NYC with the Pride of Mississippi

The World Peace Game: John Hunter

This game is a genius way to teach students about the world. It is extremely comforting to me to know that people like John Hunter are teaching America's children. I cannot imagine a better or more applicable way to learn for these students. These are all skills that are extremely valuable to students. To the students, its a game. They enjoy this type of learning. The students featured on the video are so engaged, so excited, and so involved in their learning it is extremely inspiring to watch. I would be happy if I turn out to be even half as good a teacher as John Hunter.

Educator's Guide to Cyberbullying and Cyberthreats

Cyberbullying is obviously a huge problem in schools today. As a future teacher, I already worry that I will not be able to completely prevent any types of bullying from occurring. This guide to cyberbullying gave me real insight into what is going on in schools. One thing that I think will be necessary is to educate children on how to react to cyberbullying. They need to know that if they are being threatened online, they need to tell someone. The scenarios in the guide often involved a student having weapons and if no one had said anything that individual could have killed a lot of people. My heart goes out to children who are the victims of bullying. This guide has helped me prepare for preventing this from happening in my classroom.

Why Flipped Classrooms Are Here to Stay

This method of flipping the classroom can be completely attributed to good problem solving by the teachers it was created by. I remember my high school teachers having huge problems with absences as well and I know that I had problems doing homework at home. I think that teaching needs to evolve in these kinds of ways. A couple of months ago, a friend of mine was dealing with a mentor teacher that was not doing a good job. She basically did not do anything that he had learned in college and the students hated her class. One day, while he was complaining about the situation he said, "Just because you've been doing something a certain way for 23 years does not mean that you're doing it right." At that moment, I could not believe how right he was. All the experience in the world does not alone make you a good teacher. What makes a good teacher is the motivation to change and adapt in order to keep students engaged and to teach them to your best ability. I think these teachers were geniuses in finding a way to do just that for their students.

At a University Archive, Yesterday's Cutting-Edge Video Games Play On

This article is about the University of Texas's attempt to archive video games. I was actually surprised to hear that this is not a common practice. I agree that creating video games is a rising art form so I am glad that they are now beginning this archive. Video games have come a long way in my life time alone. When I was young, I played games on the Super Nintendo like Rampage, Duck Hunt, or Mario. Now I play Super Mario Galaxy and Kinect Sports. There is a huge advancement in the technology used in these video games and not only is it nostalgic for me to think about them but I think that it is in its own way, a picture of American Culture. To me, these video games should absolutely be archived.

Parts of Plants Concept Map

Parts of Plants 

I.       Stems

The stem's functions are to support the buds and leaves and to move water and nutrients from the roots to the rest of the plants. Stems can be either woody or herbaceous. Woody means it is made of wood and herbaceous means the stem has little or no woody tissue. Different examples of stems are tree trunks and celery.

A.    Transports water to the rest of the plant

B.    Support the leaves

II.     Roots

The roots of a plant have two main functions. The first is to soak up water and nutrients from the soil. The roots also serve the purpose of anchoring the plant in the soil. There are two types of roots: fibrous and taproots. Fibrous roots are thin threadlike roots that usually do not penetrate the soil very deeply. Taproots are thick and grow deeper into the soil. Some examples of taproots we eat are carrots, radishes, and beets.

A.    Provide stability for the plant

B.    Soak up water

III.    Leaves      

The leaves of a plant soak up sunlight to use in photosynthesis. The surface of the leaf is usually flattened to provide a large surface area to soak up sunlight. Leaves can be a variety of different sizes, colors, and have different textures. The leaves also store water and signify growth nodes.

A.    Soaks up sunlight

B.    Have a large surface area in order to 

IV.    Flowers

The flower is the reproductive part of the plant. When they are pollinated, all flowers produce fruit. Some fruit we eat, like apples and oranges, other fruit we do not. For example, the entire middle part of a Sunflower is its fruit. The fruit produces seeds which produce new plants after they germinate and the plant life cycle starts over.

A.    Reproductive part of the plant.

1.    Flowers produce seeds and the plant's life cycle starts over.

B.    Usually have pleasant fragrance and colors to attract pollinators.

1.    Common pollinators are bees, hummingbirds, and other insects.

V.     Seeds

A seed contains all of the genetic information needed to begin a new plant. In order to grow, a seed needs to be germinated meaning that the seed goes from a dormant state to a growing state. Germination occurs when a seed soaks up water and the temperature is favorable. After the seed germinates, it grows into a new plant that will eventually produce it's own seeds.

A.    Are grown inside the "fruit" of the plant.

B.    Grow into new plants when given the proper amounts of water, sunlight, and soil

Parts of Plants

Safe Social Networking Tailored for K-12 Schools

     I think educational social-networking sites is a genius way to get children motivated to work together on their school work. Everyone has had the teacher that completely prohibited talking or any kind of socialization between the students during class time. I think this is an ideal way for students to use technology in a healthy and safe way. Students could be motivated by being asked to post one interesting thing per day that they have learned. This will promote conversation in the same way that Facebook does but will be able to be monitored to ensure a safe environment for the students. I do, however, worry that the subscription fees will discourage many school districts from adopting these social networks.

Nine Themes of Digital Citizenship

     These nine elements of digital citizenship will all be important in the constantly developing technological world. Unfortunately there is still a large percentage of people who lack in certain areas of these themes. These people, therefore, do not have access to all the benefits that technology has to offer. I am certainly one of those people who excel in certain areas but lack in others. For example, I do not consider myself digitally literate but I definitely excel in digital communication. I think that the fact that we will begin educating about becoming digitally literate is a huge step for our school systems.

Children's Internet Protection Act

    I think that it is definitely time that teachers start teaching internet responsibility instead of overly restricting the internet in schools. That is not to say that nothing should be blocked from the student's view because there are plenty of things on the internet that are extremely inappropriate for children. However, these restrictions often go overboard. For example, when I was in high school, I spent an hour in the library every day. My senior year, I attempted to fill out scholarship forms online during this hour but found that many of the sites were blocked. I do think that it will be difficult at first to implement this teaching in schools, but it is extremely necessary. It is time to stop ignoring things like cyber bullying. Just because we block all possibilities of it happening during school hours does not mean that it is simply not our problem. I hope that this new legislation successfully addresses these problems.

A Future Full of Badges

     This badge system is a major change in the way our professional world functions. The most useful thing to me, is that employers will be able to see what specific abilities they people they are hiring have. It will be useful for job seeking individuals to have these abilities accredited to them. I am not convinced that it will make anything cheaper, including higher education and I feel that a functional system in which we actually benefit from this change is a long way off.

Gamification

     Gamification can be a great way to engage students in learning. However, I do feel that there is a right and a wrong way to try to incorporate these game elements. Thinking as an elementary teacher, I worry that certain games or levels of competition may have negative effects on certain children. Elementary teachers should also pay attention to the types of games they play in the classroom as well because some will be more beneficial to young students than others will be. Aside from all this, incorporating games in a great way to get students excited and especially motivated. I love the idea of the software for teachers from Pepperdine University. I will most definitely use multiple forms of games in my future classroom.

The Virtues of Blogging as Scholarly Activity

     I like to crochet. One of the things I do in between crochet projects is search the blogs of other crocheters for tips or new ideas. Because of this, I've always seen blogs as being a way that creative people can share their ideas with each other but have never considered blogging myself and have certainly never considered that blogging can be useful in an elementary level classroom. I am actually pretty excited to say that I have gotten a couple good ideas about how to use blogs in an elementary classroom after reading this article. I would love to be able to use a blog as a journal for the children. With this blog the children can post regular writing activities along with videos, pictures, and artwork created by themselves. This is also a great way to share work with parents on a regular basis. I think this is great way to get kids to write in many different ways!

A Vision of K-12 Students Today

     After watching the video "A Vision of K-12 Students Today", the statistic I found most outrageous is that  63% of teachers never let their students create something new using a computer. How do these teachers provide variety in their classroom? Are they making sure that each student has an equal opportunity to learn no matter what their strengths and weaknesses are? They probably are not or at least not to their best ability.       Because I am also a special education major, I know that incorporating the use of a computer can do wonders for the learning of a student with disabilities as well as a general education student. For example if I had a young student that was falling behind in reading, the first thing I would do is find books from authors like Mem Fox or Shel Silverstein that have videos and recordings of themselves reading their own books online and let the children listen while they read. This small bit of enhancement is very meaningful for a child who is struggling as many do. So far in my teaching education, I have realized that many times when a child is having a hard time grasping a concept it is most likely that he or she just needs to see the information presented in a different way. Not all children can learn from a lecture or a text book. Incorporating technology into a lesson is the easiest way to make accommodations for these children.

Web Literacy

After reading, "Why more schools aren't teaching web literacy--and how they can start" and "Web literacy: Where the Common Core meets common sense", I realize that it is impossible for students to acquire all the skills necessary to take full advantage of the internet on their own. As a future teacher, I believe it is my responsibility to teach my students what they need to know but until now I never considered the use of the internet a part of that responsibility probably because that was not a part of my curriculum in school. One of the strangest things for me to think about is how I learned the things that seem second nature to me but when I do I realize that I learned them because I was taught.  I now realize that it is my job to help teach my students this  skill because the internet is such an important resource that it is a waste not to be able to use it correctly.