iSAFE- Internet Safety
- This certificate shows my completion of the iSAFE curriculum
In this blog I am reflecting on the iSAFE curriculum. The iSAFE curriculum contains six modules:
- Personal Safety – Overview of curriculum with general information about personal internet safety
- Cyber Community issues – Things to avoid on the Internet and how to avoid them
- Cyber Predator Identification – How to identify and avoid cyber predators
- Cyber Security – How to identify and avoid viruses, worms, and other malicious code
- Intellectual Property – How to protect and respect intellectual property
- Effective Outreach – How you can help others in your school community become aware of internet safety issues.
This curriculum helped us address EALR 2 of the Washington State Standards— DIGITAL CITIZENSHIP: Students demonstrate a clear understanding of technology systems and operations and practice personal safety, and legal, ethical, and respectful behavior.
After going through this curriculum I see the importance of internet safety and having students teach each other about internet safety. Kids just won’t listen as well to adults as they will to their peers. The statistics in the modules sometimes surprised me and sometimes affirmed what I already thought. The cyber predator section was really scary to watch and listen to. It is shocking to me that there are so many kids who have met face to face with people they first met online, but guess I shouldn’t be shocked with the popularity of dating sites like eHarmony and match.com when adults meet up with people they met online. The difference that kids don’t always see is that adults are usually more careful in an online environment. Kids see online relationships are more “pure” without the distractions of looks. They are more willing to trust internet relationships because they believe they are anonymous.
With so much information online we all have to be so careful. 87% of Americans can be identified by just birth date, location/zip code, and gender! I was surprised to hear that there don’t appear to be any differences in online behavior between ethnic groups and that the internet is a “great equalizer.” I am not surprised to hear that girls are more involved in social networking sites and blogs.
The section on copyright infringement, patents and trademarks is great and should be shown to students because they don’t get it. Just because something is online doesn’t mean that it is free for the taking. All work and classroom assignments are copyright of the students. I can’t post any work online without permission.
I liked that the goal of iSAFE which is to empower students to manage their “digital footprint “ to protect themselves, not to prevent students from going online. Identity.net seems like a great resource to help students decide who is safe to share information with and how much information to share. The way that students take action and take control of teaching each other to be safe is inspiring and I wish our school district would use a program like this to help parents protect students.
Look to see what iSAFE has to offer parents, students, and teachers.
Teacher Pedagogical Beliefs: The Final Frontier in Our Quest for Technology Integration?
%20figure4miller.img_assist_custom.jpg "Changing Teacher Behavior")
- Materials, Beliefs and Approaches are needed in order for teacher behavior to change.
(image from ucalgary.ca)
Changing teacher beliefs often needs to start with changing teacher behavior (according to Guskey) by helping teachers to feel competent with technology and what a classroom that successfully uses technology will look like (pg 34). Because most of us do not have a 1:1 ratio of students to computers in the classroom we need to see how other teachers effectively use computers in the classroom without huge amounts of downtime or management issues. Most teachers need to see models of effective teaching using technology since most teachers did not have the technology available now in their classrooms as they went through school.
Teachers tend to think about technology as “just another thing to do” or “just another teaching method” (pg 30) which informs their practice in their classroom. If technology stays as just another way to get the same information across to students its use in the classrooms will not be as effective as it could be. This class has been instrumental in helping me to see that technology really does help students to learn in the classroom and I can use technology in an effective way that isn’t just using technology for technology sake.
It was nice to hear that it is normal for teachers to begin using technology in the classroom in a very teacher-centered way. The goal, my goal, is then to move teachers to using technology for student-centered activities. I am thinking about how to incorporate the technology we are using in this class in my classroom in a meaningful way. I feel lucky that I can practice on one class next year and get some good feedback from students before I change too much of my teaching practice too fast.
I am on several committees to plan professional development for our school and our district. The ideas in this article for what PD needs to include to be effective in getting teachers to use technology in the classroom will be helpfu. Professional Development needs to focus on pedagogical support to help teachers develop competence starting with those tools that support current practice first. Imbedded in this professional development needs to be opportunities for teachers to observe technology being used in real classrooms. Teachers need to work together to really transform their classroom practices so time needs to be given in professional development for this to happen (pg 35).
As I plan for next year I will find ways to use technology more in my classroom and as the year progresses hopefully I can tweak it to make sure that I am using technology more effectively also.
The Wiki Way of Learning
Learning about how wikis can show student thinking and allow for reflection and problem solving has helped me to see the benefits of wiki in the classroom. Before reading this article I was ignorant about how beneficial wikis because they allow students to learn from each other, which is the best way to learn. Wikis allow collaboration, co-construction and demonstrates different ways of learning. There is no expert in a wiki, only collaborators constructing knowledge together.
Wikis provide a quick way for students to construct knowledge socially in an authentic way and provide them the space to reflect on their thinking and how their thinking has changed. Ruth (2004) says that students will be more engaged in learning if they can get help from teachers and other students and if they feel that the task is meaningful. Knowing why a wiki is used is so much more important to me than knowing how they are used. I am looking forward to seeing more examples of wikis working in science and psychology classes to implement the same ideas and wikis for reviewing major concepts in my classroom.
Social and cooperative learning have been shown to be more beneficial to a diverse group of students. Wikis may be another way I reach out to underserved students.
(from abpc.wikispaces.com)
The graphic compares collaboration via email with wiki
Bridging the Gap
I very much agree with this comment in the Bogle article: “Common barriers to uptake and development include time constraints, lack of experience or familiarity with applications and their purpose, reservations about the relevance of emerging technology for education, and importantly lack of access to support and expert consultation.”
Our school district does provide quite a bit of support for technology, but I still struggle with finding the time to fit certain newer pieces of technology into my classroom (Blogging, Voicethread, Vernier software, etc). Each of these pieces of technology can enhance the learning experience of my students, but sometimes I don’t see how it will help more than a class discussion or lab. If I had more time to sit with an expert and fit technology pieces into my curriculum I would be more inclined to use it. Implementing technology is something that needs to happen at the classroom level- it needs to be a grassroots endeavor, as the article says. Teachers need to be supported, but they also need to want to use the technology in their context. Individual teachers are the key to the model that Bogle suggests because we are the ones actually using the technology and learning processes with our students. I think that if more time and energy is given to the model below more teachers could more confidently incorporate technology into their classrooms.
The model given by Bogle seems like a great way to help more teachers incorporate more technology into their classrooms. The model tries to do 4 things that are essential for teachers as they try to incorporate technology:
o Increase awareness of emerging technology, particularly in its capacity to enhance learning and teaching;
o Model effective use and best practice in a way that holistically integrates pedagogical factors;
o Establish a comprehensive support framework;
o Embed eLearning activities in wider policy measures.
Overall I am feeling overwhelmed this week with the amount of learning I need to do to make technology more useful in my classroom context and look forward to more practice with different technologies in this class.
Technology is at the center of Marzano's "best practices"
Teachers, Not Technicians
Teachers shouldn't have to know programming in order to use technology in the classroom
(From cartoonstock.com)
I found myself agreeing, in large part, with the findings in the article Teachers, Not Technicians: Rethinking Technical Expectations for Teachers by Sandholz and Reilly out of UCR. Just intiutively it seems like teachers will be able to encorporate more technology in their classrooms if they are allowed to focus on curriculum first and not the ins and outs of technology. I have seen first hand that simply giving teachers more computers doesn’t help most of them to integrate their use in curriculum. One of my frustrations at the beginning of the school year is coming in to work early, not to work on curriculum, but to set up my teacher work station, projector and document camera. I love these pieces of technology and use them daily so I don’t mind putting in the time to make sure they work properly. Other teachers may not be so motivated.
The Apple Classrooms of Tomorrow (ACOT) project’s 5 phases of “instructional evolution” was very useful in helping me categorize where I fall in the continuum of integrating technology into my classroom instruction. The five phases are: entry, adoption, adaptation, appropriation, and invention. I, personally, haven’t found this continuum to be a linear progression, but one in which I move through the different phases throughout different times of the year and as I include more technology in my classroom. I mostly fall in the appropriation phase, but would like to challenge myself to be more innovative with the technology, grouping, and assignments I give my students.
As I work in a district with a great plan for our technology. I just need to ask for help and it is given to me almost immediately. Our professional development classes tend to be very tailored to our needs as teachers and I am excited to check more of those classes out in the future. This particular class on instructional technology will give me a taste of what is out there for students which I can practice now and incorporate into my curriculum as I plan this summer.
Standard 12 Meta-Reflection: Professional Citizenship
Standard 12 Professional citizenship: Willingly engages in dialogue that transcends the individual classroom, taking informed, coherent positions on important matters of educational policy and practice.
A Brief History of Science Curriculum in the United States
My paper on the Brief History of Science Curriculum in the United States was the culminating project in American Education: Past and Present. This project demonstrates my knowledge of this competency because I was able to articulate what I learned in class and my research on science education policy and practice. As a science teacher it is important to know how the ideas for curriculum reform have come about and from whence they came. I have learned that little of what I experience in my classroom today is brand new, but nothing is exactly the same as it was before. The curriculum and the practices I use in my classroom are rooted in a strong history of other science teachers, scientists, and psychologists. The more I can learn about why I do what I do in my classroom, the more effective I can be as a teacher.
