Practicum

I'm starting my last week of fall semester. This week is all about prepartions. I think in January it will be a very good time. Hardly, the truth is that it will be a challenge. However, I don't know how hard it is going to be. I have heard that it is very difficult and strenous. How am I to know what to expect though. The demand on my body, my mind, my spirit, and whatever else. I think this year has been a journey. Its been 6 months into this program. I have learned a lot, reviewed some, and also mastered some things. I think that whatever I do with my life I will have to be happy with it. Whether I'm making millions as a ceo or a gas pumper making hundreds. My point is that life will work itself out. I think xmas will be a big event in my loved ones life. I mean I think the whole xmas thing is silly. Historically, its just where people spend a lot of money on gifts and try to max their mastercards out in order to prove that they love someone. The truth is, love isnt any of those things. Love is a powerful thing, however, it should always be respected. And I just think that there should be no respect for buying things to prove you love someone. Give someone your time, your energy. I really am looking forward to the two weeks off. New years should be a great celebration. I havent even thought about what I will change in this new year. Maybe I will love more, maybe I wont. Who knows what a whole year can bring. Curiousity always works itself into our minds and we wonder if thier is something better for us out there. Could we have made a better decsion somewhere along the road. I think that the case is that if we had 2nd chances in life to do things over then I know we would fix them. In my last week of fall semester I'm confronted with the idea that a great big challenge comes in January. All the prayers of millions cannot change some things in life, or can they. One thought for the ages, or my parting words for this post is, will I achieve what I plan? I want to make the answer be a yes, but you never can be to sure...

I will be addressing a few things, how I feel about using technology in the classroom where outside access is a problem, will I leave out the kids who don’t have access because I want to teach technology, and lastly how will I increase access for students who are at a disadvantage. Thanks for reading and leave comments.

I think using technology in schools are a main factor in educating our youth. Students need to have computers and be using technology. If they don’t then they are at disadvantage for college and the work place. In the first article “Social Justice - Choice or Necessity” a key segment is when the author says, “Even if an incoming freshmen is highly gifted, if he or she is not extremely familiar with using technology in the learning environment, that student is at a decided disadvantage the second he or she steps onto the university or college campus”.

I feel as though technology is crucial for success. The direct question is how do you feel about using technology in a classroom where outside access is a problem? I feel the answer is that students need to be made aware of cheap computers, free software, and community centers where computer use is free. I think the last part, libraries and community centers are where we can give technology to students who don’t have access in the outside. We need to fix outside access into a non-existent problem. We need to offer students access in different ways. I think we can accomplish this in the future. A library can give you, resources so that’s a great place to start, “Once you’ve gained access to technology, you need resources for using it effectively”.

I think we as teachers will be doing a great disservice if we don’t use technology just because a few people don’t have it. My heart would tell me otherwise. Meaning that it’s not fair to the students whose families don’t have enough money to support a computer and internet access. My educator part of me tells me that we have to use technology or are students will get behind in the mainstream education. When students get to college they need to have a background in computers. If a few students can’t manage to get access then we have to move on. I’m all for no child left behind, but we have to let the students who have access soar. I think we shouldn’t grade students on technology, but we should still teach it and the students who don’t have access can always go to the library and get help.

In the article, “Who Are Today’s Learners” the author presents the question, “As technology continues to evolve and we increasingly live, learn, and work within a ubiquitous participatory Web, what effect is this having our students from their perspective?” The answer is learning. Students are learning about the web and developing educationally through it. I think learning in today’s age encapsulates technology. I think we should engage students, in the second article students want, “Engage Us! First, students felt technology was an integral part of their lives. They ranked using computers and doing Internet research as the school activities they liked best, and doing worksheets as activities they liked least…” This is proof that students want to work with computers. We will find access for students who don’t have it through a couple of ways. Get cheaper older computers, buy cheap or free software, and lastly get students to go to libraries and community centers. I think the key is libraries; students need to use that free resource and use it well. In closing we will find access for students, it might just take a little creativity and logistics.

Power Point Presentation Blog Post

I really liked Kristin’s presentation. Her topic was good for what she wants to do. She messed up with her second slide, there was a mistake but it was ok. I think technology can be very difficult when it doesn’t work. When it does work, then it’s like a smooth ride. I liked how she did her bullets about the advertising lesson. She was very effective at using her slides as a visual. Her power point was a little too wordy for my taste. I like more pictures, sound clips, and videos. Kristin’s graph was very good for her classifications of advertising. I think it breaks down the information and makes it easier to process. Andrew’s presentation was very good; he had lots of images, and not too many words. I really liked how he put it all together. All his images were spot on for what he was talking about. I think he did a great job! I really enjoyed Andy’s mnemonic. Acto-r, is a very good way to teach acting to students, I think it will catch on. I liked his robot part of his presentation. Ian’s geometry lesson was very picture oriented, which is great, because the power point is a very visual method to teach. Alison’s presentation about sex was interesting, I didn’t realize plants had so much action going on. Paul’s bird lesson was great for preparing for a trip. A great presentation with lots of cool graphics. Amy’s ideas were very good for her power point presentation. Trevor’s was very good, his video really was memorable.

One of the least engaging things I saw was Kennedy getting assassinated. I think that is too much to show to high school students. However, that’s an ethics question and the administration would make the call. Another thing that I didn’t like was when one presenter decided to cover to much information. I think the power points should be short and sweet. An improvement would be to present less information (quantity) and present specific information (quality). One presenter said, “I’m retarded”. I feel as though that’s not a very good model for students. I think that’s not a great way to engage them into the lesson by putting down yourself. Some presenters used graphics wasn’t really important to their lesson. I think when teachers do a power point everything they put on it should be relevant. I feel as though everybody could improve on engaging the class more, sure it’s a lecture, but if there was more questions that engaged the audience it would make the presentations a whole lot better. A few minor spelling errors or typos were in some presentations which should and need to be fixed.

For my next power point I might try and use more animation to captivate my audience. Animation makes the presentation fun and enjoyable. I think my power point presentation could have used a lot more of fun. Of course the Civil War is a bit dreary and dry. Animation can really make your presentation come alive. I would also like to add more videos. I think the video I used was effective for what I was talking about, but more videos would help not hinder. I wouldn’t change anything when it came to sound. My sound that I used was very humorous and aligned with what I was talking about. The last thing I would change when doing another presentation would to have more pictures. I think I could have put in more pictures, but that’s a minor adjustment.

I really liked using power point I thought it was a very great way to give a presentation. You can cover a lot of information and also stimulate your visual and auditory learners. I think that there are by far more pros than cons to it. One pro is that you can incorporate videos, sound waves, and animation to make a presentation very effective. Another pro is trying to get students attention. Using a power point get students to stay focused. If you have student who is ADD then he will be more inclined to pay attention if you have visual stimulation. I think it’s a great way to compliment a lecture mostly. The only con I would mention is that it can be a distraction if there is too much going on. Another con is if your teaching to much from the power point then the audience remembers the power point and not what ideas were presented.

In conclusion, everybody did a very great job presenting. I think it was a very great project and would be happy to do more presentations in technology class. One of the most important aspects for future teachers is to be speaking in front of our peers and have an audience. I think that we should all get A’s!

Is Chatspeak Destroying English?

I do think that chatspeak is destroying English. I mean sure it useful to get the point across over a text message, but it creates laziness. I think that this chatspeak is going to carry over into students writing and in any school work. I think it can be useful to text "u" instead of spelling out the word "you". However I'm still convinced that its more damaging then efficient. I just really feel that this chatspeak should not be practiced and students should be practicing the correct way to write in every form of expression. All this slang doesn't translate well for essay test scores.

Linda Howard, whom I agree with that chatspeak is useless. She says, "The shortcuts of chatspeak are a welcome convenience when keying data into the cell phone or online chat rooms, but they have no place in the larger society, where effective writing skills are a must." Writing skills are suffering because of this chatspeak. I think we need to take Linda Howard's comments and eliminate this chatspeak as best as we can. On the other hand, Greg Monfils, thinks that, "The kids want to see if they can get away with it and, perhaps, help to make a change in something so dryly traditional as spelling." He thinks spelling doesn't matter and that we should let students use chatspeak in their assignments and essays. I highly disagree with this man. I think we need to teach spelling just as rigorously as we did before computers.

In conclusion, my only question was how we can eliminate chatspeak entirely? Another question that arose was, how can we teach writing English if students are practicing it in their own lives? These questions I cannot answer, maybe a peer of mine can answer these questions when they comment on my post. Thanks for reading my blog post and lets get rid of chatspeak once and for all!

Cyberbullying

Cyberbullying is bullying through technology. Whether it is through text messages, phone calls, or mainly through the internet cyberbullying is a very occurring activity. When I was in middle school I remember being on aol instant messenger. I can vaguely remember myself liking a girl who went to our school. I decide to talk to her so I used instant messenger and had a conversation with her. Well, when it was over I thought it went well and the next few days people kept coming up to me and teasing me about liking her. I was humiliated, what she had done was post our conversation in a chat room with over 20 of our peers. She made me feel terrible. I always remembered that cyberbullying experience. It was a very humiliating time for me. I was shy around girls for the rest of middle school, luckily I grew out of that.

The obvious problem that schools face is cyberbullying becoming more prevalent than regular bullying; when children don’t like each other, rather than confronting one another face to face, students are taking it to the internet. The major problem schools are facing is that this bullying is taking place off of school grounds. Therefore they authority over this cyberbullying isn’t as effective as if the bullying was taking place at school. There have been many court cases about this issue and as long as the cyberbullying doesn’t put anyone in danger than any action by the school is considered infringement of the 1st amendment. Schools want to deal with this problem by regulating it, but there is no such thing as internet police. Cyberbullying is a very difficult thing to stop. The only way to know if students are cyberbullied is by the victim opening up to their parents or to school. Other than that there is no way to tell. It’s a very difficult thing to track. Lastly, I think schools should regulate this behavior. I think it’s the students and parent’s right that the school be the internet police when these actions occur. I also think that the government should pass new laws to enforce these cyberbullies.

The way I would deal with cyberbullying in my class would first be to address it as just as serious as on school grounds bullying. I would make it very clear that if I found out about any of my student’s cyberbullying each other than I would make a quick call to their parents and also have the cyberbully write an apology to the victim. In the first week of school I will preemptively address this problem. If it comes up again throughout the school year I will make sure that the students know there will be consequences. No student in my class will get away with that type of poor behavior. When I discuss cyberbullying in the first week of the school year I will address the whole group. If cyberbullying happens in my class it will be dealt with between individuals. I don’t want any shame to come out of the punishments or disciplinary actions. Parents will be notified as well as administrators.

In conclusion, cyberbullying is a very dangerous and hard to catch behavior. We need to stop it before it happens and if it happens to have strict rules forbidding it. I think cyberbullying can lead to death, like it did for that 13 year old girl we read about in the article. We must as a school come together and address this problem and try to police it as best we can. Even if the laws don’t necessarily permit us to be the authority on the manner we should anyway. Let’s stop cyberbullying!

A few websites I found when I was googling my name are located below.

http://familytreemaker.genealogy.com/users/w/i/n/Brian-D-Wine/WEBSITE-0001/UHP-0405.html

This link above talks about this guy named Allen Michael Belzberg Bell. It talks about his family and gives some information about him in a link. This website discusses this man in a family tree maker online. Its a family tree website where this guy and his family are located.

http://www.newsmeat.com/campaign_contributions_to_politicians/donor_list.php?candidate_id=S6NV00028&cycle=2010&li=B

At this website, my name is mentioned, but there are hundreds of other names mentioned as well. The site discuss who supported Harry Reid in the 2010 senate race. One note is that my name isn't really located on here as one of the supporters, but my first name and my last name are so that is why this website popped up when I googled my name.

On the Pipl website, there was nothing that popped up when I was searching. However, one of my relatives came up. I was surprised at how much information you could find at this website, if you pay, then you can get very personal information. This sounds very concerning to me.

There was nothing that I would changed on the Internet about me. I have a facebook profile, but there isn't anything that is questionable on it. However, there are pictures of me with drinks at parties. Although I'm of age (23) they still could be considered questionable moral behavior. I might want to delete those pictures, but unless my boss tells me too. I won't worry about changing anything on facebook. If I was under 21 then I would really want to delete those pictures. If you read my blog, let me know if you think I should delete those pictures or not?

I do think that teachers should be held to a higher standard when it comes to morality. Teachers should be role models, thus they should act and behave professionally in and out of the classroom. A teacher who cannot behave correctly should not be in a field where children look up to them. Teachers as well as parents instill morals, values, and ideas. All teachers should be accountable in and outside of the classroom. But where the line is drawn is a very subjective definition. Is it OK for teachers to go out and get wasted on a Saturday night? I think it is as long as they don't break the law. Others would disagree with me. I do think it would be immoral to drive when your intoxicated, but some of our civil rights as citizens of this country tell us that if we don't break the law then we aren't doing anything wrong. With all that said, teachers are held to a higher standard and I think it is important to follow what the district tells us is acceptable behavior, if we want to keep our jobs.

Teachers speech should be held against them in a very light way. If a teacher has ideas about administration and about how other teachers are teaching then I think we have the 1st amendment right to discuss how we feel about those. On the other side though, the administration and other teachers might feel offended and want to see you get fired. Its a narrow line that teachers have to walk, what can we say, what we cannot say. As long as we are always accountable and have logic behind what we say then we should be fine.

"As we have become firmly rooted in the technology tools of the 21st century social networking has evolved to be an integral part of our reality." This fact in the article was the most real. I found this fact more than the others to really demonstrate how our students are going to think. They are going to be social networking and bouncing around the Internet. I think this is something we need to know and be aware of as teachers. This means that we need to be aware that students will look us up on the social networking websites and see any questionable comments or pictures that are there. Again, the high level of moral standards will have to be present in all aspects of our life, even our Internet social profiles.

I will definitely try to protect myself as best that I can. I will constantly be googling my name every few weeks to see what pops up. I don't want to miss a job opportunity just because there is a quote in my facebook profile that says I like to party. I will make sure that all that stuff is private and therefore I will be able to protect myself. This is a very important aspect for teachers to consider. We have to moral in and out of the classroom. Finally, this means that in cyberspace we have to be moral as well.

Digital Natives

Digital Natives are what the students are now. A digital native is a person who speaks a language of technology just as well as they speak English. Today, the students are more familiar with computers and television then they are with books. This has it's pro's and con's, but what the Marc Prensky is suggesting is that we need to start teaching to the Digital Natives. This means that we should have computer games instead of pencil and paper assignments. There is some good things about this idea as well as some negative. "Our students have changed radically. Today's students are no longer the people are educational system was designed to teach" (Article). I consider myself a digital native, since I grew up with computers basically my whole life.

"Our students today are all "Native speakers" of the digital language of computers, video games, and the internet" (Article). One pro to teaching to Digital Natives in their own language is that we are reaching them. Basically, we are meeting them where they are at in their real lives. A best practice of teaching is to always relate students real lives with what they are learning in class. If we teach them via computers then we are accomplishing this.

One negative aspect to teaching at the digital level is students will not be as great at spelling due to spell checkers and other basic skills we learn without technology. Another example is calculators. Of course without calculators students have to come up with mathematical answers on their own.

Some of the pros outweigh the cons in my opinion, but you could just as easily argue the other way. I think the critical theme is that we need to meet the students where they are at in their lives. By meeting them in their digital age we are doing exactly what we should. Lets go to the students level, which is through computers.

Our Methodology needs to change, but I think the content is still relevant. "Digital immigrants assume that learners are the same as they have always benn" (Article). These articles haev changed my mind a little bit. I thought previously that I would incorporate a reasonable amount of technology, but after reading these articles I would want to incorporate a lot more technology. We need to still teach students the core subjects, but the way we do it needs to change. If we don't teach them social studies then they will miss out on understanding geography, history, psychology. However, we could teach them through computer games instead of through textbooks. I'm all for this kind of a change, but lets leave the subjects that are already in use, stay.

The language that is of the old education system smells like textbooks and paper and pencil assessment. We need to change to a digital language and to do this we need to incorporate cell phones, computers, television, and any new technology. In my childhood I used technology to play games. When I went through high school we used a lot of technology. Lots of computer use. In college there was even more technology. I was using technology a lot and by the time I strated grad school I used even more. There is definitely a trend. Again we need to relate the material to what the students are living in. Meaning, they don't spend as much time reading books as they do playing on their computers. As Bob Dylan sang, "Times are changing" we need to keep up with these changing times. Technology most likely will imporve the learning of our students, it improved my learning when I went through school. I think we just have to utilize it correctly.

In conclusion, I think changing the way we do things will benefit the digital natives. Also, lets change our methodology, but keep the subjects were using. The cons are prevalent, but I don't think they outweigh the pro's. Essentially, lets meet the students where they are at in their lives. Lets, as teachers, go to the students level, which is where the reality is more digital then it used to be.

introduction

My name is Michael Belzberg. I'm hoping to teach social studies to high school students. My favorite animal is a dog. Specifically, my favorite kind is a Boxer. I like dogs because these dogs are man's best friend and these certain dogs are great for playing with, cuddling with, and hiking with.