Chapter
2 of The Global Educator talks about the digital tools that are used within the
classroom. In this post, I will be speaking about one of those tools, Skype,
and how it is used in the classroom.
Skype is a “digital tool” that is labeled by
the book in the category of communication. This makes sense considering skype
is used as a way to communicate through online meetings and messaging.
In this video listed below teachers list the reasons why
they have decided to incorporate Skype into there classrooms. Being able to
talk to other students, teachers, or professionals from around the world and is
a unique experience to be apart of. The teachers also talk about how skype
leads to new opportunities for their students.
The link down below is a science lesson plan that
incorporates skype. The lesson plan involves students to use multiple online
resources to create their math projects. After completing their projects and
demonstrating them to their class they share their projects with another school
threw skype. Skype is used to communicate through the two schools and broaden
the learning experience of all the students participating.
Technology should be a tool for
good to help broaden our ability to teach and learn in the classroom. Often this is the case with many revolutionary
software that help to speed up the process of assignments, having more
knowledge accessible to a greater number of people, and having easier and
faster ways to communicate with people. Naturally
like most good things people can misuse technology and do harm instead of
good. Below are different articles that
I have read that shows examples of when this is the case and how teachers lost
their jobs because of it.
Three ways to lose your job with
the use of technology
Don’t have relationships with your students
Be smart of what you say on Facebook
Don’t show explicit content
Article one: the illegal relationships between teacher
and student
My initial reaction to this article
was to find a trash can and throw up. I
mean seriously this is the kind of thing you never want to hear about, and when
you do hear about it you wish it was left to the imagination. The article talks about Teachers using snapchat
to send provocative pictures and messages to their students. It goes on further to talk about how the
teachers had physical and intimate relations with their students. Again, I have to say this, gross. It should be common sense to not do this for
about a dozen of reasons. But if you are sitting reading what I am
saying feeling that you might be at risk to due to something similar there is
an easy way to solve this issue. Don’t follow
your students when it comes to social media or let them follow you. If you don’t have this kind of personal insight
into their lives and this type of communication, then you will be safe from
being fired and potential lawsuits.
Article two: Don’t insult the parents of your
students
My
initial reaction to this article was laughing at the stupidity of the teacher. I mean seriously what made this teacher feel
like it was a good idea to publicly state that her students were “germ bags” and
the parents “snobby” and “arrogant”.
Obviously with complaining from the parents this wasn’t going to
fly. It paints a bad picture for the
school. The article goes on to talk
about the teacher public apologizing about what she wrote. Also, the article talks about being careful
of what you say due to the fact your employers want you to “control your online
image”. Which in all honesty makes sense,
and isn’t a very complicated thing to do. The article then continues to talk about
how this idea of a controlled issue is everywhere and not in just schools. So, in short, for your own protection and job
security be smart with what you post publicly, keep hurtful comments to yourself
or someone disclosed to secrecy, like a therapist.
Showing explicit content isn’t a smart thing to
do
I wouldn’t think this is something that has to be
said but I guess it happens more than you think it would. So, for anyone reading this, do your self a
favor and keep the classroom PG-13 and lower.
Showing explicit content has led to the firing of multiple
teachers. The fact of if you think it is
morally acceptable or not is really not relevant in this case. Also, parental consent is extremely important. It is better to be overly cautious then to not
be and get in trouble or in this case fired because of it. The teacher in this article got fired for
this exact reason. Do yourself a favor
and learn from the mistakes made by the teachers in this article and don’t let
this be you.
Technology is a useful tool that
can help spread knowledge in exciting new ways but be smart with how you use
it. I hope for anyone reading this they
already knew that this was not appropriate behavior as a teacher and that this
could lead you in almost every case to be fired. For your own sake, and I can’t emphasize this
enough, be smart and if a gut feeling something tells you that what you are doing
is a bad idea, trust that feeling. This
way one day people don’t read an article about you and your misused technology that
led to your termination.
Welcome to my first response blog post. When on twitter I found this article written by Kain Young. I found this article in twitter when I searched tech #classroom #education.
I decided to look at this article because the title caught
my eye. Through my own experiences and
my classes at Stockton I know that creativity isn’t always a priority in
education which hinders some student’s ability to learn. Not only did this article promote creativity
but how to inspire it with technology.
The article lists these six unique ways to increase
creativity in the classroom with technology which are as follows:
Screencast Tutorial
Create an activity that
students can do on a computer such as everyday class work to presentations of
projects.
Stop Motion Animation
Easily made and gives an
illustration to a lesson. This is
helpful in science class when topics may be intricate and difficult to
understand when it is just words.
Video stories
Another way to bring illustration to words. This would be good in history where someone
speaks about a battle images and paintings are display on screen to engage readers.
Trading Cards
As a project have students make cards that resemble that of
baseball cards. A picture is accompanied
by facts about the person. A good project
to learn about people and a good way to study for whenever the test comes
around.
Infographic
Used to accompany data such as graphs and charts. Great to give meaning to information found in
a lab or statistical survey.
3D Models
Create small sculptures of what you are learning.
All these activities
can be done on a Chromebook and the article lists site of where to do each activity.
I really enjoyed this article and agreed with its message. I liked how the different ways to improve creativity with technology could be done by both teacher and student. Teachers could incorporate these activities into their lessons for students to do and observe. This would also help students go back and remember what they have learned for when it comes time to take tests. I also think that it is important that as schools adopt more technology, they do it in a way that engages the students. Throughout my time at Stockton I have learned of the theory of multiple intelligences and how in our schools not all the students reach their full potential due to not being exposed a style of teaching that engages their brain best. Technology can easily resolve this problem by bringing in new ways to help and reach students. I think that this article does a good job of helping give ideas of how to use technology in the best way possible to engage students.
My name is Nicholas Toth and I a currently a Junior at Stockton University. I am studying Environmental Science with a concentration in Education. Here is my blog with post related to technology in education. Follow my twitter @NicholasToth10 for more education related posts
