Treat Others with Respect

Don’t Feed the Trolls by previous middle and high school teacher, Karen Work Richardson, is a very informative article that focuses on the use of blogs by students in order to help facilitate discussions among themselves, allow themselves to see others’ perspectives on different issues, and allow them to better understand key concepts, all while treating their peers with dignity and respect. Richardson’s area of focus is curriculum and educational technology; she believes civil discourse is a very important concept for students to learn; her philosophy is that while people do not always agree, they need to learn how to disagree, civilly. The article states that teachers should first explain the rules for civil discourse to their students, then allow them to put those rules into practice. When conversing with other students online, it is important for students to remember that they are communicating with an actual person, and therefore, they need to be careful with their words in order to not offend anybody. Because blogs are online and not face-to-face, they allow students more opportunities to reflect on what it is they posted and what it is their peers posted. Allowing students to practice appropriate civil discourse will help them learn how to better treat their peers both online and in person.

I believe this article is extremely significant because we live in a very technological time. In today’s world, young people spend a great deal of time utilizing technology, via their smart phones, their Ipads, or their laptops. Because they spend so much time online communicating with others, I feel it is very important that they know what is and isn’t appropriate behavior. I learned quite a bit from reading this article; I now realize the importance of teaching young people about civil discourse and I now know some key factors I can teach my future students about in regard to this topic. I feel like Richardson was very thorough in her description of the issue of civil discourse that is at hand.

In the future, when I have my own students, I will teach them about civil discourse as well. I believe it will be extremely important to explain to my students and demonstrate for my students' appropriate behavior when it comes to communicating with others, especially via cyberspace.   

Richardson, K. (2008). Don't feed the trolls. Learning & Leading with Technology, (May), 12-15.

Only six and using an iPad? Now that's rad!

Elementary school teachers, Sarah Getting and Karin Sweeney, sought out to discover whether or not technology use via iPads could improve the reading abilities of elementary school-aged students. These teachers indicated that while there were several risks or negatives in regard to the utilization of the iPads in the classroom by the young students, they were far outweighed by the benefits. Getting and Sweeney found that their two reading groups who demonstrated the lowest reading levels both improved after using several applications on iPads for nearly an entire academic year. They felt that the children would not only benefit in their reading abilities, but they would benefit also simply by having been exposed to and gained experience in working with technology. Prior to actually using the iPads, the children were taught how to handle them and it was explained to them, that they out to handle them with care because use of the iPads was a privilege; a privilege that could easily be revoked.  The iPads significantly improved the On Task Time for both groups. In addition they created overall excitement. This excitement spilled over into other subject areas as well. The students become more eager to do well and to track their own progress.

This article is of great significance because it just goes to show how helpful a tool technology, and different technological devices can actually be. While it may be possible to learn any given concept without technology, it may be that that same concept would be easier to teach and/or more fun to learn with the use of technology. I don’t know that this article taught me anything necessarily, but it definitely allowed my to confirm my stance and that is: I do believe that technology can be an extremely beneficial tool for both teachers and students alike.

I actually have a first grader myself, and although I don’t have an iPad, I do have an iPhone that I download age-appropriate educational applications for her on. While I don’t document her learning with formal assessments, its still reassuring to know that she is doing educational things on my phone rather than non. As a result of reading this article, I definitely plan on utilizing an ipad in the future in my own classroom when I become an educator. I feel my students will enjoy themselves immensely and learn a great deal about both the content of my class and technology in the process.

Getting, S., & Swainey, K. (2012). First graders with ipads?. Learning and Leading with Technology, 24-27.

NETS-T Standard 1: Creativity

The first of the NETS-T standards is Facilitate and Inspire Student Learning and Creativity. In order to fulfill this standard teachers must use their content knowledge, pedagogy knowledge, as well as their knowledge of technology to promote and assist student learning and creativity. Students have the opportunity to utilize their creativity using modern technology in order to challenge real-life occurrences. Students will work in collaboration with their peers to develop a well-organized, well-understood creation.

I feel strongly about this standard in particular, because I believe that it is very important to give students the opportunity as well as the responsibility to both collaborate with their peers as well as explore their own creativity. I believe that classes that I have taken in the past have given me the tools and resources to properly demonstrate examples of creative ideas utilizing technology to my students, and to help them in their journey of creativity and innovation. My strengths lie in my sport-related content knowledge as well as my pedagogical knowledge in collaboration with my limited knowledge of technology.

I came across an awesome article entitled Grow Creativity, by Candace Shively. In the article Shively lists what she calls the four dimensions used to describe creativity: fluency, flexibility, originality, and elaboration. She thoroughly describes each of the four dimensions and gives detailed examples as to how teachers can implement each of these concepts into their curriculum for a variety of subject areas. I highly recommend this article to any educator who is interested in facilitating and encouraging creativity among their students. 

Another eye-opening article that I stumbled upon, is an article entitled Fostering Creativity and Innovation through Technology, by Sheena Vaidyanathan. The author discuses art and creativity; she states that digital art is the way of the future. She explained that her students typically begin an assignment by attempting to copy the example that she provided them with, but eventually they start to put their own creative spin on things. She believes that children love computers as their canvases, because they have an infinite supply of paper, and they can easily correct their mistakes. She says, that for them, knowing anything can be fixed, gives them the reassurance that need to feel as though they can truly try to create anything. I think schools should offer more classes like her class to help students discover their creativity, well…their digital creativity. 

Shively, C. H. (2011). Grow creativity!. Learning and Leading with Technology, 10-15.

Vaidyanathan, S. (2012). Fostering creativity and innovation through technology. Learning and Leading with Technology, 24-27.