Thing 5(b) - Web Safety and Students

We, as teachers, are learning about all of this absolutely amazing technology we never had as students in the hopes of teaching students how to use these things in their education and eventually in their career. With all new technology comes challenges. If we let kids bring I-Pods and MP3 Players to school for educational purposes, how do we keep them from just playing with them? How do we keep our students and our own children safe on the web? How do we make sure students are using pictures, images, files, and songs (basically anything downloaded) responsibly? These are all questions that need answers, but we barely have time to learn the technology ourselves, when do we have time to learn this, too?

I never know how to say this: I found (my reader found) (I found through the use of my reader subscriptions) some resources to help us manage this seemingly impossible task.

Safe Schools in a Web 2.0 World Initiative gives us a little food for thought and possibly a little more ammunition for when we try to use new technology (social networking) about which some may be apprehensive. Unfortunately the link in the above post is not working, but I have an email in to get it fixed.

Digital Citizenship and Creative Content is a free curriculum for teachers to use with their students. Though I have signed up, I have not yet had a change to get into the computer lab to use this with students. The units, lessons, and activities can be used in a computer apps class or as stand-alone lessons to be used at appropriate times when using different types of media throughout the year in your specific content. Again, this is all free and you can view an overview here.

Finally, something for which language arts teachers and any teacher who incorporates writing into their curriculum have been waiting...Drum-Roll Please... a plagiarism web-quest and pre-made lessons. Now, this is made for high school students, but I think with very little modification it could be used in middle school and maybe even in elementary schools. This is one-stop-shopping at it's best. Everything is organized and laid-out for you. Plus, it is in a very easy to use format.

Thing 11

I like working with the pictures to make a slide show. I can think of so many thing to do with this, both personal and professional. Though, I don't know what site I like the best. I started with BubbleShare and it has a lot of neat things to add to pictures, but I really couldn't find a use for them.

BubbleShare: Share photos - Easy Photo Sharing


Then, I tried Slide and that one was a little better for me.

Again, I can think of a lot of uses, but I don't think I've found the best site for me. Also, I hope my next slide show is much more creative.

Blocking Sites - GRRRRRR!

I thoroughly understand why we have firewalls (or whatever they are called) and why we block websites at school. I also understand why it is easier to put a generic block on specific content, but I feel like I'm surfing the net with a broken leg. There are so many cool web 2.0 things out there that I want to check out and try, but I have started running into a problem. Some of the sites I want to see or tools I want to try out are blocked. How in the world could ScribLink be inappropriate. It's an online whiteboard! Plus, I have never been told who to ask to get a website unblocked. We have all of this technology and can't use it because it is blocked. Why is it blocked? I don't see add along the side of the page. I know some stuff is blocked because it is considered social networking. Wait a minute! Arn't we social networking? Social networking isn't bad; it's what we are teaching students to help prepare them for the new workforce.

Attribution: Picture by Za3tOoOr!

Thing 7 - Strech (Challenge)

Since I am such a fan of both the series of books and the movie, I decided to look up Twilight on Wikipedia. I couldn't find the book, so I then searched the author, Stephanie Meyer. I quite honestly don't use Wikipedia a lot, because it is a wiki, others can alter its contents. Some of the content seemed very irrelevant and also almost like a gossip page. The discussion and the history were swamped with comments and changes. All in all, it's O.K. reading, but if I were writing a report, Wikipedia would not be the first place I would turn. It is probably different with other subjects, maybe more history related. With a topic that would be considered pop culture, I think you will get more opinions than facts.

Thing 10

Picture taken by Felix Idan.

I like Flickr, but for a math teacher I really don't see that many uses. I checked out the Fascinating Flickr Assignment to Teach Math blog, but I really didn't see much of a use for it in math unless it is being used for geometry. We haven't done many projects this year in my class, because we have been so testing-oriented. Once testing is over, I think I might use Flickr for a project on Geometry and to introduce Creative Commons and posting attributions. I could probably have students create a slide show or a presentation showing difference 2D and 3D shapes. Then the could lable the parts of each shape on the picture.

On a personal note, I love the idea of saving all of our family photos on Flickr. This could be used to educate my children about their family history. Plus, there are things in photos, other than people, that can help students learn how to use the context clues in the photos to help date them.

When it comes to math, I can't think of many uses, but for other subjects I can. When studying other countries, students can find pictures of other countries. Language Arts teachers could post a picture and that could be their students writing prompt. Each student could have a blog, be required to post the picture (with its atribute) and then thier journal entry. In Life Science, students could have pictures of bones and use those to create a slide show to describe a part of the body or a system from a body. The ideas could go on...I just wish I had more math ideas.

Thing 9

Probably the only reason why I have noticed the creative commons symbol on websites this year is because I took a class that Caroline taught at the beginning of this year, where she briefly explained what it was. If it were not for that class, I would have never noticed it. I don't think students would notice it, nor do I think they would care once they found out what it meant. I think the new CC rules would definitely effect students more if they were following the old rules. Plagiarism is a big deal, but it is not treated as such. Language Arts teachers teach a lesson on plagiarism every year. When we write papers in my math class, we discuss plagiarism and references. Still, every year we have students that plagiarize in some form or fashion. I have had students "borrow" paragraphs from five different papers and combine them to be their own paper. I have had students print out pictures and paragraphs from the internet and glue them to a poster board and turn it in for a project. I've even had a parent tell a student to glue those pictures and paragraphs to the poster. Students just don't seem to care and I feel it is because there are no consequences and they just don't understand the point.

Though all this complaining, I have come up with an assignment that I think might help students "get it" when it comes to plagiarism. Have students walk around the school with a purpose of taking pictures for a specific "fake" project. The fake project is to help them understand why we have copy write. Have all students take a specific number of pictures, but tell a trusted few students to only take one or two. For this to work, your "trusted students" can't be your high-achievers who always put forth 110%. The trusted students need to be students who you can tell to only take one or two pictures and won't tell the other students that you told them to do it. Download all of the pictures to the same folder and then tell the students to find the pictures to do their assignments. Most students will use their own, but then tell the students who only took one or two to use any pictures and as many as they want. When the projects are turned in, let the students display them, and lead a discussion about what is the same what's different. Ask "How many pictures did you take?" and "Is it fair to use the other students pictures?" To me this would open the door.

I do use digital images, videos, etc. from the web in my classroom. Eventually, I want to lean how to tap my lessons, or a short overview of the lesson, and post that on my wiki for students to view. That's about as far as I would feel comfortable sharing on the web. I'm fine with sharing academic material on the web, but not personal pictures and such. The materials I create I own and I won't care if other teachers edited what I had created. When it comes to personal pictures, I wouldn't want to share those and give people license to edit those. If I can't have the final say over what gets published, then I can't control how those pictures are changed. In fact, even with a copyright, I can't control what happens to that pictures. There will always be rules and laws and there will always be rule breakers and law breakers. Once something is out on the web, I don't think you can ever really delete it. You can't un-ring a bell.

Creative Confusion

At least that is what CC stands for right now. Now that I have gone back and re-searched all of the pictures I had on my blog and added links, all I really need to do is get unconfused.

Don't get me wrong. I love all of the videos that are on the wiki. Trust me, I've watched them all numerous times to get better understanding of creative commons. Yet, I'm still left with confusion. I don't know if my confusion over the actual "fair use" rules or over my feelings over the fair use rules. The Obama case study was quite interesting, and I'll be adding my thoughts to that once I make sure I'm being directed to the right place. Along with the interest in the Obama case study comes some confusion. We're discussing creative commons and fair use within the educational realm, but I didn't think that photo/poster would come under that heading. Am I the only one?