmarking websites have worked best for them. One teacher uses ikeepbookmarks. He thinks that it is easier for his 5th grade students to understand the folder better when he or his students tag websites. Another teacher really liked to use LinkaGoGo because it seemed to work best for her and her students. She primarily uses this social bookmarking website to organized her websites through folders, but the tags can also be added to make searching for entries easier.


In the Web 2.0 Tutorials for Educators, web 2.0 is known as the Read/Write Web, the new web is a breeding ground for creative and engaging educational endeavors. Teachers are using the new Web 2.0 tools to launch their classroom into the 21st century. Students are creating online content, collaborating with other students around the world and showcasing their work to a global audience. Web 2.0 provides new learning experiences for students and encourages global awareness, creativity, innovation, critical thinking and collaboration. According to Web 2.0 Tutorials for Educators, The knowledge students will gain from engaging with Web 2.0 technologies will foster the communication and information literacy skills that are required in the 21st century.


Commented on:
Carly - Podcasting
Brenda - Microblogging
Sara - Collaborative Documents

Inspiration - NETS I, II, III

Through using a program called Inspiration, we created graphic organizers to show the National Educational Technology Standards For Teachers (NETS) and which projects we created that met each of those standards. Each of the five standards we wrote about had at least two artifacts that me those standards. Each NETS standard has a brief description of the standard and how it applies to the two different class artifacts.

Powerpoint Rubric - II, III

As a class, we collaboratively created a class rubric for our Powerpoint presentations. The rubric showed us what our PowerPoints needed to meet to get full credit on the assignment. The rubric was based on the standards that we as a class felt were appropriate for our PowerPoints. When we graded our assignments with other peers, they used this rubric to make sure all needs were met in our presentations.

NETS Powerpoint Presentation - NETS I, II, III

I created this Powerpoint using Microsoft Powerpoint. Each slide I made consists of lesson plans or classroom activities for grades K-2 according to the NETS standards for that grade. After I completed this assignment, I then shared it with my peers for grading and accuracy

EDUC 422 Power Point KC

Social Bookmarking- NETS I, IV, V

1. National Archives – The 1906 San Francisco Earthquake. A devastating earthquake hit San Francisco early morning on April 18^th, 1906. The earthquake only lasted about a minute and destroyed over 500 city blocks of San Francisco. During that minute of disaster the earthquake caused water and gas lines to twist and break causing fires to erupt across the city and burned uncontrollably for days.

The value of primary source (i.e.: Objects, Images, Audio, Statistics, Text, and the community) is considered necessary in my classroom. Children need to visual see artifacts or hear stories from a first person. Children may watch videos from an even to actually see what took place and how it happened. Primary sources are needed to really understand life. Going back to the San Francisco earthquake, if you see pictures or watch a movie, you can see the devastation that took place instead of just hearing about it. Visual seeing photographs or visuals can make the experience more real and is crucial in understanding how severe things are or to just learn about the world around you 

2. Link: http://www.nea.org/home/37643.htm

- Create a cultural competence committee or task force. Include administrators, teachers, education support professionals, students, family, and community representatives. The committee can serve as the primary governing body for planning, implementing, and evaluating organizational cultural competence initiatives. I think that by working together both inside the school and outside the school in the community, it helps to make others aware of issues going on and by working together you can come up with solutions. I feel that as a group effort, we can stop of lot of problems that we face and build a more cultural group of “we.” We all have to work together to succeed in this world and with hate and problems we cannot coexist peacefully.

- Gather and organize resource materials related to culturally diverse groups for use by school staff. – As a teacher you need materials and resources to help you teach about cultural diversity and how we are all very different but at the same time, very much alike. You cannot teach a beneficial lesson if you do not have the write resources and materials.

- Build and use a network of "natural helpers" at school and in the community as well as "experts" who have knowledge of the culturally, linguistically, racially, and ethnically diverse groups served by your school. Children learn best from their peers. By having a group of experts or natural helpers, children can learn from their actions and knowledge. Children helping others, makes others aware of situations and how to make it so that they can coexist peacefully as a group and is very much needed in schools.

3. My cyber bully quiz score was a 2. I have messaged one of my friends without telling them who I was and asked them to guess. I never thought if that as a cyber bullying thing. I was just more like hey guess who I am. I have never done it to someone that wasn’t my friend or in a mean way and told them within 5 minutes who I was. I also have my second point because I have cussed at least once online because I was mad. I rarely every do it but I’m sure that I have before.

4. - I would use the AAA math page. Students need extra practice and useful websites fro them to use to help with their math skills. I would use some of these lessons in my classroom and show my students how to use this websites to help them and how I use it to help them understand math better.

- I would also use the bulletin board ideas. You always need new ideas to do with your bulletin boards. I like to be very creative and colorful and learn new ideas to make my students learning environment more active and enjoyable and I feel that bulletin boards are a way to help with this.

5. 1) Interpersonal – 94%

2) Intrapersonal – 69%

3) Logical-Mathematics – 63%

Video – I found really fascinating that there are so many different types of intelligences, which makes it harder and easy for certain children to learn. This kind of scares me because I have to relate each lesson to all seven or eight different personalities. To me this is going to be very hard to do every single lesson and to make sure that I am getting the information across to every student.

6. Gender Stereotyping was my topic for grades 3-5.

In my lesson plan I would do a brief interview with some adults to find out what the careers are that they've had prior to arriving on campus. In front of the students I would write two lists on the board. On the left hand side I would list the adults they know in our school. On the right hand side I list the various jobs and careers these adults have held in their past. I would explain to my students that their task is to match the job or former career with the adult that they think fits.

Once they think they have a guess they can raise their hands and share their assumption. Students can talk to each other, make predictions and share their assumptions openly if they want to. With my help, it usually takes 10 to 15 minutes to get all the adults and jobs matched correctly. Here’s where the lesson really begins. I asked the students if any of the outcomes surprised them and why. Without fail, I will get a stereotype pertaining to gender or a prejudice statement regarding appearance.

There are many directions this lesson can go once you have your student’s assumptions and stereotypes. I like to show students that everyone has a work history and that they began in unusual places. Students can see that most adults work up a career ladder and are working towards a goal. Most importantly, for me, we can examine stereotypes around gender, class and the way people look or are perceived.


7. In a 2007 study, UNICEF rated the treatment of children in the 23 wealthiest countries in the world based on 40 indicators of child well-being. Which two countries received the lowest ratings?

 - I was amazed to find out that the answer to this question was the United States and the United Kingdom. That makes me really sad to know that we are the wealthiest country but don’t have very good treatment rating for the treatment of children. Our money should be going to treatment of children more than many other things our country chooses to spend its money on.

 Compared with their U.S.-born peers, how likely are immigrant men in the U.S., ages 18-39, to be in jail or prison, according to a 2008 report from the Immigration Policy Center?

- The answer was 5 times less likely. To a point this somewhat surprises me but in other ways it doesn’t. I do feel that US citizens that were born and raised in this country are more likely to act up because they many times are not as grateful for what they get and will act out more. Majority of immigrant come to the US because of better opportunities so therefore they tend to be happier and less likely to act out because they are so grateful for what they now have.


8. I answered 9 questions out of 10 correctly therefore overall I got a 90% on the Netiquette Quiz.
              In my classroom students learn by model. I would make sure to use netiquette in my classroom and would model the do's and don't of the internet. All my students would have a chance to take the netiquette quiz and will have to keep taking the quiz until they have reached 100% but they will not know this the first time that they take it. :^) I would go over the rules of the internet with the class and explain what the do's and don't are of the internet and how to make sure that they know what can happen if they do not follow the rules. =^D Children need to be taught the rules and what will happen if they don't follow them. Bullying has been an increasing problem in child, especially on the internet because there is not face to face contact. Child need to be taught that others have feelings and that even though you can't see others reactions, mean comments can hurt others. The rules of Netiquette need to be taught early on so that my students know how they should  and should not act on the internet.
:^) (Happy, Approving) or =^D (Big Grin)