final post

At the start of this class i was excited to make a blog because all of my friends had one but i'd never gotten around to making one. I've liked having one, and actually have made another for my husband and me. I think all of the things that we could add to our PLE was the most helpful, i don't know if i would have gone out of my way to make all the differnt links etc, onto my site had i not been introduced to it in this class. The annoying part about the ple is not having enough time to actually post stuff that i'd like to do. besides that it's been a lot of fun and i know i'll continue to use it, it would be great to make a class one as well for my students to visit if they wanted too.

Talking with my sis

I talked with my 15 year old sister about internet safety specifically when she is chatting online. I found out that she doesn't do as much chatting as she did when she was a little younger because she doesn't play as many of the games that she did online when she was in middle school. But i told her about the importance of never giving out your real name and making sure that her screen name isn't close enough to her real name. I told her that all they need to know is her high school and since her name is really unique a creep-o could get any info they wanted from just that alone. I told her about sexual harassment over the internet as well as bullying over the internet and the proper things that should be done if that ever happens to her. I think that she knew most of the info but it was probably good to get the reminder and hear it from her older sister, that i was concerned for her and wanted her to be safe.

the internet safety videos

1. What were the most important things you learned? I learned that simply putting my name and home town on the internet makes things quite a bit more fishy. I learned that i want my younger sisters to know that the games they play on the internet are going to be risky when they are talking to a lot of people and that they must not give out their personal information. It's really important that they understand sexual harassment on the computer too, also the importance with not playing with pop ups. I also didn't understand the idea of the differences in "viruses" and "worms" etc. i hadn't heard of a lot of them so i need to be more aware of the stuff that i am opening on my computer.
   
2. How might you use the resources you discovered in your future classroom or home? There will be lots of protecting factors on my school computer and I will find an appropriate way to teach all of my students no matter what grade they are. I really think that it would also be wise to bring in a police officer as well to talk about things that could happen.
   

Internet saftey articles reactions

1. What article did you choose to read for your fourth article? Leave it alone by Elder H. Burke Pererson
   
2. What were the most important things you learned from the readings? I think the most important things i learned from my reading resulted in a change of heart for me, a renual that i need to make sure that in my family with my husband and i that i am taking these things seriously, i think that it's easy to think that these things wont be a big deal for us because we know we're both good people and want to do good things, but we need to help each other not just be good but be awesome and representatives of Christ in everything.
   
3. How will what you have read influence your actions as a parent and/or teacher of children and youth? I know for sure all internet use will be in our family room and limited to a half hour of recreation a day. I know that we will talk openly about the issues that the internet can bring in our lives and make sure that my student/children feel comfortable coming to me with any concerns or problems.
   
4. How can you use what you have learned from the reading to have a positive influence on family and friends?I think that i can learn to say, yeah that's a pg-13 movie, but i really don't think it's going to be very wholesome. I know that if i am trying to be good about everything as far as morality it will remind my friends that they stand for the same things too and that we'll all be better off in the end if we don't fill our lives with trash.

Internet Safety Tips

Are you aware of the things that could happen to you when you go onto the internet? 795 million cyberspace users in 2004. 20% have computers in bedrooms, 1/3 easier to talk to people on the internet than in person. Vulnerable to exploitation, pron, inappropriate information, hate sites, gambling sites. 405 of kids visited inappropriate sites. 90% of 8-16 year olds have seen pornography on the internet. typo squatting, bad sites of misspelled child character names. Truth and domain names act, so that this can't happen anymore. spam and spim inappropriate email. Kids will open up and look at the annoying pop ups that look like games but are gambling sites. hate sites 8667 at the end of 2003 10296 at the end of April 2004. Online plagiarism, piracy 455 of high school students have plagiarized from the internet. 3-4th graders 60% go on the internet alone, 46% use e-mail. Cyber bullying is just like old fashioned playground bullying but they can do it 24/7. Blogs allow posts about mean things. 59% have more than one screen name. Cyber bullying can have deadly consequences, depression, suicide, and murder. People online may not be who they say they are. Predator builds a false sense of trust and then brings the kids in for attack and molestation. Some have killed their victims.

last week in the class

well the students really seem to enjoy every time that technology is used in the classroom, even just my listening to books on cd and playing the vocabulary computer programs, i think that it allows them to come out of their norm a little bit but they can still take a lot from it. my partner used her Google earth presentation on bats all around the world in our class this past week and i'm hoping that we can get everything else together for our down by the bay stuff by the end of the week. Her bats presentation went really well overall, there were some technological issues, but the kids seemed to really respond well to it all. they got really excited when everything was zooming in onto the world etc. it was fun to see their eyes light up because something was being taught in a little different way. It's been a really rewarding experience in the classroom, i've seen how my recording hobby can really play into the classroom and i'm looking forward to being abe to do it again.

Week Number Three

This week was totally fun because we decided to involve technology into the classroom! The students are doing a unit on Rhyming and they were reading the book, "down by the bay" Lynn and i thought it would be really fun to actually record the rhymes that they made up in the lyric part of the song as individuals and then also record the whole class singing the song. I bought some recording equipment and took them into a back room using the free download program, "Audacity" and recorded their voices saying their rhymes and then got the whole class to sing it while i played and sang the song with them with my guitar. We are going to be putting together a slide show with the pictures they drew and them holding watermelon's too. I'm really exctied to see how it all turns out!