Chapter 5 Challenges 6 and 7

The challenges in this chapter really got me thinking. First, I had a lot or trouble creating, finding, understanding, and completing Challenge #6 (creating a classroom monitoring profile). I would like to thank everyone who was so patient with all my questions about that one. Challenge #7, discussing social media use with a student, really got me thinking. Below are my reflections on the challenges.

 

Challenge #6 Creating a Classroom Monitoring Portal

After hours spent searching on the internet, tears, and probably some pretty stupid questions, I finally understand what a CMP is and can do for me. I am not hosting or participating in a project right now. I ended up creating a CMP page for my Flattening Classrooms experience. I have included a link to the University of North Alabama, my Blog, and my PLN. I have also added a Twitter feed for Flattening Classrooms, To Do list, and a news search widget. A CMP lets you keep tabs on everything that is happening with one glance. I can see how this is a very powerful tool for managing a group of project participants. It puts all the information in one spot. I have really learned a lot during this challenge. Below is a link to my public Netvibes CMP.

http://www.netvibes.com/stephblackburn#General

Challenge #7 Empower Digital Citizenship Action

For this challenge, I interviewed a fourth grade student who has a Facebook page. As a parent, teacher, and a private person by nature, I find social media a little daunting. After speaking with this student I realized just how important it is to teach children how to conduct themselves online. First a little background. The student I interviewed is ten years old and has had her own Facebook account for about one year.  She told me that her Mom only allows her to “be on” Facebook using the family computer located in the living room and can only accept friend requests from people she has met in person. Below are the questions I asked her and her paraphrased responses.

How did you get a Facebook account if the minimum age to join Facebook is 13?

She stated that her Mom set up her page and she didn’t know that you had to be thirteen to have a Facebook account. (This sounds like a question I needed to ask her Mom.)

Why did you want a Facebook account?

She stated that some of her friends, Mom, older sister, and other relatives had accounts and wanted to participate.

What do you do when you are on Facebook?

I look at the information my friends share on Facebook, chat with my friends, and keep up with what is happening in their lives. I also share photos and stories about my life.

Do you ever do anything on Facebook for school?

No.

Has anyone made fun of you, bullied you, or made you sad by the comments they made on Facebook?

Her answer was yes. She explained that a cousin of hers made fun of a picture she posted of herself. She stated that she thought she looked really nice in the picture and the cousin did not agree.

I then asked her how she handled that situation.

She said that it made her really mad and she told her Mom about. They discussed the comments and decided that the best course of action was to ignore the comments.

Have you ever made any comments that hurt someone’s feelings?

She said she didn’t think she ever had but if she did she didn’t intentionally set out to hurt someone’s feelings.

What do you like best about Facebook?

She said she liked talking with her friends and sharing pictures.

My Thoughts

As a parent of a young girl, I don’t think most young children are mature enough or understand the pitfalls of Facebook. Facebook has that age requirement for a reason. That being said, I thought this young lady seemed to be conducting herself as a good digital citizen. From the information she gave me, she seemed to be trying her best to be cordial. She was only communicating with people she had relationships with outside of Facebook. Therefore, she wasn’t unknowingly committing many cultural taboos or having many language disconnects. She did however experience some emotional pain from some mean comments made by a relative. Overall, I thought this girl was being a good digital citizen. I just wish she didn’t have to cut her social media teeth using a site that is so public.

Chapter 4 Challenge #5

Challenge #5 Go Mobile!

This time I was challenged to use my mobile device in an educational way. This is the first school year that I have used mobile devices in the classroom. One app that I find very useful is Reading Remedy. It costs $1.00 and works on all the Apple devices. I use this app on my IPad.

Reading remedy is an app designed to determine what basic literacy skills a student needs to work on. The description in the iTunes cite says the App was developed by reading coaches and teachers as an assessment tool to determine the skills students were lacking.

I am currently a reading intervention teacher. I work with students that are in need of reading intervention. Their general education teacher often tells me that they can’t decode words or are having problems with prefixes. Decoding words and prefix and suffix knowledge are two very large sub-topics of reading instruction. Reading Remedy allows me to focus in on the specific skill, letter, or phonics rule a student is struggling with. It has allowed me to effectively use the intervention time I have with the students. I would also like to state, that I use other forms of assessment to determine where a student needs help. Reading remedy helps point you in a direction rather than giving a definitive answer. I would never recommend relying solely on the assessments in Reading Remedy.

Link to the app download: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/reading-remedies/id423213168?mt=8

Here is my posting for Chapter 4 Challenge #4. This book is really making me think out of the box.

Challenge #4 Communicate with new tools.

Asynchronous Communication Tool

An asynchronous communication tool is a tool used for communication. When using an asynchronous communication tool, the communication between the people does not happen at the same time.

I have personally communicated with others using asynchronous tools like email, blogs, discussion boards, and social networking sites. This week I have done a lot of communicating/posting on My PLN page. Reading posts and other information shared on the site has been very insightful. In our textbook, the authors stated that asynchronous communication tools do not allow two people to communicate in real time and face to face. I think for a child, and myself at times, you don’t feel like you are collaborating with a person. It sometimes feels like you are collaborating with another computer.

Synchronous Communication Tool

A synchronous communication tool is another type of communication tool. When using this tool, the communication happens in real time and in some cases the people communicating can see each other.

The synchronous communication tool I used this week was Skype. I Skyped with a colleague after work hours.  Skype allowed us to communicate with each other at a time that was more convenient for us. As teachers we all know how hard it is to find time to talk to colleagues during the school day. Because the conversation was happening at a mutually agreeable time, we were able to discuss things at a greater length. I can see that Skype is almost essential for any global collaboration. The fact that you get to see someone face to face and talk with them in real time allows for a deeper conversation. The face to face contact probably leads to more learning for the students.  

I was unable to use Skype or discussion board posting in a synchronous and asynchronous way. I do see how people could communicate synchronously via discussion posts. They would just have to be on the discussion board at the same time and reply immediately to each other’s post. Skype could also be used asynchronously. A person could record themselves talking and send it to someone else. A teacher could also record themselves presenting a lesson and share it with their students.

Well I have had a very productive afternoon. I am working on Challenges 1-3 in the Flattening Classrooms Engaging Minds textbook by Julie Lindsey and Vicki Davis.  Let me give you the low down.

Challenge #1 sign up or create an RSS Feed.
I did it. I created one on Net Vibes. You can check it out at this link. www.netvibes.com/privatepage/1#elementary_education_news  So far it looks pretty interesting. I know that I will have to tweak it a bit to better meet my needs but it does look promising. In my personal life, I belong to a RSS feed of sorts for diet tips. The chance articles I have read on that feed have given me lots of information on health issues that I would never have read about.

Challenge #2 Create a Blog.
I had already created a blog for a previous class that Dr. Kinney taught. I decided just to add to that blog. It was originally created for a discussion on  Acceptable Use Policies but I have now turned it into my thoughts about flattening classrooms. They are a plenty.

Challenge #3 Connect and Reflect
Connect
For this challenge I created a My PLN page. Here is the link to My PLN page. Check it out.
http://edupln.ning.com/profile/StephanieBlackburn  I also created a PLN on the Flattening Classrooms page. But they are the exact same thing. Here is a link to that profile.
http://flatclassrooms.ning.com/profile/StephanieBlackburn  I am still trying to get my profile picture up but my computer is not cooperating. I will keep trying.
Reflection
So what have I learned from this challenge. I learned that connection is very powerful. Especially connecting with the right people. For example, before I started this module I checked the course discussion board. I read posts from other classmates that said they  were having trouble creating RSS feeds. I also noticed that one classmate shared her connections and blog URLS with the class. By looking at her connections and using the information she shared  showed me pathways that allowed me to complete this module quickly and easily. By creating a Flattening Classrooms page I stumbled upon a discussion about the Challenges in the this book. The people having the discussion lead me to the Netvibes page that allowed me to create my RSS feed in a matter of minutes. Some of my other classmates are and were not having that same experience. Collaborating outside the walls or confines of the classroom is powerful. I am sold.

Greetings fellow educators!!!

I am once again enrolled in a technology class that is challenging my entire teaching belief system. This semester I am taking a class that deals with the flattening of your classroom. If you are like me you are thinking what does flattening mean.

Flattening in this case refers to taking learning and teaching outside of the physical four walls of the classroom. This is accomplished by using student, teacher, or outside resource collaborations.When a classroom is flattened, the instruction, or learning, is student centered. The students create the knowledge pathways, styles, and learning for themselves. The teacher is just a guide on their path to learning.

As a graduate student in education and drawing on incidental experiences I have had with collaboration I can clearly see that this is the future of education. My only question is has anyone told the people who create learning policy about this?  Correct me if I am wrong, but don't Alabama public school teachers need to use the Scott Foresman reading series and spend ninety minutes a day on reading?!?! Well if a classroom is flattened and students are directing their learning, they probably won't use Scott Foresman to learn about sequence.

Just something to think about. I will keep you posted on my findings.
Steph-

Link to AUP that I discussed.

I am sorry that I did not include this in my main post on my Blog. The link to the actual AUP document I disscussed in my post is http://www.lcschools.org/Default.asp?PN=Documents&DivisionID=1599&DepartmentID=0&SubDepartmentID=0&SubDocumentID=2218&keyword=acceptable use policy. The policy is located under the Technology Manuals and Guides.

What is an AUP and my opinion of one.

           Wikipedia defines an acceptable-use policy (AUP) as a collection of rules established by the owner or manager of a network, web site, or computer system. The AUP is designed to regulate the way a network, website, or computer system is utilized. Acceptable Use Policies are used by businesses, schools, and internet providers. An AUP is considered one of the most important documents in an organization.

            Almost every school system has an AUP.  The Lauderdale County Alabama School System is no exception. Lauderdale County’s AUP states that their primary goal is to use technology to support the education and instruction of the faculty and students of the district. The policy goes on to list acceptable use guidelines. The policy lists things like not duplicating copyrighted material, adhering to software license agreements, installing software, downloading, protecting personal files, and passwords.

 The AUP also has a special section for internet and email use. The policy states that the internet is provided to the students and the staff to further education goals. The internet also allows students and teachers to access resources outside of the physical school setting. The policy gives a list of things that are not permitted. The list contains things like sending offensive messages, violating copyright, using the network for commercial or illegal use, and wasting limited resources.

Overall, Lauderdale County’s AUP is vague. There are no clear statements about what they deem as acceptable use of the internet. There are however many statements about how not to use the internet and other technologies provided by the district. The AUP states that the user must employ acceptable and responsible behavior when using the district’s internet and email services. The AUP document does not define what the district deems to be acceptable behavior.  The AUP takes for granted that all the students and teachers have the same opinion of about what is acceptable use of the internet.

AUP documents are changing as quickly as technology. In order for an AUP to be effective and relevant, it needs to reflect current technologies and proper uses of current technologies. Teachers, students, parents, and administrators need to fully understand their school system’s AUP.