Blog #8- Social Networking Sites

For your week 9 blog (your 8th entry...), I want you to look into social networking sites and the implications of their use. Specifically, I want you to enlighten yourself to their privacy (or lack of) policies. Do some digging in Facebook's policies and see if there is something that catches your attention, surprises you, shocks you or, worse, horrifies you :-). Copy the phrase/sentence/concept that caught your eye and write a reflection on: HOW you reacted, WHY you reacted the way you did and WHAT you think the implications of this policy are.

The Facebook privacy policy that caught my eye was one policy on ads:


"Facebook does not give third party applications or ad networks the right to use your name or picture in ads. If we allow this in the future, the setting you choose will determine how your information is used.


You may see social context on third party sites, including in ads, through Facebook social plugins. Although social plugins enable you to have a social experience on a third party site, Facebook does not share your information with the third party sites hosting the social plugins."

This statement looks and sounds safe, but what really caught me off guard was the fact that at the bottom of the page it is stated:

"If we allow this in the future, show my information to __________."

The two options are "no one" and "only my friends" with the default being "only my friends."  A lot of people are friends with people that they barley know. How do you know you can trust everyone on your friends list too. 

I would have never discovered this if I had not gone looking for it. Which makes me think I should go check out all social networking site and read though all the privacy settings and make sure I am not missing anything or that information that I do not want people to know is not being displayed for the world.

How: Made me very nervous. I'll be checking through everything and often check for changes.

Why: There are so many people who would have access and it is not completely clear to what types of information.

What: The policy, I suppose, is implicating this issue for legal reasons, if someone sees someone else's information they cannot be charged or sued because it is in the policy.

Blog #7 - Educational Games

For your week 8 blog (your 7th entry...), please do a quick search on the web and find an online EDUCATIONAL game. Post the link to your game in your blog and take your best shot at analyzing why this game may prove useful in the classroom. Don't just say: "because it is fun," rather, give some pedagogical (you can read and refer to Gee's principles if you like--see this week's "at home" folder for a link to this article) or ODE standard-related reason for using the game. You may also consider giving a brief summary of what the game does in order for your readers to understand the post.

The game that I chose was Prehistoric Mad Libs found on funbrain.com:

http://www.funbrain.com/brain/ReadingBrain/Games/Game.html?GameName=MadLibsPrehistoric&Brain=reading&GameNumber=3&Color=FFFFFF

I really enjoyed this game. I have done Mad Libs before and they always turn out to be fun. 


The educational views behind the game are:

• Learn to distinguish between verbs, adjectives, nouns, adverbs, etc.
• See how each different types of words fit into a sentence (what each word contributes)
• Learn that to make a sentence make sense, you cannot just use any words
• Students will strive to finish and be creative with their words so that their story is entertaining.

• This game does not become boring after a few minutes because the outcome will always be different (The children will want to be involved most of the time).

How the game works:

1. You will have twelve various screens like the one presented above.
2. The box in the center will tell you what type of word to look for.
3. You can either type in you own word or attempt to click on
4. Each type of word is considered a level and as the levels increase the word choices scatter and move faster to make it harder to catch
5. Once all twelve words are selected the site will automatically redirect you to the story with your word choices highlighted for you to see

#6 - Reflection on Lesson Plan

For your week 6 blog, please take a few minutes to reflect on your experience as either a teacher or student in the first (and/or second) lesson plan presentation. Did it make your reflect on your own future teaching? Technology tools in the classroom? Any other thoughts from the experience?

So far we have participated in two different group lesson plan presentations. In both situations, I was the "student." I thought both presentations were great and well thought out. Both presentations were constructive and interactive. I really liked how the first group split into groups so they could accomplish more in the short period of time. The second group used the paint program to incorporate the understanding of the poem, which I thought was very creative. 

In the future, I plan on having fun, creative, interactive  and successful lessons as the ones presented in this lesson. Depending on available technology in the school,  I will do as much as possible to have interactive lessons. I think this will be good practice for the future and I can learn and build from my peers mistakes and my own.

Blog #5- Article Review Discussion

For this week I would like you to read at least three article reviews in the discussion board.
Choose ONE that interests you most and write a blog entry (Blog #5) on your reaction to the article.


I choose to read Sarah Kroeger's article review discussion. Sarah wrote about the article "Using Technology in the Classroom" by Stephanie Reeve Boles. I find it interesting that, because modern technology is hard to come by, Boles used old technology yet still uses the internet. I also see using online textbooks is very smart when your looking for the most up-to-date information possible.




I can relate to Boles teaching with clickers. In high school and some college classes, we would have clicker questions embedded into the PowerPoints, as Boles did with her students. I find this method very useful, because the questions that you get wrong you know that is what you need to study for a big test.

Blog #4- Integrating Technology in the Classroom

We have spent four weeks practicing how to integrate technology into the classroom. The importance of learning these skills is a given, but is the integration itself at all levels of education? How Young Is Too Young (the reading for week 4) addresses the issue of age limits—what do you think? Is there such a thing as being "too young" for technology? Does technology really interfere with young child socialization?


I believe that integrating technology at all levels of education is extremely important. As time goes by, technology improves and changes. Everywhere your go you use some type of technology. Kids should be exposed to the different types early so they can adapt to basic technologies before they change again. I do not think that there is an age too young to start with using the various types of technology. Children are going to have to learn sometime, why not right away? I am not saying every three year old should have a cell phone. 

Some may argue, however, that if kids start with technology early, they will not have very good socialization skills. I believe this can be true. To prevent this, yet still introduce technology at an early age, limit the time a child is aloud to use the devices. 

Blog #3- Comparing Blogs

Blogging is about writing to an audience. Do you feel like anyone is reading your blogs? For this week I would like you to read at least FOUR other blog entries by fellow classmates and comment on them. Then, I would like you to write in your own blog a few insights about what you read: For example, did it feel good to read what other pre-service teachers were writing? Was this medium helpful? How did you feel about posting the comments? Do you feel like this exchange gives you any insights into running blog exercises  with your own students?

Before this assignment, I had no blog comments so I did not feel that anyone was reading them. Now I have a few comments and seem to keep getting more occasionally. After reading my classmates blogs I started to notice some trends. Almost everyone is pretty new at blogging. Not many people, including myself have blogged before. I feel less of an outsider now so this exercise was pretty helpful. At first I while I was making my comments I was not too sure what to say. After I figured that out, it was cool to be able to use a completely different mean of communication. I  now do feel, when I have a classroom, blogging would be a great way for my students to keep in touch and reflect on weekly or even daily activities. There are unlimited  ways in which blogs could be used.

Blog #2-Constructivism

We just delved into Constructivism—for some of you, this seems intuitive. Still, my guess is that for most of you this was not typical of your K-12 (or even some higher-ed) experiences. What does Constructivism, as you understand it so far, mean to you? Reflect on your past as a student and how you hope to apply this concept (or not apply it, as the case may be) in your career as a teacher. 

Constructivists vs. Objectivist 

Personally, I have not had a class that used the Constructivism method. Mainly all the classes I have had an Objective point of view, that just entailed lectures, note taking, class discussions, etc. As I understand so far, Constructivism is hands-on learning. In class we watched two different videos. Both were two lessons being taught in the classroom. The first was demonstrating Objectivism. While viewing this video, it was hard to get into it and did not seem interesting to say the least. A man was just talking to a class about Egypt. Yet, he did have some good examples, the lecture was still nothing like the next video that look at the Objectivist way of teaching. In this video the guest teacher only instructed for maybe five minutes explaining what the kids would be doing. Then the kids would go on and work in groups to achieve the task. The Teacher gave them a time limit and the kids got to work. When the time was up the teacher then held a class discussion about their thoughts and feelings about the project.

 To me, Constructivism seems like the way to go. Hands on learning requires the children to participate and interact with other students. When it does come to teaching, though, I hope to have the Constructivist point of view. I am going to strive for hands on learning and, Constructivistic or not,  for my students to succeed in the best way possible. Being a Special Education Teacher, I feel Constructivism is the best possible method to me, though, because all-in-all it is personal, hands-on, helpful, and interesting. I believe, if possible, all teachers should try it out!