Digital Citizenship inside third grade

      ~Digital Citizenship is very important no matter what grade level. When in Elementary school it is very important that students understand the basics of the internet. For example, that no matter how many times you delete a picture once it is uploaded onto the internet it will never go away. And there are many safety concerns. They need to know to stay away from certain websites, and that there are many people out there who may harm children through chat rooms, and other websites. 

    

      ~Students need to know how to use the internet to do simple research on websites. When students are in third grade they need to make sure that they are able to use sites like Google and Bing. 

     Why is it important to promote and teach digital citizenship to your students?

     ~ Students need to know about digital citizenship because it can be dangerous if the students are just able to use to open internet to do anything they please. Teachers need to focus on why the students are using the internet, and the teachers also need to make sure the students are staying on task. Students are going to want to go on social network sites, and during school time that is not the appropriate time. When children are younger they are going to want to do what everyone else around them is doing, which going on Facebook and other sites is what students are going to want to do right when they are on the computer. It is the teacher's main job to make sure the students are on the correct sites and doing what they are suppose to be doing. 

 

What resources can teacher use inside their classroom to promote and teach digital citizenship? What makes these sources viable and valuable for the classroom teacher?

~ Teachers need to make a power point or some way of going over what is expected when using the internet. Using the Nine Elements of Digital Citizenship is a great way to teach students how they are expected to act when using the web. There are great resources on the internet that will help teachers help teach their students properly. 

Learning to Unlearn

When it comes to education, teaching, the classroom, or learning people need to be able to unlearn and relearn. The main reason that people need to be able to do this is because there is new technology and new advancements. When a educator is stuck in a certain way of teaching, they need to be able to relearn new teaching techniques in order to keep it up to date in the classroom. For example many teachers do not want to learn how to use the interactive white boards. It should not be an option. Many teachers want to continue to use the normal white boards. Which is okay, but with the IWB's it is what the school district buys, they are very expensive. Therefore the school needs the teachers to be able to learn how to use them correctly.


The issues with the new technology is the teachers who do not want to unlearn, and relearn in order to be updated on the current technology. Not only do educators need to be able to unlearn and relearn, students also need to be able to do the same thing. Students are introduced to certain types of technology and throughout the years the students are introduced to much more technology. The students need to be able to relearn how to use the new technology, they however do not need to unlearn how to use the 'old' ways of learning.


It is difficult for anyone to change what they already know because when you teach someone something one way, and they are in the habit of doing it that way. Many people do not want to learn how to do something a different way because they do not care. Once you already know how to do something such as use the white board in a classroom, not many people are going to want to relearn how to use the interactive white boards.

Interactive Whiteboards in Today's Classroom

Interactive Whiteboards are very expensive to have in every classroom in a school district. Many schools are turning to IWB's versus using the 'old school' white boards. The intentions are very good. The main ideas are to be able to get the students more involved with the lessons. The IWB's are suppose to make it more convent for the teacher and the students to be able to bring up the internet and be able to draw, and make marks on the power point, or whatever the teacher is using for the lesson.

However, there are a few issues with this. Not only does the technology not work at times, many teachers do not know how to use the IWB's correctly. It is very hard for teachers who have been teaching for years to want to learn to use a new form of technology. Therefore while IWB's may sound like a great idea, many older teachers may not care enough to learn about it, let alone use it in the classroom. Another issue with the IWB's is that although students may be very excited about the IWB's at first, sooner or later the students may get bored, and just not care again. I believe that it is up to the teacher to make the lesson interesting, not up to the technology to make the lesson interesting.


According to "The Journal", many schools are jumping on the IWB's because it is the 'new' technology. When the schools need to want to use the IWB's because it is for educating the students. This is a sad thing because many people are just trying to fit in. So schools go out, and spend a ton of money on the IWB's and then they are just sitting in the classrooms.

I think that the IWB's would be good for students who may need additional help with certain subjects. If the teacher has activities on the IWB that could help the student learn, and is fun, then the students would be able to help improve their academics. This could be a great tool for teachers to use because they would be able to use it as a 'center', therefore while the students are playing, the teacher could be watching the students closely and see where they are struggling and how they can help the student.

 

Differentiation in the Classroom

      In the past few weeks we have learned about the differentiation that is in the classrooms. Although I knew that there are different types of students in the classrooms. Learning about differentiation in more depth has taught me how to handle the different types of students. When coming up with the student samples made me realize that students really do come from many different types of backgrounds.

     Differentiation is very important for teachers to be aware of because they need to be aware of how to teach their students properly. There are so many different learning styles that students come into the classroom with, and it is the teachers job to be able to teach every student correctly and efficiently. No matter what grade a teacher is teaching each student is going to be on a different learning level. And the teacher needs to be able to bring each student up to the same level.

    

Twitter and Me!

When I heard that we were going to have to create a twitter for this class I was not happy about it. I do not have a personal account for a few different reasons. I do use facebook, but that is the only internet social website that I use.  However, once we started the account for professional reasons, I started to understand the reasons behind the professional account. I did not like doing the quiz online, only because I am still new to twitter and I am not very quick about it. I understood the concept of it, however being new with twitter makes it very hard to move around on the website. 

 

 

Overall, I think that Twitter can be a great tool for teachers that are teaching High school and College. I do not see how Elementary children should be using twitter. A lot of children do not understand how dangerous the internet can be. Another concern I have is if teachers wanted to use twitter, outside of the classroom they are expecting every child to have access to a computer and the internet. You never know what a child's life is at home, and putting something like this in the classroom I think would be okay, but should not be expected to be used outside of the classroom.

 

The Final Frontier

In this article I found that the way that some teachers lack of technology skills to be mind blowing. When I was in school we always used power points for many different presentations. In middle school and in high school we were expected to complete computer classes that would teach us the ins and outs about excel, power point, word, etc. The class was mandatory and had to be passed in order to graduate. I think that some teachers when they get to be close to retirement they loose their technology skills. And since these types of teachers didn't have to do computer classes, they feel like technology in the classrooms is unnecessary. I do agree that technology is very important in the classrooms. Teachers need to know what is the "new" technology these days. Technology changes so much throughout the years, teachers do need to take classes to be most up to date. For example I graduated high school in 2008 and I have never heard of a smart board. My first observation I was in my moms friends classroom and she kept talking about this "smart board" I was so confused and blown away that in just a few years they have created something that I have never heard off and these children knew so much about it. This is why teachers need to be up to date with technology when going into the classrooms.

Using the collaborative tool in the classroom is very important, for a few different reasons. Teachers need to make the students feel like they mean something in the classroom. When students feel that they mean a lot the classroom is going to run more smoothly. During this presentation myself, Hayley and Meghan worked very well together and were able to talk about the presentation at anytime which helped complete the project in a timely manor. We were able to be collaborative during this project.

All About Me

    My name is Brittany and I am 22 years old. I have lived in Pennsylvania since I was born, although from 13 years old to 17 years old I lived in Florida. I wasn't a fan of living in Florida, so I moved back here. I still go down to Florida once or twice a year to visit my family. My mom, step dad, and my two brothers still live there. I have had the same job for five years now, at a restaurant. Although school is my first priority I still work about 30 hours a week while going to school. I am attending Edinboro University for Early Childhood Education and Special Education. The reason that I want to focus on Early Childhood Education and Special Education is mainly because unlike many people I have the ability to help young children with disabilities. 

     Growing up my younger brother who is ten years younger than me had a teacher that was unable to help him learn. Her terrible teaching techniques made him eventually hate going to school. When she thought he was just ignoring her, he was actually loosing his hearing. She should have had the school conduct something similar to this YouTube video. A routine hearing test proved that he was about 2 weeks from loosing his hearing in one of his ears and had about 2 months left in his other ear. What the teacher should have done is noticed that he may have a speech and hearing problem and contacted my mother about how badly it was effecting his learning abilities. Although we could all tell that when my brother spoke it was difficult to understand him, nobody thought that it was as bad as it was. The teacher was eventually fired half way through the year because of her terrible teaching habits. My brothers' experience has helped when making my decision to become a teacher.   

     Technology is very important in schools. Students rely on technology for their homework and for the social aspects that they can gain. In many cases there are questions that students come up with that even the teacher cannot answer. When a student needs the answer the internet comes into play. The internet and the technology behind it makes it so much easier for students to learn about certain topics.

    Teachers need to embrace technology because there are many different ideas out in the world, and a great way to learn about them is through the internet. Some teachers do not have the ability to be creative in the classroom, with applications/websites such as pinterest it gives the teachers that do not have the creativeness become more creative. 

* I believe that children with special needs deserve to be treated equally in the classroom.