Sunday, November 2, 2008
Online Assessment
The online assessment that I chose was Quia.com. I liked the different features, but without doubt, my favorite part was the IXLMath. You could enter your grade level, then pick the skill to work on. There were the exact questions I currently use for every single aspect that needs to be assessed on our report cards. I will need to play around with it a bit more to figure out how to use this with my kindergartners. For now I will probably just put it up on the SMART Board as a class activity to get the students and myself familiar with the format. Also, since my kiddos can't yet read the questions, I may never be able to use this tool as an individual assessment.
Saturday, November 1, 2008
Cyberbullying
According to Wikipedia, the definition of Cyber-bullying is when someone repeatedly makes fun of another person online or repeatedly picks on another person through emails or text messages, or uses online forums and postings online intended to harm, damage, humiliate or isolate another person that they don’t like. In most of the articles I found abut the subject, I noticed that it is usually defined as a pre-teen or teen age problem. I was also surprised to read that when the bullying includes sexual remarks or harassment, it is not necessarily defined as sexual harassment and the bully in not automatically characterized as a sexual predator.
Bullying by children has always been a problem, but cyberbullying takes it to a new level as the bully has a large audience with little effort. The results of cyberbullying are also not always as obvious as a bruise or black eye. The emotional damage of cyberbullying can be tremendous, and it is not always as easy to prove as traditional bullying.
The website http://stopbullyingnow.hrsa.gov offers these tips to help prevent cyberbullying:
*Keep your home computer(s) in easily viewable places , such as a family room or kitchen.
*Talk regularly with your child about on-line activities he or she is involved in.
*Talk specifically about cyberbullying and encourage your child to tell you immediately if he or she is the victim of cyberbullying, cyberstalking, or other illegal or troublesome on-line behavior.
*Encourage your child to tell you if he or she is aware of others who may be the victims of such behavior.
*Explain that cyberbullying is harmful and unacceptable behavior. Outline your expectations for responsible online behavior and make it clear that there will be consequences for inappropriate behavior.
*Although adults must respect the privacy of children and youth, concerns for your child’s safety may sometimes override these privacy concerns. Tell your child that you may review his or her on-line communications if you think there is reason for concern.
*Consider installing parental control filtering software and/or tracking programs, but don’t rely solely on these tools.
These tips were designed for parents, but as educators, we have the responsibility to teach acceptable online behavior and monitor our student's activity on the web while they are at school.
Bullying by children has always been a problem, but cyberbullying takes it to a new level as the bully has a large audience with little effort. The results of cyberbullying are also not always as obvious as a bruise or black eye. The emotional damage of cyberbullying can be tremendous, and it is not always as easy to prove as traditional bullying.
The website http://stopbullyingnow.hrsa.gov offers these tips to help prevent cyberbullying:
*Keep your home computer(s) in easily viewable places , such as a family room or kitchen.
*Talk regularly with your child about on-line activities he or she is involved in.
*Talk specifically about cyberbullying and encourage your child to tell you immediately if he or she is the victim of cyberbullying, cyberstalking, or other illegal or troublesome on-line behavior.
*Encourage your child to tell you if he or she is aware of others who may be the victims of such behavior.
*Explain that cyberbullying is harmful and unacceptable behavior. Outline your expectations for responsible online behavior and make it clear that there will be consequences for inappropriate behavior.
*Although adults must respect the privacy of children and youth, concerns for your child’s safety may sometimes override these privacy concerns. Tell your child that you may review his or her on-line communications if you think there is reason for concern.
*Consider installing parental control filtering software and/or tracking programs, but don’t rely solely on these tools.
These tips were designed for parents, but as educators, we have the responsibility to teach acceptable online behavior and monitor our student's activity on the web while they are at school.
Netiquette
Netiquette was a new term for me, but easy enough to figure out. Simply stated, it's network etiquette -- that is, the etiquette of cyberspace. In other words, Netiquette is a set of rules for behaving properly online. I have been fortunate enough to have had little trouble in this area, but I do worry about Emails from time to time. When writing to parents, I don't want to overload them with words, but also need to find the balance so I don't come off sounding insensitive or harsh. Communication is so much more than the words we use, and without the added benefit of facial expressions and personal voice, you never know how your words are being interpreted. You might offend people without meaning to. Or you might misunderstand what others say and take offense when it's not intended. To make matters worse, something about cyberspace makes it easy to forget that you're interacting with other real people -- not just characters on a screen.
Luckily, if you've ever been in the position of offending, or being offended, your not alone. In fact, there is even a book written on the subject. The book Netiquette by Virginia Shea, covers the 10 core rules of netiquette. The chapter names alone give good advice for any cyber junkie. Click on the link for an online copy of the book Netiquette by Virginia Shea
http://www.albion.com/netiquette/book/index.html
Luckily, if you've ever been in the position of offending, or being offended, your not alone. In fact, there is even a book written on the subject. The book Netiquette by Virginia Shea, covers the 10 core rules of netiquette. The chapter names alone give good advice for any cyber junkie. Click on the link for an online copy of the book Netiquette by Virginia Shea
http://www.albion.com/netiquette/book/index.html
Photo Share
I spent many long hours creating a final history project for my core class last year on Microsoft Movie Maker. I learned to love it, and actually got pretty fast at creating quick little movies of my kids at school. When asked to try photo story I didn't really see the need, but gave it a shot anyway. Just like any other application, it took a little time to play around and get familiar, but it was actually surprisingly easy to figure out. Under time constraints, I didn't really try to go too in depth, but was able to whip out a quality project in about 30 minutes. The best thing about photos share is that it is free. It would be a good one to introduce at school since it would just take a quick download to get it on the lab computers.
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