A Vision of Students Today!

The YouTube Video, "A Vision of Students Today," is extremely thought provoking.  If you have the time to watch it, you will see that many students buy expensive textbooks that are never used, are often jam packed into classes with numbers dwelling well into the hundreds, and feel that college does not prepare them for the real world.  I often agree with these statements.  I used to attend UCDavis, a college in California known for their agricultural science department.  I was miserable there.  Many of my classes had 300 students in them.  Most of my professors couldn't have picked me up from a lineup.  The entire environment was impersonal.  Furthermore, I was attending the college for avian sciences.  Though I worked on a poultry farm, much of the material I learned about had little to nothing to do with real world complications.  I found the entire process extremely frustrating.  Yet, college is deemed necessary.

The author of this video, Michael Wesch, wrote a response to the video seen above.  He cites his frustration as a teacher to do what he believes is required.  The entire article is a good read, but the most important part is at the end where he says that he believes that the system can be fixed by encouraging digital information and college to progress together.  By engaging students in projects that have real world applications, the system of education may be saved.  I would love to see more ideas of how to fix the problem with the educational system as well.

Internet Safety! DUN DUN DUNNNNNNN!

Internet safety.  Just to think about a decade ago this wasn't a problem at all.  Now almost every single news broadcast uses this phrase in some manner.  Everyone should be concerned about internet safety, but children should especially be forewarned.  Children can be more vulnerable due to their innocent nature and lack of experience with the world.  I am listing two important cites that can aide students and their family/teacher/friends.  Also, check with the schools where your student attends because schools often make up websites about how to be safe on the internet.


NetSmartz:  I babysit a lot and when parents ask me about what they think they should teach their children about the internet, I refer them to this cite.  I LOVE it! It gives information that the children should know based on what age/grade they are in.  It explains basic safety rules, such as to tell an adult if you come across something that makes you uncomfortable, and more advanced rules, such as taking someone with you wherever you go.  This cite shows what pledges a student should make and it explains why these decisions are good ones.  Too often we assume that children are incapable of understanding the method behind the madness of parenting, but the students should know the reasons why these rules are important.

Disney:  Disney, being the child friendly organization that it is, also chose to help explain how to do "safe surfing."  This is an interactive website that has some really fun, and educational, games for children and good informative facts for parents.  This website also sorts by ages, under or over 10, so that the information can be tailored based off what they student will use the internet for.  It also shows classic Disney characters who help explain how to keep safe on the internet.

If anyone has any further cites that demonstrate a skill at keeping children safe on the internet, I would love to see what they are.

How Should Students Learn to Use the Social Network?

I recently read an article that cites how important it is for students to learn about using social networks.  What I really liked about this article is that a principal encourages his students to use social networks in the school.  This not only promotes technology, but it promotes using technology in effective and mature manners.  Too often students are using facebook, twitter, and other social networks in detrimental ways.  I have too often come across information that should be kept private.  Furthermore, these tidbits of information can often come back to haunt you.  At my work, we recently hired someone who we later found out had an adult themed website.  This was EXTREMELY problematic since I work with children in a positive environment.

I also really liked hearing about the "Around the World with 80 Schools."  This is a great idea.  Often Americans forget that there are a broad array of cultures in the world.  This project sounds amazing in that it will help emerse children in a culture rich environment and engage them into learning about ways to use the social network positively.

I hope that I will be able to help students constantly be in contact with people through positive social networks.  A few years ago I came across this article and, though it is outdated, I have been unable to find anything like it for more current times.  This article shows different social networks for the year 2007.  Though much has changed, it shows positive and negative connotation associated with these networks.  This is useful information because if a teacher plans on encouraging his/her students to use these networks, they should know the pros and cons.  My major question, however, is how do you continue to keep up, as a teacher, with the growing problems in the social network?