Social networking happened to be the main topic of our class Tuesday. Creating the Facebook account was a new experience for me. I'm not one to go out creating profiles of myself, and this was really an eye opener. I took a look at some of the groups created by others, and some were not very impressive. Some were looking for friends, and others were announcing places to go to meet for a party. Others had blatant vulgar language within their headings. Many of them were young and exercising their freedom of speech rights. With the discussion we had about cyberbullying and Internet safety, I wonder how many of them had been taught about Internet safety.It really brought home the need to be educating students about Internet Safety, chat rooms, instant messaging, acronyms and cyberbullying. I was amazed at Leet speak and how fast the kids can pick it up and their parents don't know what they're saying. It reminds me of speaking "Pig Latin" when I was young, although it wasn't as sneaky. The shows 20/20 and Dateline have been really good at putting specials on TV about the dangers of Internet predators. I do know there have even been programs in our community for parents to come to, discussing the dangers of the Internet for children. The presentation raised the awareness that we all need to start educating our students about Internet safety and cyberbullying. That is actually a new topic of discussion in our lives, as that issue popped up with the advent of the computer. When Edward Bulwer-Lytton said, "The pen is mightier than the sword.", he was completely right! Words have more power than people realize. They can be used to build a person up or ruin a person's life. How sad that someone had to lose their life because of a few words written to them via email, text message, podcast, wiki, note, or blog. I'm sure glad there is a place to go for students who are being harassed to go to! I'll be sure to recommend it to students as a place to go. Introducing ISafe at the elementary is a way to approach the issues. I really liked the sample activities we were given in class. They are of the type I can use with the 5th and 6th graders. It really brought home the fact about using the Internet safely. We took a look at Tapped In Calender and subscribed to it, but it didn't work for us. It's a website that allows teachers to discuss issues with each other. One must be able to follow protocol to participate in the discussions. The calendar feature is great as it lets us see what topics will be under discussion, the times noted as well. I was glad to see we could change the time to cental standard so we wouldn't have to do the conversion in our heads! I can see it would be useful to use as educators.
I liked the Spyware/Malware information given to use about the use of Facebook. Once again it points out the need to be careful about the maliciousness of internet predators. We have to assume what we put out there can be seen by everyone. It reminded me of the commerical about the girl hanging up her picture on the high school bulletin board and then everyone coming to take it. She tried to take it down, but it was too late. We also need to be careful about what we put up. Thanks for the website about the Malware removal program. That will come in handy.
The educational websites we were directed to were interesting. I really like BrainPop and BrainPop Jr. I wasn't sure if there was anything related specifically to the library, but there was, and it's a good activity under the reading heading. I can incorporate that one when we talk about choosing the right books to match the reader. It talked about the "5 Finger Test", (raising a finger up for every word you don't understand or can't read fluently), and choosing the right book to read. The clips are short and engaging. The students would enjoy the "hook" as much as I would giving it to them. In my estimation, BrainPop was the best tool I've seen to use with students this round.
KerPoof was one I felt was for the student at home who wanted a place to do his/her own picture or movie. It's a place to start, but the teacher who used it would really have to already know the program to be able to write a good lesson plan for all to do. Maybe an art teacher could use it with his/her class, or the technology instructor wanting to introduce animation.
Book-My-Lesson has potential for teacher to jump onto the bandwagon and offer their services for one on one lessons. It's just getting started and I didn't see a lot of instructors listed for classes. One neat thing was a waiting list area created for filled classes. MyICourse is one that I can see people wanting to start an online course would be able to use. I don't see students using it to create courses, just teachers as yet.
All were useful to learn about. The most eye opening ones, though, were about Internet safety and cyberbullying.
The pen is mightier than the sword. (2008, January 3). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 02:52, January 17, 2008, from
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.phptitle=The_pen_is_mightier_than_the_sword&oldid=181983808
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
1 comment:
Hi Denise -
I also was shocked at the acronyms and terrible things that can happen to kids using the Internet...I was also meaning to ask my students if they ever did Leet speak, but forgot. The Internet, like most technology, has so many good things as well as bad with it - it will just take a lot of incorporating safety into our classrooms (at every level!) to get rid of some of the bad.
Post a Comment