Month: February 2019

Twittering

 

 

Hello! Welcome to my blog. Today we will be discussing my adventures in twitter land. I am relatively new to twitter. I have really only watched twitter prior to taking this class. I really like it. It is a great way to expand your personal learning network. I love that it is a global perspective. On twitter I can reach almost anywhere in the world!

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The social media space has affected the way I think about teaching as a profession. I never really thought about a PLN before and I have already expounded on mine exponentially. Through the chats and conversations, I have found out that my perspective on teaching was so small. There are so many dedicated, passionate teachers out there who are so willing to share through their experiences. Learning has truly been flattened through the use of social media. There do not have to be walls in the classroom for our students to learn.

In my short, small experience substitute teaching, the teachers I have met seem small minded. The people in the twitterverse are so passionate about their craft and that makes me hopeful about being a teacher. I hope to be just as excited about teaching as the educators I have been fortunate enough to follow.

The twitter chats I have been lucky enough to get in on have been incredibly insightful. I have learned that a lot of teaching comes from real world experiences. I have real world experiences I can draw from as a teacher. A teacher must be able to get the students to understand how things will relate to the  real world and I will be able to connect the dots for them.

Here is a quick video to help you if you are a neophyte like I was.

 

Sustainable Development Goal 4: Quality Education

Hi! Welcome to my blog! Today I am thinking about the sustainable development goals that have been put forth by the United Nations to make a better world for everyone.

Today, I am going to discuss Goal 4: Quality Education.

Quality education not only measures the years we spend in school, but it also considers the material we are teaching our students. As educators, we want our students to become lifelong learners. There is a difference between schooling and educating our students.

Schooling the students is more about getting them to follow a regular routine and do what you are asking of them. To educate our students we have to get them to understand, fully why and how the material will impact their lives. Schooling is more about teaching to pass the standardized tests that they have to pass. Educating our students is to make them understand on a deeper level why the material is important in their lives.

This article by Jonathon Nelson discusses the importance of the states to not only educate the students but to also keep those now educated people to work in the state. He used New Jersey as an example of a place where we have ample education but people are fleeing the state for political or tax reasons.

We, also, have to think globally about education. Quality education for everyone helps to reduce inequalities in the world. Not only between genders, but between nations. A quality education permits people of all walks of life, from anywhere in the world, to live a better life.

This video will help to explain more about Goal 4: Quality Education.

Thank you for reading! Stay tuned for more next week…

 

Remind me…

 Remind: A safe way to communicate

Welcome to my blog! This morning I will discuss how to use remind. It is an app and a website for teacher/student communication. Remind (remind.com) is a communication tool that can keep you in contact with your students and their parents or guardians without giving out your phone number. It is a text messaging app built specifically for education. Which means it is a safe way for teachers to communicate with students and parents.

The classroom uses of Remind are that you, as the teacher, can inform students of things that are upcoming in the week. You can keep the parents informed as well, so there are no surprises as to when things are due. You can also add in every thing that will be due for the entire marking period, or year, if you so choose.

It is important as a teacher to keep your teacher life apart from your personal life. Remind is a great way to do just that. You can choose when your students or parents contact you by setting office hours.

Watch this video to help understand more what Remind can do for you in the classroom.

Here are some ways in which you can integrate Remind into your classroom in this article.

All in all, Remind is an easy, safe way to communicate with your students and their parents. It a good option to make sure everyone is on the same page when that science fair project is due.

Thanks for reading.

How to keep my job

Hello! Welcome to my new blog post! This weeks topic is on how not to get fired using technology in the work place. I did some research and found a really good article from the Kentucky Department of Education to help me to understand how to keep my job and use technology in the classroom.

Here is the article if you want to read it yourself.

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https://education.ky.gov/districts/tech/Pages/Best-Appropriate-Use.aspx

This article lays out the best practices for using technology in the classroom. It explains what digital citizenship is and how to harness it in the correct fashion for use in the classroom. Digital citizenship can be defined as the norms of appropriate and responsible behavior with regard to technology use. Digital citizenship is how we conduct ourselves online. It is important for an educator to be very cautious when posting things online. Many people do not realize, the internet and the things we post do not go away after we delete them. They are there for all of time.
The article discusses the ways in which to utilize email. Things like do not send attachments with obscene material, no racial or ethnic slurs, no chain letters, and so on. Your school email should be for reaching out to parents, other teachers, and/or administrators. It should be used in a professional manner only.
Next, the article discusses confidentiality for students. Students should never share personal information with a website. They should use their school associated email for signing up for sites and never give their birthday. The parents must be informed that the student will be using the internet for school assignments.
Employees and students should refrain from visiting websites that would be deemed not educational. There should be no visiting inappropriate websites such as sites that involve sexually explicit material. There should be no internet surfing for personal reasons like shopping or banking.
If the students are playing games on their school computers, they should be school approved, educational games only.  School computers should not house students personal photographs, videos, or music. They are for school. educational purposes only.
Your school should have an acceptable use policy (AUP) for technology in the classroom. Techopedia.com defines acceptable use policy as a document that outlines a set of rules to be followed by users or customers of a set of computing resources, which could be a computer network, website or large computer system. An AUP clearly states what the user is and is not allowed to do with the these resources. The district should have an AUP, but you can make one for your classroom, as well. This policy should be followed carefully and as to the letter as possible. Not complying with the AUP can result in the loss of your job or if a student does not follow the AUP, loss of computer use (which can hinder learning).
If you follow the rules to using technology in your classroom, everything should be just fine. If you do not follow the rules you could end up in hot water and potentially lose your job.
This is a video I found on how Iowa schools are utilizing technology in the classroom.
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Thanks for reading my blog! Stay tuned for the next one!