Searching Myself

I did not find much. I found my Myspace(which has since been phished and deleted by Tom), my Facebook, and a few news articles about me doing shot put throwcenter.blogspot.com, blog.cu-portland.edu, http://www.athletic.net/trackandfield/Athlete.aspx?AID=675957

There was nothing that I found that would be unbecoming of a teacher.

I do believe that teachers should be held accountable to community standards in terms of their personal lives because if I really do want to make a difference in these kids’ lives and help them to become moral productive citizens then they have to know that I actually am a moral productive citizen otherwise they will see me as a hypocrite. What you say is what will either lift you up or damn you so yes what you say should be held against you because it is you.
I found a website on athletic.net that had my marks but was way off of what I really threw.

I am going to be intelligent about what I put on the Internet this will help to protect me and my job. I will think every time before I press the “post” or “save” button if I would want the parents of the students I teach to see what is going on the internet with my name in front of it.

Cellphones in the classroom?

I agree with the abolishing of cell phones side. I believe the possible harm to the classroom atmosphere and wasted time of misused cell phone privileges in class outweighs the possible benefits. I understand that if a kid is having fun they will remember anything they are doing better than if they are just trying to learn but I do not think that if a kid uses their cell phone in class they will actually learn more. My original position was that I did not want cell phones in class and after reading the two articles agree with my original position.

In my classroom I will follow the school/district policy on cell phone use. If that policy is not followed I will go by the consequences listed in the schools hand book.

If the school allowed cell phone use while in the classroom, I would have students use their smart phones to go on to the internet and look up an answer to a question that is asked that I may not know the answer to. Or, heaven forbid, if I do not have a dictionary in class I could ask someone to look up on Dictionary.com how to spell a word I might be struggling with at the front board. Because we all know that the closer to the board you get there is a direct adverse correlation to the ability to spell.

Technology access

I feel that it can be a touchy situation. There may be students who come from a lower economic status that may not have a computer with internet in their house and so to require them to do a project like the ones we designed on the wikis would be asking them to do more work than other students, such as walking to a library or going to a boys and girls club, and if they do after school activities such as sports, choir, band, or other clubs they then would have to go to some place after practice or quit what may be the most fulfilling part of their life just because their family does not own a computer.

I do feel that I would be doing a disservice to all of the students if I were to not use technology in class. Like the article said most jobs will need their employees to have a working knowledge of the use of technologies so to remove from the standard learning environment the tools they will need to gain this knowledge puts all of the students at a disadvantage in this global economy to other students who have had that kind of instruction.

There are many ways that I, as an educator as well as an individual, could increase access for students who are disadvantaged technologically. I could make the students aware to the fact that there are places that have computers for use that are free such as at libraries, community technology centers, Boys and Girls Clubs, I could also create an after school program where I would supervise students who would like to use the computer technology center at the school for homework or recreational means, as long as it is appropriate and not distracting to the other students, so that they can have the opportunity to use a computer for something fun yet educational. I could also make the institution that I work for aware of the fact that technology is an integral part of the emerging world and that children who are not exposed to technology are at a supreme disadvantage so as to increase the opportunities for in class technology use.

Video games in the classroom?

I am torn between video games being in school and them not being in school. I know that I played a lot of video games as a child and I feel that I am better than my peers, who did not play video games, at remembering info that I see in writing on the board in class. I played games that you would be given a piece of information just once and there was no opportunity to see that info again, unless you started the whole game over. So I was trained to remember information by my own choice to play video games. But on the other side of the argument if the children know that there are video games to play in the classroom they may have a hard time paying attention to the other information that we as teachers would like for them to be exposed to. They might just sit there not paying attention just thinking about playing the games. I do feel it might go a little too far into the “edutainment” realm

I agree with Gee that there is a lot in video games that is lacking in school. I especially agree with the system thinking aspect he touches on. Gee says “Games encourage players to think about relationships, not isolated events, facts, and skills.” This seems to be the exact opposite of what usually happens in school. Students are taught the facts and events they need to know and, although the teacher might have the system in mind, they are never shown or ever see the system they are working towards. I also really agreed with his Challenge and Consolidation section the reason games are fun is because they teach us a set of skills in a fun and challenging way that we do them so much they become easy to us, then after they are “routinized” the game challenges us to learn more by introducing a new skill to learn. I feel that if we were to somehow be able to make education like this it would really benefit the children’s learning

I feel that I will try to incorporate video games into my classroom in some way if they are actually educational. If there is a recognizable improvement in what the game is trying to teach then it will have been for the child’s benefit