EXPAND 5: Netbooks hit right spot for schoolchildren

Moses, A. (2009, January 29). Netbooks hit right spot for schoolchildren. SydneyMorning Herald. Retrieved from http://www.smh.com.au/news/technology/biztech/netbooks-hit-right-spot-for-schoolchildren/2009/01/28/1232818513771

This article is from the Sydney Morning Herald in Australia from 2009. I'm always interested in seeing what other countries are doing educationally with their technology. This article is from 2009 so it is very recent. In these recent years, the sale of netbooks have risen drastically making it one in 10 of all computers  sold. This growth is coming from parents who want to equip their children with simple low powered computers for doing homework. There is another reason why Australians are buying up netbooks. There is a Rudd Government Educational Tax Refund which allows parents to claim up to $300 or $700 for their children. Another feature of these netbooks that allows for easy transfer since they are light weight and easily portable. The article ends with a propositions for a new netbook being created that is durable and only usable for schoolwork. It will be interesting to see what happens with this new netbook.

While I do see the good impact that netbooks can have in the classroom, I still have some reservations. If computers are to be use in abundance at a school I really like the one-to-one correspondence of computers to students. A computer is only fully used when one persona is utilizing it. When groups are expected to work on a computer, usually it ends up one person doing all the work and not full collaboration gets done. Comparing netbooks to ipads, netbooks are closer in comparison to pc and mac laptops and desktop computers. Those types of computer require a lot of upkeep and troubleshooting becomes complicated. Especially if the students using the computers don't know how to keep good track of them. Ipads on the other hand, don't require much upkeep and is very simple to use.

While right now, it seems like schools are experimenting with ipads and netbooks to see which are better used in the classroom. It will be interesting to see which one will win out in the long run. For example, my mom's school that she teaches at in Japan has both ipads and netbooks for use in the classroom. Especially for her kindergarten class, they use the netbooks mostly but as my mom says,  "they are not too kid-friendly." Her kindergarten class has yet to use the ipads but their goal as a school is to incorporate technology into every aspect of school. It will be interesting to see which my mom prefers as a teacher of kindergartners in the future.

EXPAND 4: Families Wise Up to Importance of Online Safety

Kirk, J. (2009, March 16). Survey: Families wise up to importance of online safety. PCWorld. Retrieved from http://www.pcworld.com/buisnesscenter/article/161344/survey_families_wise_up_to_importance_of_online_safety.html

With all the alarming articles we read about kids and the dangers on the internet, it is refreshing to read an article like this where families are becoming more savvy about Internet safety. This article relays information from a Global Norton Online Living Report of adults and children in several countries. The results showed that more children admit getting caught as well as more software to control internet use. Parents are joining their kids in social networks to be another watchful eye on their children. But the article brings up a good point. What's the balance between trusting your kids and respecting their privacy or establishing rules and limiting their use on the internet? This article was a listing under the chapter for Virtual Worlds in Brooks-Young. In a technological world, more and more kids are becoming the pro's of technology over the older generation. They are technological native compared to the immigrants of their parents. Because children are becoming more technology savvy then their parents, it is even more important for parents to do all they can to wise up to online safety. Even in virtual worlds parents need to be doing all they can to learn about the different worlds and talking to their children about safety. So going back to the balance - what is the balance? I guess the right answer would be a safe balance of both. Every family needs to find out themselves what their level of trust is when it comes to their children but at the same time establishing boundaries so that their children will be safe stewards of their online worlds. Teachers need to help out parents in this way so it will be interesting to see what happens in my class when my students are engaging in the internet. I hope to be a teacher and a parents who knows the correct balance between the two.

EXPAND 3:Teens Wear Their Heart on Their Blog

Kornblum, J. (2005, October 30). Teens wear their heats on their blog. USA Today. Retrieved from http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/techinnovations/2005-10-30-teen-blogs_x.htm

This article in USA today was a fairly old article in technological standards but still a good one. Written in 2005 it describes how 8 millions teens blog, which by now in 2011, this number would have gone way up. This article mainly implies myspace as the site for blogging and social network which isn't used as much anymore. This article brings to light the fact that these teens are doing things on their blogs that they once did through personal diaries, phone calls, hanging out etc. Another person stated that blogs are like reality TV for the web. Because teens are using blogs as personal online diaries, parents are concerned as they should be to keep up on what their children are doing. Students love putting their personal emotions on their blog. I could see blogs as being used as a good connection between home and school. Especially in connection with this chapter in Brooks-Young about Creative Content - Writing, blogs are quickly becoming a common tool in the classroom. Parents want to learn what students are learning and usually students don't want to tell them anything. A blog could become a spring board for parents to child communication as well as student to teacher. Students could pour out their emotions and their frustrations with hope that someone will read them and reach out with hope or a solution. As with the parents reading them, I feel like since the child is willing to put everything on the world wide web for all to see, the parents should have a right to see what is going on. This article closes with the thought that what these students are doing is nothing new, teens have been doing this for years on end, but it just depends on what we as a society do with it all and it will be interesting to see what happens next.

EXPAND: Army uses video games in suicide preventio

Lubold, G. (2008, November 26). The army uses video games in suicide prevention. The Christian Science Monitor. Retrieved from http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/1126/p02s01-usmi.html

This article by the Christian Science Monitor introduces an act on the part of the Army Suicide Prevention Program to do develop an interactive game to help in suicide prevention of soldiers because of the intense nature of war and especially the Iraq war. Because of these wars the suicide rates have gone up by 46%. This interactive game is a modern-day military mortality play meaning that the players watch a drama unfold and then makes decisions for the outcome of the characters. Another scenario focuses on preventing a buddy's suicide. These games are so realistic that they allow people to walk in someone elses' shoes and they get the chance to "play it out before they live it out." All the soldiers need is the courage to seek help and the game provides them with a way to realize that. This game made me think of different issues that plague teens and young kids. Issues such as teen pregnancy, alcohol, drugs, are just a few that maybe a same sort of scenario game could be created where teens step in someone else's shoes to see the consequences of their would-be actions played out. I would be a big fan of those types of games allowing kids to come to a realization before they fall into it.

EXPAND 1: Friending Mom and Dad

Lenhart, A. (2009, January 14). Social Networks Grow: Friending mom and dad. Pew Internet & American Life Project. Retrieved from http://pewresearch.org/ pubs/1079/social-networks-grow.

This article by the Pew Research Center is a compilation of studies to show percentages of people and social networks. Some of the astounding numbers show 75% of adults 18-24 use social network meaning that most users are young. The article goes on to say that most users, 89%, use their online profiles to keep up with friends while others, 57%, use it to make plans with friends. 44% uses them to make new friends. This brings up an interesting note in connection with this chapter five in Brooks-Young. If the most usage of social networks is to keep up with friends already known, then students in a class who see each other daily could use social networks to keep up with their classmates during summer days or after school hours. The second was highest usage was to make plans. Classrooms could use this with group projects where students could collaborate and plan all over a social network. It scares me a little when 49% is the number of of people who use social networks to make new friends. Especially for younger students, it could be very dangerous. That's why I like the idea of closed networks such as ning or elgg for school settings where only allowed people are in the network but it still works like a social network. Also, if more and more adults join social networks then communication with parents should get easier. Also, another statistic in the article said that more Blacks and Hispanics use social networks then white people. This intrigues me and got me thinking about the use of social networks in inner city or with ESL students of different races and how they may learn better this way. Overall an interesting article and made me think.

HTML website

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Enjoy! :)

SMART CH 10: Digital Citizenship

Introducing Jane, a model for digital citizenship. Jane knows how to conduct herself in a very ethical and responsible nature while living in this digital age. For one, she understands and knows what copyright is and understands how to distinguish between copyrighted material and not and how to use them. I have to say that I don't even know the full extent of copyright. I hope I'm not using anything against copyright but I do take pictures from the internet and print them out and use them in various ways. I'm looking forward to Dr. Krug's class in the fall where I can better get an understanding of that. Another characteristic is that Jane understands respect when it comes to a digital world. Jane respects herself when it comes to posting pictures and information and understands that nothing is private on the internet. She also respects the privacy of other by not posting pictures of others without their consent or not disrespecting others with her comments. Jane also understands rules and laws in her digital world. She understands the COPPA and the CIPA for children under 13 and understands the rules for her school. Jane is very internet savvy and still uses social networking but at the same time, she knows how to behave herself and has a high standard for codes of conduct for herself and others. 

When I first heard the word "sexting", I was shocked that our society has so much misused our recent technology that a new word had to be created to describe it. I can see the downfall to where these kind of acts are going on more and more. With the use of technology for people to communicate there is less face to face communication. When there isn't someone there right in front of you, an audience starts to disappear and what you say and do is not as significant if done face to face. People are loosing this integral part of society of face to face and falling behind a screen in which they act in perverse ways. I think sexting is utterly gross and I am so sad to see that students are falling into this act and getting in trouble. I do see it as a felony especially of child pornography. Students need to be shaken up to the fact that what they are doing is wrong and maybe if enough people realize it or get caught then this act will stop

SMART CH 8: Creative Content: Images

I very much enjoy taking and viewing photographs. They bring back memories of events already passed and capture just a moment of life going by. Since high school, I have enjoyed the google search engine of images as a way to see photographs of different things as well view slideshows and videos created for online use. I have used photos for everything from using images for a lesson plan to printing out images to use in letters or crafting. I do enjoy going on youtube once in a while but I definitely wouldn't sit around and watch youtube videos all day like some people I unfortunately know... Youtube really has become a great invention of sharing video of all sorts from watching movie trailers to listening to songs with lyrics to learning dance moves.

I also very much uploading and sharing photographs and videos. I understand the danger in exposing myself to all of the online but I am very thoughtful of how and what I put on the internet. Most of my pictures I upload are on facebook which I limit to only my 'friends', though I also post some on my blog which is public. In the recent few years, I have also enjoyed putting my videos up for sharing but I still feel weird about the thought of other people looking at my videos. My main purpose is for my friends and family to enjoy my creations or my memories from a certain, not for any public eye.

According to Wikipedia (which we learned in class is pretty alright to use now...) Creative Commons is a non profit organization that seeks to support a richer public domain on the internet by providing a place where permission is not required for domain of images and video. This is significant to teachers and students because of all the images and videos put on public domain on the internet, the copyright is not known. Most of it is copyrighted and it can't be used without the creator's permission. But now, from this creative commons site, the images and information taken is usable for all without any permission. Schools will not get into trouble with the law against copyright and will not unknowingly use copyrighted material. 

SMART CH 7: Creative Content - Writing

When I started to learn how to type in elementary and middle school, I never thought how much our world would have changed and how much we depend on our writing on a computer. It's interesting to see the development of our writing systems throughout history. I can think of the feathered ink pen which had to be dipped in the ink every few seconds, to the regular pen and pencil, to the typewriter, and now the keyboard which depending on how fast you can type, can be the fastest way of getting our words down on "paper" (not talking about the voice to type recording systems which are out there now where you speak and it transfers to typing, that will probably be the future but for now, we'll stay at typing.

Because of the fast nature of typing, in our society we have put many of our writing content on the computers. Lately a big fad is blogs. I remember from an English class trying to figure out from what two words blog came from. I think in our text book it said it came from weblog. The difference from blogs to other writing features is that blog is online and it is like a journal of dated entries that appear in chronological order. Now our blogs are so advanced that we can embed videos and pictures into them so it is like a high tech journal and diary. Students can write as much as they want on their blogs. I have had a variety of experience with blogs from my high school years of xanga and now with my own blog chronicling my after grad years. I am a big fan of blog for students and I feel like it would be a really good tool to see what they are thinking and how they feel about different subjects and to chart their own learning. Kids who also struggle with writing can use blogs as a way of letting out what they are thinking and the teacher could allow the students to type the writing promps into their blog.

Wiki's are something that I don't know much about. I have used wikipedia for quite a while, since high school if I remember but I didn't know the connection between the two till very recently. In high school the use of wikipedia was not very appreciated and the teacher warned us about using it. Even with wiki's are discussed in class, I get a sour taste in my mouth. But now, I have learned that wiki's are just websites where visitors can add, remove, and edit the content. With this simple definition, it seems like a very good tool for educators where students can add, remove, and edit the content. Wiki's can also work like regular websites where a someone personalizes it and uses it for educational or personal use. Wiki's can be set up for individual classrooms to organize and chart assignments as well as allowing the students to have sites where they share their research.

Web-Based Word Processors is another one where I have some exposure to this but not enough. I have used word processors all my life but not any web based ones. I didn't have a gmail account until this class so I never had explored the area of Google Docs. Through this class, I have gotten to enjoy google Docs and can see how powerful of a tool it can be. Web based word processors allows sharing of files so that collaboration can take place in editing and creating. This files can be easily published online or printed out whichever is needed. Most of these programs are free though some are not. Students can access these from home or school because they only need the internet in common instead of another application. Google Docs would be very good with peer editing since everything is done in real time and updates could be seen in the process as well as comments made on the writing.

SMART CH 9: Gaming

I have always thought that education and learning should be fun. Therefore, any use of educational games or ways to learn while I having fun, I have always been a fan of. I remember growing up and being home schooled and my siblings and I would play Mavis Beacon typing game or the Oregon trail or Reader Rabbit and other varieties of games. I know some kids who struggle in school really enjoy those types of educational games because they may really understand games more than books. Even for ESL students, I see a big benefit for any type of board or computer game that engages them in English and allows for extended exposure to the English language. I would say though that gaming should only be a part of education and not the whole of it. With gaming, the teacher is not there right along side the student and the teacher can't see the progress of the student. It is hard for teachers to monitor as well as assess. Some games are simply a waste of time for students so teachers need to play the games in advance to see the educational and fun side to the games. 


Before reading this chapter in our book, I never really thought of students creating their own minigames on the computer. I guess I didn't think it was possible and I didn't know that there were programs out there where regular students and people could create their own game. I always thought it was too complicated and left it for the super smart gamer guys to create it. I really do like this idea though of having students make their own minigames. Students, above other people, will know what their fellow student are learning or what they need to know and will able to create games that are challenging and yet fun. Having students create their own games allows them to be in the teacher position for a time to analyze what they know and to be able to show it to others in a manner that others will enjoy. This would be the top level of Bloom's Taxonomy: Creating. Pure creating from the bottom up is such a high level of learning that students would walk away from this experience learning much more if they had simply just played a minigame. If I could figure out how to use these programs, I would definitely consider using them in my classroom someday. 

SMART CH 6: Virtual Reality

Growing up, since I was the oldest of four and being a girl, I did not have much interest in virtual worlds or video games. I have never visited or participated in a virtual world. As I grew up and went to college, somehow my intensity against virtual worlds especially in video games increased. I saw boys come to college with good intentions and then drop out a semester later because all they did was spend time in their virtual worlds and neglect all school work. Just the word “avatar” gives me a bad feeling in my stomach. For my own life, I prefer reality world instead of a fake virtual world. Except that would be false because I love to read and I love to get lost in the imaginary worlds of Narnia and the phantom tollbooth. So what is it about virtual realities that I don’t like? One aspect is the addiction that can come with it. While I do spend time on facebook and while I do enjoy reading, I feel like virtual realities can sometimes take over a person’s life to where they get too addicted to it and they start to forget the real world. I don’t ever want that to happen to myself so I stay away from virtual realities. It’s also that just generally as a person I prefer to be outside in nature instead of always at my computer. When I was homeschooled in high school, I did a semester of online classes and I would get head ache’s all the time from staring at the computer screen all day. I know that not everyone is like me and prefers nature of computers, I still have a bias against virtual realities. I used to say that I would never date a guy who played video games… my boyfriend now plays video games and I’m slowly getting over my judgment of them and seeing that it’s a general preference for different people and that people engage in virtual realities because they enjoy them just as I enjoy riding my bike or reading a book.

Educationally, I really liked how the book explained practical uses for virtual reality. As I have stated in previous blogs, I feel that it is really important for teachers to discuss virtual safety and ethical and moral uses of anything online. Student probably don’t get this kind of teaching anywhere else and especially if our world is moving toward a more technological society, it is important for students to be able to learn this now instead of later on in their life when it is too late.

I could also see virtual realities as a good tool for ESL students to learn English. Especially in the elementary level, the games and sites would be fun and less harmful to students than to high school level virtual reality. If a student is learning English, high school students may stumble in bad situations such as chatting with a person and getting taken advantage of where as elementary students would only be in worlds where they play games, read stories, and navagate through a virtual world.

While I don’t particularly see myself using virtual reality in my own classroom, it will be interesting to see what direction virtual realities will take in the next few years. 

SMART CH 5: Social Networking

My first experience with social networking began back in high school. Before the facebook frenzy, I had a xanga account. I laugh now when I think back to having a xanga and how I thought it was so cool. Xanga had the feature of friends and followers as well as a blog type of social networking where you typed and people commented. After xanga, myspace swept my friends but I never gave into that myspace world and I was pretty proud of it. I didn't like myspace because it looked complicated and gave too much information about people. Next came facebook and this is where I am still at in the social networking world. At first, the only reason I joined was because my friends had but as I became more familiar with it, I saw how much of a benefit it was in my international circle of life. While living in Japan, I could easily connect and keep track of my friends and family back in America as well as my friends all around Japan who lived farther away. As my network of friends spread more and more around the world, I was able to better connect with friends through the use of facebook. Soon I began connecting to friends I hadn't seen for years and from my childhood. I have really enjoyed my usage on facebook and I have spent (wasted?) many hours on facebook.

I have even used facebook for educational purposes. For my capstone class last semester, one member of our group made a facebook group. It was a private group and consisted on only us 5 in our group. We kept up in this group on important information and times that we would meet together. 

But to look on the negative side, I do see the downfalls in social networking. With people I come in contact to daily, facebook is not a very good idea just as with texting or other non face-to-face conversations, once I learn something about someone on facebook, it takes away from the social contact I would have had if I had learned it in their presence. I have not talked to many people on campus because I already knew information about them and so I didn't feel the need to ask them in person. Facebook can also get annoying when people keep rambling and rambling on their about their life. I clearly don't care to hear what they ate for breakfast but somehow, I still read their posts. 

Social networking for the 21st century. I know social networking like technology is continuing to change. I could see a change in technology going more toward screen talk instead of face-to-face conversation. But I do see it's use in the classroom. If students aren't familiar with these tools, they will be behind in the world of technology. There needs to be a big push in the 21st century for netiquette as the book called it so that teens and children know how to proper behave on the internet and safe ways to get connected with their friends and how to use it appropriately. This should also go for face-to-face interactions and teaching children how they are important while at the same time how to behave on social network sites. 

I really like how the book laid out different activities for the classroom. I liked the idea of creating a profile for a historical or fictional figure. I have seen this done a few times but it is funny and educational. With good teachers who exemplify ethical ways of using social networks, children can learn the dangers and joy that comes with social networking.