Social Justice for Today's Learners

I think that using technology in the classroom is still feasible but it requires some flexibility in the part of the teacher. Teachers who use technology in the classroom, and require the students to complete assignments via technological pathways, will have to realize that not everyone has a computer or internet in their home. The glory of today’s schools is that many, if not most, have computers available within the school for students to use. This allows the students to complete assignments at school if they do not have access to them at home.

However, while students can use school computers there may be some extenuating circumstances when it comes to assignment completion and computer access. You, as the teacher, may be required to be present before or after school to allow students the access that they need to complete your assignments. This means spending less time at home and requires more of a commitment to the use of technology than you might have if you worked in a higher socioeconomic school district. Also, teacher would have to realize that due dates for assignments might have to be skewed as students that have the ability to type up their papers at home over the weekend have a distinct advantage over those that can only use the school computers. This is something to be cognizant of when deciding on whether or not to use technology in the classroom.

I think it might be a disservice to not use technology in the classroom simply because we now live in a technological world. Everything we do is seemingly technologically based and the advances in technology are only making this more and more clear. If a few students out of an entire class do not have access to technology it would be more logical to either provide them with access through the school or give them a supplemental assignment that does not require technology. I think that using no technology in our current society would be a disservice to the students because we would not be providing them with the best possible options to learn in some cases.

How will I increase access to disadvantage students? I would be willing to meet students before school or after school. I would also be willing to hold a weekend session once a month at a library or computer café (if those still exist). It would also be feasible to provide the students a class period during which they could work on the assignment at school. I think that these options would fluctuate based on the need of the students and I could come up with other ideas too if none of these happened to work for a given student.

PowerPoint Presentations

I thought Keri’s video was very entertaining even though I had no idea what they were talking about sometimes. She used a lot of very colorful and interesting pictures as well. Brandon’s music lesson was engaging and informative as he explained a somewhat confusing topic in a simple way. Matt provided some great background information about the Boston Massacre, something I had heard about but knew little about. James’s video was an absolutely AWESOME way to explain algebra! I loved Hayley’s explanation of improv and theater. The use of Jeopardy was a great idea in Steven’s presentation as it made geometry more fun. Kevin’s Civil War lesson was very informative and detailed. Zach’s laser presentation was pretty amazing. I think he made a difficult topic interesting, informative, and super fun. Jayne did a nice job explaining cell structure. Liz’s supporting materials (i.e. her mitosis song and video) made the lesson more fun than it would have been if it had been a simple lecture.

As far as the scientific classifications go, I thought the classifications now start with Domain and then go into Kingdom. Also, there was mentioned that there were now seven classifications but there were only six listed. Maybe I just missed something there. I wasn’t sure how all the pictures were relevant in some of the presentations. If they are used solely for entertainment they can end up being distracting. Many lessons were well put together but some felt rushed and maybe too detailed for the amount of time provided.

I would definitely make sure that my little sound clips actually worked. It was lame that other people embedded them and I could not remember/figure out how to do that at home. I would also try and make my presentation more engaging for the class as I don’t think I related my topic to them as much as other people did in their presentations. I could have designed an activity for the class to coincide with my lesson plan.

PowerPoints are useful but can be boring even with fun pictures and videos, especially when the lights are turned down. PowerPoints can help students who are visual learners. Not all students learn from lectures so having visual aids can be very important. However, I think many teachers use the slides as a place to keep their notes and then they simply read off of them. They can be boring and students can end up finding them redundant. Unless someone designs them in an interesting and fun manner they become somewhat pointless in trying to make a lesson more engaging than a straight lecture.

Shortening Students Attention Span

I read the article that is titled Is Educational Technology Shortening Students' Attention Spans? and I have concluded that, while both sides have good arguments, both guys present faulty arguments. The first writer, David M. Marcovitz, says students today are having shortened attention spans uses supporting data from the 1980’s. I’m sorry but this article was written in 2008 and there should be more recent evidence to use to support your case. We didn’t even have the internet in the 1980’s for goodness sake! The second guy, John David Son, states his argument based on the fact that because students use the technology they will thereby learn better when using that technology. He essentially made the argument that if a classroom doesn’t have technology in it or if a teacher fails to use it then the students won’t learn. What happens in P.E. then? I don’t plan on using a lot of technology in that class so does that mean that the students won’t learn anything about proper bodily mechanics or nutrition? I would argue that technology is shortening students’ attention spans.

I agree with Mr. Marcovitz when he says that “even the best educational technology teaches the hidden lesson of short attention.” Students now expect things immediately and want instant answers. They have lost the ability to have patience and search for the correct answer. I would be curious to see what would happen if you took away their technology and told them they had to research a paper. I think most of them would be lost and confused because they have never had to find information in books or in a library. I do however agree with Mr. Son when he says that “school leaders, teachers, and other district personnel must believe that educational technology is the vehicle to engage our students and capture their minds while delivering the school’s instructional content.” Technology can be a very useful tool and I agree that it does make it much easier to present information and connect with students. I just dislike the fact that students cannot seem to comprehend things without technology or that they cannot wait for something when they are used to instant gratification.

Cyberbullying

Cyberbullying is simply a type of bullying that happens online. It can be done by anyone who has access to the internet. People can sign on as a fake users thereby being somewhat anonymous. This allows people to terrorize others without real consequences. I have been cyberbullied in my past. I have been chatting online with people I knew and been told I was going to get my ass kicked for talking to someone’s girlfriend even though it was innocent. I was threatened and told not to come to school because I’d get beat up. Now, I personally do not feel too threatened when it comes to bodily harm most of the time because I’m pretty big and can handle myself if things got physical. However, if this could happen to me then it could easily happen to others and I could see how they might feel scared and anxious because of this. By the way, nothing happened to me when I went to school the next day. In cyberbullying, there seems to be lots of talk but little action in my experience.

Schools face problems with cyberbullying because there is a gray area in terms of how far the school’s disciplinary hand can reach. If people are being cyberbullied from their home, outside of class, can the school really do anything about it? I think they can. Paul Pick told us that a school’s authority involves its students no matter where they go. However, it seems the law does not always agree. The difficult aspect of this is that students have the right to free speech so where do the authorities draw the line. There is precedence that “many states have embraced legislation that requires schools to add cyberbullying to their anti-harassment policies.” Students would be anxious, scared, and/or depressed if they were being cyberbullied. This just reiterates the fact that teachers need to be in constant contact with their students and should very well have a background in psychology as well to help them identify these behaviors. I personally think a school should protect its students, especially from other students within the school, no matter where they might be.

How will I deal with cyberbullying? This is difficult as I would like to address the issue in class but I’m afraid that this might do more harm than good. What if students had no inkling to ever try this and then I gave them the idea? I do think that some sort of pre-emptive strike would be best so that you are relating to the students what they need to know and what the consequences would be if they decided to cyberbully. I might send home a letter to the parents discussing the issue so that they know of the problem and can be more aware of it with their own kids. The best scenario would be to have a school wide movement done to prevent cyberbullying. I think this would be most effective in smaller groups (i.e. individual classrooms) rather than in a school wide assembly.

Social Networking/Googling Your Teacher

As I began searching the Google and Pipl sites, I had some anticipation as to what I might find. There aren’t exactly hidden skeletons in my closet or anything but you never know what your name could be linked to or what the possibilities hold. I found that the sites only had past addresses of mine or a social networking link that I belong to (i.e. Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/people/David-Volke/42006773). There is one site link that came up for me that is intriguing and somewhat disturbing. This link http://www.knowfirst.info/forums/showthread.php?t=6225 states that someone with the same name as me had a secret homosexual love affair with the supervising producer of A Current Affair. This is news to me for multiple reasons. One, I’m not homosexual and two, I have never met the supervising producer of A Current Affair. This just goes to show what people could find if they had searched for me because it doesn’t state middle names to discern if this person was me or not. Other than these hits I found some links that pertain to my father as he and I have the same first and last names. He runs marathons and I do not so it was easy for me to tell which ones were his and which were mine.

I don’t have anything to hide as far as what I found on these sites. There isn’t anything damaging to my character or anything that would get me in trouble as a teacher. The only thing I could do is change some of the privacy settings on my Facebook page so that it limits the access of outside people to my information. However, I’m not going to go through everything and hide or “un-tag” photos of myself to protect my identity. I’m allowed to have my own life outside of teaching and I would most assuredly fight any complaint, lawsuit, or firing that might occur because of this. I don’t have any damning photos or anything but there might be some photos of me dancing or holding a drink but I don’t have photos of me being drunk because I rarely drink let alone drink to excess.

According to the article we read titled Have you Googled your teacher lately?, “whether we like it or not, teachers are held to a higher standard of moral behavior than is the population in general.” I think this is true because we as teachers will be setting the example for our students. We can have our own personal lives but we need to be conscious of the fact that we are now representing more than just ourselves. We are representing our school, our district, and the students. I think that people in general should conduct themselves with respect for others but I do not think a teacher’s right of free speech should be sacrificed in its entirety. Teachers should be able to speak their minds as well but they have to realize the consequences and the time and place in which they say things. In the classroom or on a social networking site would probably not be the best places to speak out freely. However, with friends or at home with loved ones are perfectly good places to share whatever you might like. Teachers need to be held to higher standards and conduct themselves with a certain amount of dignity and respect but they also need to have the leeway to be human beings and vent their thoughts and feelings if the need should arise to do so.

The most interesting stories that I read in the article were about teachers being friends on networking sites with their students. As a teacher, you have to maintain a certain level of professionalism in regards to how you conduct yourself with the student body. One aspect of this is to keep your personal life somewhat personal and keep your professional life somewhat professional. I say somewhat because I think that you have to include some personal aspects of your life within the classroom so that your students can feel connected to you enough so that they trust you as a teacher and will willingly learn from you. However, the flip side to that is when people become too close to students. You run the risk of lawsuits and criminal charges when you have personal relationships with students, even if you are just friends. Honestly, our jobs as teachers are not to primarily be a student’s friend but to be a leader and guide through life and their education. The way that I will protect myself from these things is to be friendly to my students but maintain a teacher-student relationship as well. I think I will be using common sense to be aware of potential pitfalls but I try to conduct myself with honor and respect on a daily basis so I will not have to change much in the way of my interactions or socializing.

Digital Native

I would consider myself a digital native. A digital native is defined as people who are “'native speakers' of the digital language of computers, video games and the Internet.” I didn’t always grow up with the best technology but I have caught up with the advances fairly quickly in recent years. We had dial up Internet connections for our computers throughout my high school years. When I went off to college I was able to learn more about technology and its uses. Those experiments, and with the help of my friends, I was able to become technologically savvy.

My high school didn’t really have much technology to speak of other than televisions that were on rolling carts. However, when I got into college I was amazed at the technology that was available to us and began using it at all times possible. I began teaching myself how to use the various aspects of the technology, often times having to help the professors figure out how to use a given device. Most of my professors would be described as digital immigrants because they “were not born into the digital world but have, at some later point in our lives, become fascinated by and adopted many or most aspects of the new technology.”

The growing technological options helped to increase my learning ability as I am a visual learner. I fine tuned my technological skills as a teacher’s assistant at PSU helping students with their projects, uploading information to and setting up a class website, and grading work online. College definitely improved my experience with technology.

I don’t think my mind has been changed about using technology in the classroom because I see it as a necessity. Students will likely know more about technology than I will and they will be using it every day on various types of machines and devices. “Our students have changed radically. Today’s students are no longer the people our educational system was designed to teach.” Using these mediums to convey information will help them understand concepts more clearly in forms they know and use daily.

I plan on using PowerPoint, movies, the Internet, and other forms of media to teach students various concepts. I’m not sure yet exactly how I’ll incorporate different types of media but I know I’ll be using it in my classroom. I thought an important quote regarding new teachers and students was that students “have short attention spans—for the old ways of learning.”

Introduction

My name is David Volke. I am hoping to teach Health and Physical Education at the High School level. I have always been interested in health and fitness and I'm hoping that the students and I can learn more about both together. I'm excited and nervous about starting this process but I know that the work I will put in will be worth it when I make an impact on the students.

My favorite animal is a dog. Dogs are a great companion and are much smarter than people give them credit for. I liken dogs to young children. You essentially have to teach them the same things. Right and wrong. Basic commands. Potty training. Dogs can grasp all these concepts and can even be taught to help people with disabilities in various ways. I consider dogs a part of my family and not simply as pets. Yes, I'm one of those people. Cheers!