Final Reaction to Fires

As I was going back over my blog entries I was amazed at the amount of information that the book covered. There were only ten chapters and yet I feel that here was a crazy amount of information covered. The information that I reviewed in my previous blog entries was a great review. I had completely forgotten about some of the information, and I'm so glad that I had to go back and review because it was all important stuff.

I feel like this book is a really amazing learning tool for all potential teachers, or daycare providers, or just anyone who works with kids for a living. The information in this book would also be helpful for a first year teacher, or a teacher who has been teaching for twenty years. The information is timeless, and even when I disagreed with something it made me think about why, so either way it was helpful.

Glogster

Maine Memory Network

After reading all the information about the Maine Memory Network, the lesson plans that are already made, and how students are using it as a tool I came up with a lesson incorporating it. I would have my students, during a Maine unit perhaps, look up all the information they could find about the town they are from, or a town that their parents are from. After they had successfully gathered all the information from this website I would have them write a story about their town. I would have it be a personal narrative where they talk about their favorite part of the town, and I would require it to have some information on the website. I believe this would be a great way to interest them in their history and the history of the town, while still incorporating their own story into the writing.

How to Help Someone Use a Computer

In the web page that we had to look at there were two lists. The first list was "First you have to tell yourself some things." This list basically said that we need to remember that no one automatically knows how to use technology. In the second list, "Having convinced yourself of these things", all of the suggestions can basically be summed up in one sentence. Don't do it all for them, don't do anything for them, explain it all. One this in the first list that really stuck out to me was "Nobody is born knowing this stuff." This rings with me because I have some issues with technology, and unless it gets explained to me I wont completely understand it. In the other list the phrase "Don't say "it's in the manual". (You knew that.)" stood out. I always hated when people told me to look it up because sometimes you need a verbal instruction. It's all about the way people learn.

I used what I learned from this article in my technology project in many ways. One of the main ways was fully explaining how you can use the Smartboard as well as what you can do for tutorials on how to use it. The other way was the complete verbal and spatial directions that were given throughout the presentation for the people who do not fully understand things through reading.

Copyright and Fair Use

1) In question one, where the scenario is that the student snaps the cd in half, the question was if you could make a back-up disk legally. Before I even looked at the answers I felt the frustration start. The teacher is in fact allowed to make a extra copy, but I would not have been surprised had they not been able to, and that is where my frustration was.

2) In question 5 a geography teacher burns a few copies of a program because he doesn't have enough programs for all the students, and doesn't have anymore money to buy more. This is illegal, however I can completely understand why he would do such a thing, and I think if I were in his position I would have done the same thing too.

3) This is about question6, the one where the science teacher downloads materials for her students to use on their science project. I was shocked when the answer said it was fine as long as she didn't up the projects back up on the web without permission from the original sites. The rules for technology seem so random, no rhyme or reason.

4) Question 7 really made me feel uncomfortable. This question said that it was alright for a teacher to post students pictures on a secure private website. The feeling I have about this is that, yes you may think its a private site, but nothing on the internet net is really private.

5) Question 14 really makes me mad. It is about letting the younger children watch a Disney movie together. The answer tells me that this is illegal because you don't buy the movies for commercial use. I think this is crap- who buys a movie to watch by themselves, or with limited company!!

6) In question 18 the debate was about whether a student could use a song from a cd the teacher had for a project. The answer was yes, however, the answer given goes on to say that they need to check how long it can play and all of these other restrictions. I believe that if it is a cd that the teacher owns they can allow the student to play one FULL song in class for a project.

Chapter 10: Going Beyond the Classroom

Chapter ten was all about the ways teachers can help kids continue to learn outside of the normal, 7:30 to 2:00, school day. Sometimes it’s these extra things that help kids stay interested in school. The part of this last chapter that really got me was the part that talked about arranging for internships for students.

This popped out to me because of where I come from. I am from a small town in southern Maine that is really lacking money, and many of the native kids have never considered going to college. For many of these graduating from high school is an amazing feat in itself. Internships and vocational programs are what kept many of these kids, some of my best friends, in school. They got to do things that were relevant to them since they knew they weren’t going to go to college. They got to go learn their trade, be it lobstering, working on cars, or carpentry. It really didn’t matter, but they liked that it was something that was actually going to be helpful when their time came to make a living, this is so important for those kids.

Chapter 9: When Things Go Wrong

Chapter nine was about when students feel discouraged, alone, or uncared for. This chapter was particularly sad because I know/knew kids who fit these adjectives, but I would have dubbed them as shy or lazy or rebellious. The passage that said “Especially in large and crowded high schools…checking up on attendance becomes an administrative task, not an expression of personal concern” popped out at me.

This popped out at me because it was really true, and I’d never given the “send the attendance to the office” task as anything but that, a task. The problem with this is that there is no personal reaching out to the student absent. Usually when a kid misses a lot of school the teachers are usually thinking about how much w0rk they’re going to miss, and how much of a pain in the butt it’s going to be to get them caught up again. The office, especially in high school, just keeps tabs to see if they will be allowed to move on to the next year because of all the absences. No one actually cares about whether the student is alright or not. This is something that needs to change.