Mark’s Blog
Entry Four
INTRODUCTION
I had joined a new teacher’s social site in anticipation of my last journal entry, but as I looked at the past sites that I have posted to, I found a very interesting comment that is not only compelling on it’s own but is quite relevant to what our class is working on.
WEB SITES I HAVE JOINED
As of today, I am a member of 5 different web sites. I have joined Educational Cyber playground, Teacherscorner.net, Teachnology, Proteacher community, and Edtech. I have not posted to Teachnology site because as I said in my intro, I found an issue that is relevant to what we are discussing in class. It is for this reason that I returned to Edtech to follow the issue and to post about the issue myself.
ISSUES THAT WERE DISCUSSED
What was going on in this particular thread was about online predators gaining access to students web 2.0 projects. The issue started by talking about something called refer madness which is a program where police come to classrooms and speak about the dangers of weed. What is being suggested to the students is to join a communal website where the student posts a picture of themselves, the name of their school and gives reasons just to say no to weed. This started a discussion about online predators being able to look at the website as though it were a catalogue of children to choose from.
The next posting was from someone who wanted to set up a Web 2.0 learning environment. The poster said that they had heard a report of a teacher who set up a private wiki. But a parent went to the school board and accuses the teacher of placing students at risk of online predation. The school board took the side of the parent and the poster ended with a great question; “and this district is going to a 21st century learning environment when????
QUESTIONS I POSED
I posted that I did not understand why the parent was upset if the Web 2.0 tool was private.
RESPOND TO OTHER’S QUESTIONS
On the same thread, I suggested that a handout should be created and given to students and their parents about Web2.0 tools and how the privacy matter is upheld. It sounded to me that the parents of the students are further behind their children concerning tech matters. This needs to be explained to the parents in an educational manner. On the same handout there can be warnings about online predators and what to do about it. But it should be made clear to the parents that there are controls to keep predators out of 2.0 tools
MY ADVICE AND HOW IT COMPARED TO MY EXPECTATIONS
My advice is to definitely join these sites if you are a teacher or becoming one. They exceeded my expectations as far as the amount of issues, questions, and most importantly answers that are out there. What I do suggest is if you are posting, do not expect to get a response right away. It is not like a chat room. Overall getting involved in these kinds of sites is painless, easy, and worthwhile.
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Hi Again:
ReplyDeleteGood variety of teacher discussion sites.
1.Any responses to your question about the parent being upset with the use of Web2.0 tools?
2. Schools should have Acceptable Use Policies (AUP) about student use of technology. Check this before involving students in any online activity. It may need to be updated to reflect new Web2.0 tools. Find out about your school's AUP. Does it cover use of Web2.0 tools. If so, what does it say?
3. Maybe parents should be actively involved in addition to a handout about Web2.0 tools. What do you think of a meeting where a speaker knowledgeable about the issues with a follow-up question and answer session. Why or why not would you recommend such a meeting?
4. What are you plans for future involvement with the social teacher sites?
The thread about parents being upset is a long one. Most posters are just venting about the close mind parents.No one commented on my letter to send home explaining how it works.
ReplyDeleteI asked my spomsering teacher about the schools APU and believe it or not, she laughed. She said it is a matter of common sense. I am seeing the tech guy this Wednesday and I am going to ask him if there is an aup for tech. Now you have me curious about this. I will let you know because I intend to follow this up mainly so I can show my sponsor teacher that there is one.
I think the idea of having a speaker is great but in my school, for parents teachers night, out of my n95 students, only 4 parents showed up. I am pretty sure the turnout would be lower for a speaker. Remember, I am in a school that has an F rating and I think alot of it has to due with the students home life. I am certain though, that a speaker would work well in a school where parents are involved and I do know that those kind of schools exsist.
I'm sure I will be using these sites more when I am teaching. Using them now was a chore for me with all I am involved in but when I ot on the site, I actually enjoyed it and found it benifical to me. I would also like to use what did and did not work for me as a student teacher, to advise other student teachers. I am confident I will be visiting these same sites in the future.
Hi mark:
ReplyDeleteGlad to read how you are following p on the AUP. Not all policies are obvious. I hope you continue to be active with these teacher discussions and use them as a resource for your teaching. There are a lot of valuable ones going on just a matter of finding them. Hopefully you have already screened many of them.
WEek 4 Journal Blog Grade: 100
Participation: 2/2
Organization/Content: 10/10
Grammar: 10/10
Response to Professor Questions: 10/10