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.
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Mark's Third Blog entry
November 17, 2009
Mark’s Blog #3
INTRODUCTION
I have been searching for good teacher’s social sites now for a couple of weeks and now I believe I have got the hang of it. By Googling teachers’ message boards I have been able to find a virtual potpourri of sites that are extremely useful to me and other teachers.
WEB SITES I HAVE VISITED
After a few quick searches on Google I found a site called Proteacher Community. The site is broken down by grades K-4 and 5-8. The site visually is very busy that it is almost intimidating at first. What drew me in however was the section they had for student teachers as well as future teachers. They have blogs as well as message board and it appears they have hundreds of threads; at least that’s what it looks like.
ISSUES THAT WERE DISCUSSED
One interesting issue that was discussed was how to handle parents who do their child’s homework for them. The teacher that started the thread wrote that she knew what was going on and let the child’s mother know it was not right doing her son’s homework. The next week the boy turned in a flawless essay. The teacher’s posting asked what advice we could give her. The first three replies were not offering solutions but instead they were replying that they too were having the same problem. Finally someone posted and said it is the fear that their child will be held back a grade and if that fear is made to disappear, the parent may give in easily to the fact they should not be doing the child’s work for them. Another issue that was amusing was that someone wanted a template for naked ginger bread men so the kids could decorate them. Instead she wrote naked snowmen which got her responses like “aren’t all snowmen naked?” I know this does not sound like good educational banter, but it is nice to see something amusing when looking at so many of these sites. It is also good to know teachers make mistakes too.
QUESTIONS I POSED
Instead of posting a random question, I posed the same question I had posted to Teachers Corner.net about what NYC student teachers are doing now that there is a hiring freeze. I figured I would double my chances for a solution to a realistic and the most important question I have these days concerning education. I just posted the question so I am still waiting for a reply.
RESPOND TO OTHER’S QUESTIONS
Someone not from NYC asked where to look for jobs. A lot of people mentioned government web sites and district postings I the paper. There was also advice about mass mailings of resumes that should be done in March. I replied that the poster should look at the schools web sites and see if they have a human resource department which some do. After I posted though I remembered NYC is about the only place where principals do the hiring for their own schools. I am not looking forward to the responses asking me what the heck I am talking about. Up until now though, no responses.
USEFUL INFORMATION FOR MY TEACHING
There was a thread that talked about holiday projects. At first I thought it was irrelevant because most were art projects but after little thought, I figured I can adapt the art to English. They spoke about Christmas ornaments. I thought why not make an ornament about your favorite character or novel or even setting. I may try it out after Thanksgiving and see what happens.
MY ADVICE AND HOW IT COMPARED TO MY EXPECTATIONS
My advice for this web site is don’t let the busy homepage keep you from entering. Also, even though I signed in alright, it would not recognize my postings saying that I never registered which of course I did seeing how I signed in with the password they gave me. I don’t care for the busyness of the site but the content is golde
Mark’s Blog #3
INTRODUCTION
I have been searching for good teacher’s social sites now for a couple of weeks and now I believe I have got the hang of it. By Googling teachers’ message boards I have been able to find a virtual potpourri of sites that are extremely useful to me and other teachers.
WEB SITES I HAVE VISITED
After a few quick searches on Google I found a site called Proteacher Community. The site is broken down by grades K-4 and 5-8. The site visually is very busy that it is almost intimidating at first. What drew me in however was the section they had for student teachers as well as future teachers. They have blogs as well as message board and it appears they have hundreds of threads; at least that’s what it looks like.
ISSUES THAT WERE DISCUSSED
One interesting issue that was discussed was how to handle parents who do their child’s homework for them. The teacher that started the thread wrote that she knew what was going on and let the child’s mother know it was not right doing her son’s homework. The next week the boy turned in a flawless essay. The teacher’s posting asked what advice we could give her. The first three replies were not offering solutions but instead they were replying that they too were having the same problem. Finally someone posted and said it is the fear that their child will be held back a grade and if that fear is made to disappear, the parent may give in easily to the fact they should not be doing the child’s work for them. Another issue that was amusing was that someone wanted a template for naked ginger bread men so the kids could decorate them. Instead she wrote naked snowmen which got her responses like “aren’t all snowmen naked?” I know this does not sound like good educational banter, but it is nice to see something amusing when looking at so many of these sites. It is also good to know teachers make mistakes too.
QUESTIONS I POSED
Instead of posting a random question, I posed the same question I had posted to Teachers Corner.net about what NYC student teachers are doing now that there is a hiring freeze. I figured I would double my chances for a solution to a realistic and the most important question I have these days concerning education. I just posted the question so I am still waiting for a reply.
RESPOND TO OTHER’S QUESTIONS
Someone not from NYC asked where to look for jobs. A lot of people mentioned government web sites and district postings I the paper. There was also advice about mass mailings of resumes that should be done in March. I replied that the poster should look at the schools web sites and see if they have a human resource department which some do. After I posted though I remembered NYC is about the only place where principals do the hiring for their own schools. I am not looking forward to the responses asking me what the heck I am talking about. Up until now though, no responses.
USEFUL INFORMATION FOR MY TEACHING
There was a thread that talked about holiday projects. At first I thought it was irrelevant because most were art projects but after little thought, I figured I can adapt the art to English. They spoke about Christmas ornaments. I thought why not make an ornament about your favorite character or novel or even setting. I may try it out after Thanksgiving and see what happens.
MY ADVICE AND HOW IT COMPARED TO MY EXPECTATIONS
My advice for this web site is don’t let the busy homepage keep you from entering. Also, even though I signed in alright, it would not recognize my postings saying that I never registered which of course I did seeing how I signed in with the password they gave me. I don’t care for the busyness of the site but the content is golde
Mark's 2nd Blog
November 16, 2009
Marks Blog/ Entry Two
INTRODUCTION
I n my last blog, I wrote how I found two social sites for teachers on the internet. One of them, EDTECH was quite useful to me however, the other one, Educational Cyber Playground, was not all that helpful. I decided to Google teacher’ social sites and see what results would be produced. I now have enough teachers’ social sites to last me my entire teaching career.
WEBSITES I HAVE JOINED
I decided to look into a website called TeachersCorner.net. which I am glad I did. Teachers Corner.net is a site for teachers to discuss about the various aspects of teaching through interactions with other teachers across the country as well as worldwide. They provide well-organized lesson plans, message boards, worksheets and resources for educators. This is the most complete website I have visited so far. The site also has available the following:
Guides on theme-based teaching with seasonal activities conducted by the website.
Resources for teachers that with tips, suggestions, forums and reference websites.
Newsletters and other types of publications.
ISSUES THAT WERE DISCUSSED
There is quite a variety of issues discussed on this site. What I really like about this site is that there is a place to talk about issues that are not relevant to teaching. There is also a place where a teacher can just vent. I feel these two locations are necessary on most sites I visited seeing how they weed out issues that are not really the main concerns of educators.
Issues that concern education that were discussed include How to gain control of the classroom without seeming like a tyrant, activities for ESL voice, teaching inclusion classes verses non-inclusive classes. As with Edtech, it seems there is only people asking for advice and then receiving advice from many people. It is different from in the way that ED tech gives advice about tech resources, software, projectors, where as Teachers Corner.net offers advice on the abstract part of teaching such as how to motivate math students, how to get kids to read, and the one I found most useful, how to deal with hallway passes.
For this posting, a teacher writes that he knows how to get away from the problem of students constantly asking to use the rest room. He states that he gives out 20 passes each semester and the student can use them as needed. If the student does not use all these passes, they can cash them in at the end for extra credit points. Sounds simple enough. However, the responses were questions like “can the passes be duplicated by the student?”, and “What if some kid is sick after all the passes have been used?” One even posted that in their district one can not give extra credit points for non-acedemic work.
Aside from those questions, I believe it is an excellent idea and I am going to try it out next semester. I will work the wrinkles out as they come.
QUESTIONS I POSED
I posed the question of what student teachers in NYC are doing when they get out seeing how there is a hiring freeze. How are they finding jobs or are they leaving the teaching industry. This is what I wrote:
Hello all,
I was just wondering if there are any NYC student teachers out there. My question is, since there is a hiring freeze in NYC, what is everyone doing about jobs. Are people leaving the city in search of teaching jobs, getting jobs as tutors, or leaving the teaching field until the freeze is over? Also, has anyone heard how long the freeze may last? I am graduating with my masters in December and my student teaching will be over as well so I am a little bit concerned
Thanks everyone.
mjanis
Up until now no one has responded.
RESPOND TO OTHERS QUESTIONS
I did respond to the guy with the hallway pass situation. I liked his advice and I will use it next semester. I think the others were getting to picky finding problems with his solution. I just wanted him to know that the kinks will work themselves out.
USEFUL INFORMATION FOR MY TEACHING
Like I said, I too have a big problem with kids fighting over the bathroom pass. Not only that, but they enter my room and immediately when the bell rings, they ask for the pass. I believe they meet their friends in the hallways for I don’t know what. One kid always asks me at the exact same time every day. I will be using the 20 passes a semester concept when I get my own class.
MY ADVICE
This site is the best I visited. Every thread is about a particular issues and no one seems to deviate from the issue. I highly recommend it.
Marks Blog/ Entry Two
INTRODUCTION
I n my last blog, I wrote how I found two social sites for teachers on the internet. One of them, EDTECH was quite useful to me however, the other one, Educational Cyber Playground, was not all that helpful. I decided to Google teacher’ social sites and see what results would be produced. I now have enough teachers’ social sites to last me my entire teaching career.
WEBSITES I HAVE JOINED
I decided to look into a website called TeachersCorner.net. which I am glad I did. Teachers Corner.net is a site for teachers to discuss about the various aspects of teaching through interactions with other teachers across the country as well as worldwide. They provide well-organized lesson plans, message boards, worksheets and resources for educators. This is the most complete website I have visited so far. The site also has available the following:
Guides on theme-based teaching with seasonal activities conducted by the website.
Resources for teachers that with tips, suggestions, forums and reference websites.
Newsletters and other types of publications.
ISSUES THAT WERE DISCUSSED
There is quite a variety of issues discussed on this site. What I really like about this site is that there is a place to talk about issues that are not relevant to teaching. There is also a place where a teacher can just vent. I feel these two locations are necessary on most sites I visited seeing how they weed out issues that are not really the main concerns of educators.
Issues that concern education that were discussed include How to gain control of the classroom without seeming like a tyrant, activities for ESL voice, teaching inclusion classes verses non-inclusive classes. As with Edtech, it seems there is only people asking for advice and then receiving advice from many people. It is different from in the way that ED tech gives advice about tech resources, software, projectors, where as Teachers Corner.net offers advice on the abstract part of teaching such as how to motivate math students, how to get kids to read, and the one I found most useful, how to deal with hallway passes.
For this posting, a teacher writes that he knows how to get away from the problem of students constantly asking to use the rest room. He states that he gives out 20 passes each semester and the student can use them as needed. If the student does not use all these passes, they can cash them in at the end for extra credit points. Sounds simple enough. However, the responses were questions like “can the passes be duplicated by the student?”, and “What if some kid is sick after all the passes have been used?” One even posted that in their district one can not give extra credit points for non-acedemic work.
Aside from those questions, I believe it is an excellent idea and I am going to try it out next semester. I will work the wrinkles out as they come.
QUESTIONS I POSED
I posed the question of what student teachers in NYC are doing when they get out seeing how there is a hiring freeze. How are they finding jobs or are they leaving the teaching industry. This is what I wrote:
Hello all,
I was just wondering if there are any NYC student teachers out there. My question is, since there is a hiring freeze in NYC, what is everyone doing about jobs. Are people leaving the city in search of teaching jobs, getting jobs as tutors, or leaving the teaching field until the freeze is over? Also, has anyone heard how long the freeze may last? I am graduating with my masters in December and my student teaching will be over as well so I am a little bit concerned
Thanks everyone.
mjanis
Up until now no one has responded.
RESPOND TO OTHERS QUESTIONS
I did respond to the guy with the hallway pass situation. I liked his advice and I will use it next semester. I think the others were getting to picky finding problems with his solution. I just wanted him to know that the kinks will work themselves out.
USEFUL INFORMATION FOR MY TEACHING
Like I said, I too have a big problem with kids fighting over the bathroom pass. Not only that, but they enter my room and immediately when the bell rings, they ask for the pass. I believe they meet their friends in the hallways for I don’t know what. One kid always asks me at the exact same time every day. I will be using the 20 passes a semester concept when I get my own class.
MY ADVICE
This site is the best I visited. Every thread is about a particular issues and no one seems to deviate from the issue. I highly recommend it.
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Mark's Blog/ Entry One
INTRODUCTION
A few weeks ago, I was given an assignment to join a teachers’ social site on the internet. Being an older student and not all that computer savvy, I was as expected reluctant to say the least. After procrastinating for long enough, I finally entered these social rooms and I now wonder what took me so long.
WEB SITES I HAVE JOINED
The web site I joined is called Teachers Net. From this site, I linked to Educational Cyber playground and EDTECH. Educational Cyber playground is a site that is an interdisciplinary blog about internet and technology news. It provides resources for Arts, Music, Linguistics and Literacy however, I found that the majority of news articles that are posted have little relevance to technology. News articles that have been posted have included Obama’s Half Brother is Jewish, Secret Copyright Leaked and Study Find an Increasing Number of Injuries From Hot Tubs.
EDTECH is a site with over 3500 subscribers and 8000 readers that also participate. There are news groups along with gopher and www sites as well. EDTECH’s mission is to play an influential role in determining the use of technology in education. This is accomplished by a sharing and exchange of ideas and resources that are available for teachers. Though the majority of conversations are about tech, others are not yet they are still relevant to teaching as a whole.
ISSUES THAT WERE DISCUSSED
Most of the posting on EDTECH concern where to find educational games on the web, the best projectors for the money, cyber security for schools and education software among many other issues.
There are not too many disagreements concerning the issues that I listed. There is always someone who thinks there resources are better than the other poster, but it is all very civil. It starts out with someone asking where they can find game software for free, and within moments several people post resources. The receiver of these resources is usually extremely grateful and those who give the advice are usually very humble as should be the case.
I have used one of the activities that I read about on this site. Someone had asked for free games that the students were already familiar with. The website that was suggested was a Jeopardy game for Smart Boards. I used this game on Friday for reviewing The Catcher in the Rye test which was given out on Monday. I have already graded the tests and my students have never done so well. I do believe my telling them to take notes on the questions and answers had a large impact on the scores seeing how students can get too carried away with games and forget about the content. I am planning on posting this advice for my next posting.
QUESTIONS I POSED
I did not pose any questions my first time around. The reason for this is because finding educational tech games was going to be my question. When I first joined, I looked over the older postings and found that was a common question. So I did actually get the answer for my question even though I never posed it.
I chose that question about educational games because when I taught at a Yeshiva, where we were not allowed to use technology, I realized games were the best way to review material. I always said it was a sneaky way to get the kids to learn.
I did, as mentioned before, learn about the Jeopardy game and have already used it once with great success.
RESPOND TO OTHER’S QUESTIONS
I did respond to one posting because I could so much relate to the issue. It was titled co-teacher trouble and concerned a student teacher who stated her co- teacher is a “nightmare”. The poster was asking advice how to handle her. The advice the poster got back included having a sit down with the teacher, one simply said this happens often so hang in there, while another one suggested bring this up to her supervisor. I posted to her that any communications with this co-teacher should be made through e-mails with all e-mails being printed out. I suggested this because the main problem was for example, the co-teacher tells her she does not need a daily lesson plan but when the principal asked for one, the co-teacher denied ever telling the student teacher that she did not need one. My advice to her was document, document and document.
I have not received any appreciation as of yet but in all fairness, the student teacher seems to be a bit overwhelmed to say the least.
MY ADVICE
I would suggest to others about joining these lists are first, get an e-mail address for each site. I had my first day joining over 78 e-mails from one site alone. Secondly, I would not get involved in conversations that are not relevant to teaching issues. It is not that there is not a place for lively debate over non-school issues, but these non-educational issues clog up the system and have to be weeded out by the user before they stumble upon an educational issue.
My experience exceeded my expectations in regards to the user friendliness of these sites. It is like going into a cold swimming pool; you have to jump right in.
A few weeks ago, I was given an assignment to join a teachers’ social site on the internet. Being an older student and not all that computer savvy, I was as expected reluctant to say the least. After procrastinating for long enough, I finally entered these social rooms and I now wonder what took me so long.
WEB SITES I HAVE JOINED
The web site I joined is called Teachers Net. From this site, I linked to Educational Cyber playground and EDTECH. Educational Cyber playground is a site that is an interdisciplinary blog about internet and technology news. It provides resources for Arts, Music, Linguistics and Literacy however, I found that the majority of news articles that are posted have little relevance to technology. News articles that have been posted have included Obama’s Half Brother is Jewish, Secret Copyright Leaked and Study Find an Increasing Number of Injuries From Hot Tubs.
EDTECH is a site with over 3500 subscribers and 8000 readers that also participate. There are news groups along with gopher and www sites as well. EDTECH’s mission is to play an influential role in determining the use of technology in education. This is accomplished by a sharing and exchange of ideas and resources that are available for teachers. Though the majority of conversations are about tech, others are not yet they are still relevant to teaching as a whole.
ISSUES THAT WERE DISCUSSED
Most of the posting on EDTECH concern where to find educational games on the web, the best projectors for the money, cyber security for schools and education software among many other issues.
There are not too many disagreements concerning the issues that I listed. There is always someone who thinks there resources are better than the other poster, but it is all very civil. It starts out with someone asking where they can find game software for free, and within moments several people post resources. The receiver of these resources is usually extremely grateful and those who give the advice are usually very humble as should be the case.
I have used one of the activities that I read about on this site. Someone had asked for free games that the students were already familiar with. The website that was suggested was a Jeopardy game for Smart Boards. I used this game on Friday for reviewing The Catcher in the Rye test which was given out on Monday. I have already graded the tests and my students have never done so well. I do believe my telling them to take notes on the questions and answers had a large impact on the scores seeing how students can get too carried away with games and forget about the content. I am planning on posting this advice for my next posting.
QUESTIONS I POSED
I did not pose any questions my first time around. The reason for this is because finding educational tech games was going to be my question. When I first joined, I looked over the older postings and found that was a common question. So I did actually get the answer for my question even though I never posed it.
I chose that question about educational games because when I taught at a Yeshiva, where we were not allowed to use technology, I realized games were the best way to review material. I always said it was a sneaky way to get the kids to learn.
I did, as mentioned before, learn about the Jeopardy game and have already used it once with great success.
RESPOND TO OTHER’S QUESTIONS
I did respond to one posting because I could so much relate to the issue. It was titled co-teacher trouble and concerned a student teacher who stated her co- teacher is a “nightmare”. The poster was asking advice how to handle her. The advice the poster got back included having a sit down with the teacher, one simply said this happens often so hang in there, while another one suggested bring this up to her supervisor. I posted to her that any communications with this co-teacher should be made through e-mails with all e-mails being printed out. I suggested this because the main problem was for example, the co-teacher tells her she does not need a daily lesson plan but when the principal asked for one, the co-teacher denied ever telling the student teacher that she did not need one. My advice to her was document, document and document.
I have not received any appreciation as of yet but in all fairness, the student teacher seems to be a bit overwhelmed to say the least.
MY ADVICE
I would suggest to others about joining these lists are first, get an e-mail address for each site. I had my first day joining over 78 e-mails from one site alone. Secondly, I would not get involved in conversations that are not relevant to teaching issues. It is not that there is not a place for lively debate over non-school issues, but these non-educational issues clog up the system and have to be weeded out by the user before they stumble upon an educational issue.
My experience exceeded my expectations in regards to the user friendliness of these sites. It is like going into a cold swimming pool; you have to jump right in.
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