Voki

Bullying

Bullying is becoming a major problem in schools, whether it be face to face or online. Many of these students don't have anyone to go to nor do they have any reasoning for bullying. If we as teachers took a stand to stop all bullying in schooling, then I think we could make a bigger impact than we could even fathom. If we could find out exactly WHY the children are wanting to bully eachother, then the problem can begin to be solved. Whether they are bullying other students because of jealousy, domestic violence, or insecurities, there is a reason behind their madness. But the question is HOW DO WE STOP IT? We can sit them down and tell them it is wrong, hold them out of sports, have them write letters, doing a parent teacher conference, get them involved in after school activities, or even get them counseling. Depending on the student bullying depends on what will work for them. I think assemblys work great for an end to bullying in middle school to high school seminars. It makes teachers and students become more aware of bullying, and everyone needs to be aware that there is an issue.

Augmented reality snags a coveted spot in classrooms

This article discusses Augmented reality apps. These apps show reality into still objects. A student was holding a tablet against a famous painting in a museum and the app brought information to the student and made the picture move so it basically told a story. She explains that this gives students and technology users a deeper understanding of what is going on with different figures in reality.

These apps are really cool because you can get instant information about certain things that will benefit you. If educators would use this more in their classroom, it will make technology more fun for the students and it will also make learning more fun. It helps them dig deeper into their own learning. Thumbs up to Augmented Reality!!

Five Essentials to Create Connected Students

The article "Five Essentials to Create Connected Students," was written by Vicki Davis, a full time teacher and IT administrator. She begins by talking about how connected students are with technology, but they do not understand what they are doing and how stuff works the way it works. She talks about how students know how to copy and paste links, but they do not hyperlink their stuff. She explains that students need a connected author, a connected publisher, a connected conversationalist, a strategic disconnector, and a curious, lifelong pursuer of ingenious solutions.

I liked that she talked about twitter. I did not realize until she said something about hyperlinks and hashtags that hashtags were actually hyperlinks. That is interesting to me because I never thought I used hyperlinks before our Inspiration assignment. I think students need to be more informed on exactly what they are doing online and they need to be skilled more on online behavior... what is appropriate and what is not.

21st Century Skills: Why They Matter, What they are, and How we got there

Ken Kay wrote the foreword for the book "21st Century Skills: Why they matter, What they are, and How we got there." Kay believes that there is about to be a turning point in education coming soon and in the foreword she describes what they are. Kay believes that the outcomes of the students should be the main focus of what educators focus on. She has the foreword broken into sections, and the first section is on why they need a new education model in the 21st century. She discusses that the world is changing, including technological changes, expectation changes, and personality changes. She believes that the U.S schools have not adapted to the changing world in that students are not encouraged to stay in school, there are more international students in classes who get left behind, and jobs are now requiring more degrees and students are not being prepared for that. She also thinks that the United States has no clear sense of purpose or direction for securing our future economic competitiveness. Basically, the US has the competitive mindset, but other countries such as Asia are educating  themselves and upgrading their country on skills they need to have to compete and staying with current technology. She thinks the 21st Century Education should have "sustained and enthusiastic support from leading education organizations, the business community, and policy makers, [and everyone should have big] reality checks." She thinks the new framework should be flexible in making students successful, competitive, and skilled in all areas.

I think this is a awesome and exciting foreword to the book. I think the 21st Century education needs to focus on having the children more skilled an prepared for the real world jobs. They need to focus on encouraging students to go to college, but they also need to really prepare them for it. I do not feel like my school prepared me for college because they were never too strict and did not have any guidelines for me to follow. The only time I felt competition with my peers was my senior year when the GPAs were showing us how we were ranked, and the first time we received I was ranked 21 out of 378. If I would have been encouraged more with rankings and GPAs, I, as well as other students, would have tried harder to be number one. I do not feel like my college education classes are teaching me how to be successful because each class is focused on creating lesson plans by the way the professor likes it, and in the real world, the department you will teach in will meet together and collaborate on lesson plans together. I do not feel like schools and educators focus on skills the students will actually need to prepare us to be competitive, skilled students in the 21st century.

Why Tough Teachers Get Good Results

The article "Why Tough Teachers Get Good Results," by Joanne Lipman is about how educators need to be harder on students rather than basically just passing them along to get by. Lipman recalls a Violin teacher who was very hard on his students, but ended up making them all succeed. The article has a list of 8 principles that explain why the new teaching methods are less efficient than the traditional teaching methods. Lipman explains that being hard on students will help them be better students rather than being nice and letting students get by. Back in the old days, students would fear getting paddled by the principal for having bad behavior, and now they just get sent home from school which for students is a means of having the day off. Lipman believes that this is encouraging bad behavior rather than teaching them a lesson from it.

I like this article because I know many former pupils that disrupted classes and were disrespectful for teachers because they knew that the teachers would do nothing about it. If Mr. K was their teacher, being as strict as he was, they would know not to disrespect him and would do exactly what he told them to do. This helps students become more successful because they will pay attention and behave in fear that if they do something wrong, he would embarrass them. I do not think that I have the mean bone in my body to actually yell and be too strict on students, but I know that I will have to find and break that bone because it will be more beneficial for my classroom and for my students' learning.