Multimedia Project: Facebook Security Options

I chose to do my multimedia presentation on Facebook and its security options.  This is extremely important considering how Facebook has proliferated in the last six years.  People share a lot of their personal information and part of being a digital citizen means knowing how to manage the information about oneself on the internet.  This video is an introduction of how to do so on Facebook.  Enjoy!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8XVY8JPwe0

Education Week October 27th Issue

Language Acquisition Article:  First off, I think that "magnetoencephalography" is the largest word I have ever seen.  That thing is a whopping 22 letters!  But seriously, this article addresses some long held beliefs about learning a second language.  I found it interesting that they were trying to say that it didn't matter very much what age a person was, that we are all capable of learning another language.  Some of the evidence that they provided seemed to contradict that point. "...A Japanese baby, whose native language does not differentiate between the sounds, will get worse at hearing the difference."  They reinforce the point that learning a second language later in life is much more difficult: the age at which many students who learn a second language is when "'they’re becoming less likely to be able to make those native-like sounds in another language,' Ms. Abbott said."  I can honestly say I wish I had been learning a second language during my early childhood years.  I feel that way even more so now after reading this article that basically says that learning a second language early on directly benefits children.  I don't see how this dispells the previous myths that many people had about learning a second language.  If anything,  I thought that this article was pretty confused about itself, almost like a college student who started a paper with one idea in mind and suddenly went completely off course throughout the course of the paper...

Educators Step up Efforts:  Reading the statistics about this school in Kentucky is appalling... "Just 4.7 percent of Shawnee’s students scored “proficient” or higher in math in spring 2010" and "Less than a quarter—22.6 percent of students—scored proficient or better." How is it that the principle there still has a job?  That isnt just underachieving, you practically have to try and do that poorly.  Why wasn't he booted out and replaced with someone who was more likely to do the job.  It seems pretty clear that the effort to turn the school around is going to rub people the wrong way and it will inevitably be very difficult.  Why not bring someone new and do the job right rather than risk letting the guy who let things get so bad try and turn it around.  Not to use a football analogy, but it looks like its a building year for this Kentucky school, and they are in desperate need of a new head coach.  Their abysmal record dictates a change that isn't likely to happen with the same personnel that oversaw such a decline.  Having re-read, and re-thought, the second part of the article, it's also likely that the fact that they are on their 4th principle in 13 years has contributed to the falling standards of the school.  Perhaps some real continuity would do the school some good. Another football analogy: a team that switches head coaches every 2-3 years isn't going to win the Superbowl...

Education Week October 20th Issue

New Orleans article:  It may just be me, but I felt particularly outraged by this article.  It's been five years and this article led me to believe that only now are new schools being opened up in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.  6,000 of 36,000 students are still using portable classrooms?!  That is almost seventeen percent of the area's kids using portable classrooms!  Could you imagine if such a thing were to happen here at Willamette University?  People would be outraged!  Granted, Willamette University and the public schools of New Orleans are completely different places with completely different funding.  Regardless, from what it seems like to me from reading the article, a tremendous amount of time has been spent dilly-dallying around trying to figure out how the money they got from FEMA is going to be used and figuring out who is going to oversee the use of that money.  That isn't to say that those things aren't important.  They are very important.  But honestly, its been five years since the hurricane and stuff just doesn't seem to be getting done...

Early Ed Absenteeism: I think I might be a little biased about absenteeism but that is largely because of my background.  In 9th grade, I didn't miss a single day of school.  I remember that because I got an award for it at an end of the day assembly.  Not too many people got it.  When I was younger, if I was ever sick and it caused me to miss a day of school, I was made to watch History Channel or National Geographic Channel specials and write up a report on them for my dad (this was probably more incentive for me to go to school in the first place haha).  Obviously, other kids don't get the same treatment growing up.  I know for a fact that some parents couldn't give a rip about their kids education and do very little to support them.  How is it that missing 10% of school is Chronic absenteeism?  Why is it so darn high??  Shouldn't it be closer to 5 or 6%?  Could anyone imagine missing 10% of the days at work due to sickness or playing hooky.  I'm only 22 years old and I can tell you right now that you probably wouldn't last long in many workplaces missing days at that rate.  The fact that it isn't lower is an indication of the extremely low standards that we have for student attendance.  Where is the accountability?  Why are we selling our kids short??  It's amazing how little we care, especially for the early education absenteeism, considering how important it is.  How else are kids supposed to get acclimated to living and working with others.  This immediately sets children up for failure!

Education Week October 13th Issue

"Researchers and policymakers agree that teachers’ expectations of what their students can do can become self-fulfilling prophecies for children’s academic performance."  From this first sentence, I was absolutely hooked on this article about the soft bigotry of low expectations.  It focuses directly on one of the questions that constitutes a teacher's philosophy of education: what is the nature of my students?  I find it amazing that I had never really considered this question before, and my reaction when I first heard it.  I first thought why do I need to know the nature of my students?  It seemed like I would have to get into the classroom first and see what I thought about them.  "How am I supposed to make these judgments when I have never taught before? I think I should just 'wing' it and just go with the flow as far as how I feel about the nature of my students."  The teacher in this article is a perfect example of someone who probably "winged" it like I would have done, and who ended up suffering for it; whose kids ended up suffering for it.  The idea of a self fulfilling prophecy is completely true: we are the ones who determines what happens in our lives and in our classrooms.  Students are going to be the direct benefactors (hopefully) of how teachers feel about them.  Communication, as this article describes, is key.  Basically, students would have payed attention more knowing how much work went into preparing for class; teachers wouldn't sell their students short by thinking they can't do it or are just wrong.  One the other side, understanding is a key component in the collaborative effort that is teaching.  Rather than having the teacher bash their head against the wall trying so hard one way simply needs to refocus and adjust.  Students are more than capable of understanding, they simply have to be in the right mindset, or, as Teaching with the Brain in Mind would say, the right state.  We as teacher's will have the ultimate task in helping student's understand what it means to teach and to be a teacher.  Doing so will provide a frame of reference for students to understand what it means to learn and be a learner.

Reflection of Ed Tech Standards

Simply put, the big picture or the goal of what the technological standards can be summed up in this phrase: the positive use and integration of technology into the education of America's youth.  Without technology and its integration into education, American students will inevitably fall behind other industrial nations.  As technology becomes a larger and more important part of how the world functions, it remains the utmost priority to educate students to effectively use all the tools at their disposal.  One of the points is "promote and model digital citizenship and responsibility".  This is an especially important point.  Without understanding the responsibilities and safe practices of digital citizenship, our youth becomes at risk for the pitfalls that come with the digital age.  Knowing to use "strong" passwords will keep personal information safe and out of the hands of people who might use it to take advantage of others.  Knowing how to use multiple email accounts will allow people to better organize themselves.  The other points like "model digital age working and learning" do little good if students cannot be safe.  This doesn't change the fact that the productivity is going to increase by allowing students to collaborate with others and allowing students to be more creative in a world that is becoming more digitized by the day.

There are many strategies that could be implemented at the high school level that we have already been using in this class.  The effective use of a blog to post assignments has made things very easy to turn in assignments.  It will only become easier as more and more students become wired at home (however we are finding that school resources will be able to meet children's technological needs more as time goes on.)  Teaching students about keeping their information on the internet safe is also important because it is an age where Facebook and Myspace use can only be described as prolific.  Being able to coordinate projects and papers between students using Google Documents would have saved me a lot of heartache as a high schooler and as a college student.  As a teacher I would be able to *communicate* and coordinate my grading efforts with my students, resulting in a stronger relationship with the students and a better hope for motivating them.  Being able to, say, write notes on a students paper while chatting with them on Skype at the same time would be tremendously beneficial for the student.  The electronic submission of papers, assignments, etc would mean I wouldn't have to try and read a student's terrible handwriting either.  It's a total pet peeve of mine...