Technology is a Must!

Using technology is clearly a skill that is demanded by many employers. I feel that most students can find access through public libraries, friends, or special arrangements can be made. I don’t think that it is fair to students to use the lack of outside access to limit their technological advancement. So I would say no, outside access is not a problem.
I would be doing a great disservice to all of my students including those with limited or no outside access if I did not use technology. Students will find a way to gain access or find time during school to use computers. If they need to work during lunch or during study hall they can. It is not unreasonable to make special circumstances for those who need it. We do it all the time why not do it with technology.
Besides offering school time and a list of outside locations such as the library or internet cafés, I would try to arrange a lab top checkout program through the school. This would not be a large program because most would have access but allow for those that are less fortunate gain experience for their future.
Technology is the way of the future. If families can’t afford to have it at home and we do not teach it, we are simple creating a technological rut. If jobs pay more with these skills we need to give all of our kids the chance to get those jobs. It is simple we want the best for our kids.

Power Point

I enjoyed the videos that were chosen by my classmates. They were all relevant to their topics but the videos that I liked best where Keri’s love animals video and David’s scary office video. Everyone did a great job making power point a visual and using comedy to keep people awake during the lectures. Some of the things were so out there that they were perfect like James’s animal pictures or Zach’s sound effects.
There were a few examples of text being blended into the background making them difficult to read. The other concern I had was the content level being too varied from really easy to reasonably difficult. Sometimes people would go to fast to get a look at some of the slides because they didn’t have any text on them so they skipped them.
The next time that I do a power point I am going to bring more comedy and some text to the power point rather than relying on just pictures. I am also going to make an attempt to record myself so that I can learn how to improve my presentation or post it for my class.
I think that power point is a great tool for the classroom and takes the focus off of the teacher which can be nice from time to time. It allows for easy visuals that can be planned out for a certain time. You can add commentary that can be posted for students to see and hear anytime they want. Power point does make going on tangents more difficult while usually you don’t want to they can be the best part of lessons on occasion. Power point can also make the lecture more difficult to make the lesson interactive with the students because the teacher is focused on the board rather than the class.

Is chatspeak destorying English?
I would say no. English like all languages are ever evolving changing with the times. I don’t believe that it has an impact on students being able to communicate effectively when they need to. If anything it is encouraging them to write more than they would otherwise. If they didn’t use chatspeak they would just call each other.
“We don’t fear that a Spanish class will diminish a student’s command of English.” It is simply another way of communicating. If a student uses chatspeak in a paper he or she would be marked down unless it was relevant to the paper. The same is true if they had used Spanish in an English paper. “The kids want to see if they can get away with it and, perhaps, help to make a change in something so drily traditional as spelling.” If it is not chatspeak it is just something else that kids will challenge and as far as changing the English language it is tradition. The question becomes why aren’t we changing with the times?

Cyberbullying

Cyberbullying is using technology to harass another person. I personally have never had experience with it because I don’t spend time talking with people who are not my friends. My friends and I have had arguments and conversations using technology but this does not fall under my definition of cyberbullying.

The schools are faced with a question of involvement. It is not occurring on school grounds most of the time but sometimes it can affect the running if of the school or school safety. The school is already expected to do so much that adding a babysitting job for what students do at home is ridiculous. But on the other hand many problems affecting the students and school are stemming from this use of technology at home. The schools should take the stance of educating everyone about the issue because it is a school and it is our job to educate.

I feel that it is extremely important to inform all students at the school about cyberbulllying and lay down very clear expectations the school has as well as actions that the school will take. The school would lay down clear guidelines for people dealing with cyber bullying to go through which ends with contacting the police. If students know how to use knowledge to intimidate would be bullies then I would expect a drop off of cyberbullying.

Social Networking

I was surprised that I had a flixter web page (http://www.flixter.com/user/Disney21Nemo). I was also surprised that people could pay to get my background summary without my permission (http://www.intelius.com/background.php?ReportType=88&searchform=background). I was surprised how everything I have entered can be traced back to my name. It made me stop and think about what could be out there that might be problematic for my teaching career.

I spent a large part of the class un-tagging pictures from facebook and some time deleting my old myspace page. There were some pictures that were questionable that I decided to take off. I am glad that I have not spent that much time online because who knows how long it will take to make sure everything I have signed up for is free incriminating information.

I don’t think that teachers should be held to a community standard during their personal lives. If a teacher brings their facebook into the classroom then that changes things. If another student tracks down the information on their own time then that seems ridiculous. It is one more thing that we as teachers have to be aware of on a moral ground. That should not however affect out teaching license and job security. The teacher could be sited and made to address the issue but that is it.

I was disgusted with the teacher who lost her job because of some artistic photos of her or her husband naked. It seemed to me that someone found those photos inadvertently. While yes they should be removed from access to students, I don’t think that it should be a zero tolerance issue. There are too many good teachers that might be lost during this new issue of accountability outside the classroom

I already deleted my myspace page that was old and plan on deleting any sites once I stop using them. I am going be checking up every 6 months or so on my profiles but that means that if I get tagged and someone sees it before I do that I am accountable. It is not the job of a teacher to be computer savvy and being illiterate is not grounds for dismissal. Unless schools take an active role to help teachers keep up with their internet trail then it should not be an issue. Take a supporting role or leave it alone period.

Digital learning

I would consider myself a digital immigrant leaning towards a digital native. I have used projectors that have the capacity to project movies in the classroom in China to using the blackboard to write assignments for the class. Technology in the college setting was perhaps more useful only because of the advancements made during that time period. I find that it was very useful but at time overdone.

Mark Prensky says it best in his online article, “The “digital immigrant accent” can be seen in such things as turning to the Internet for information second rather than first, or in reading the manual for a program rather than assuming that the program itself will teach us to use it.” (http://webct.cu-portland.edu/webct/urw/lc9140001.tp0/cobaltMainFrame.dowebct,2001) I noticed that I was a digital immigrant when I saw this. I have been moving towards using the internet but originally I would have never thought about it.

I started to change my mind about technology in my future classroom when they discussed legacy and future teaching. Legacy teaches the classics such as reading, writing, and arithmetic. The future class teaches, “Digital and technological including software, hardware, robotics, nanotechnology, genomics, etc. it also includes the ethics, politics, sociology, languages and other things that go with them.” .” (http://webct.cu-portland.edu/webct/urw/lc9140001.tp0/cobaltMainFrame.dowebct,2001) This leads to the type of teaching styles that need to be incorporated into my classroom.

“Why not make the learning into a video game!” (http://webct.cu-portland.edu/webct/urw/lc9140001.tp0/cobaltMainFrame.dowebct,2001) This quote is exactly the type of innovations that we as modern teacher are going to have to adapt. It is not important of what kind digital learner you are but what direction you are going to take that style of teaching. I believe that technology is the next big barrier between students and teachers. We have the choice to learn and adapt to it or fail as teachers.

Introduction

My name is Luke Martin. I am currently attending Concordia University going for a masters of arts and teaching and have a bachelor's degree in history and minor in social studies. My dream job would be middle school social studies with coaching on the side. My wife and I have two dogs, a pug and what we think is a tibetan spaniel. I would have to say that they comprise my two favorite animals. My pets aside I would choose a siberian tiger.