Social Bookmarking- NETS 1,2,3,4

1) National Archives

The exhibit I found interesting was "The Way We Worked." It displays the American workforce over the 19th and 20th centuries through photographs. The photographs show the changes in clothing, work conditions, work locations, and the controversies that surround health, safety, and wages. There are also explanations of how jobs were shaped by race, gender, and social class.

The importance of using a primary source in a classroom is that information is coming directly from the source. It is not filtered or diluted from multiple sources so the information is factual and true according to the original source.

2) NEA- Achievement Gaps

The Students that are at risk for experiencing achievement gaps are:
~Racial and Ethnic Minorities
~English Language Learners
~Students with disabilities
~Boys and Girls
~Students from Low-Income Families

The first area of "Becoming a Culturally Competent Educator" that fits my teaching style is: Determine the diverse groups served by your school. Consider cultural, linguistic, racial, and ethnic diversity. Find out the degree to which families and students in these groups are accessing available school services. As an educator and as a person in general, I like to know the people around me. If I can learn a little bit about everyone, including some language and culture, I feel I will have more respect for them, and they will have more respect for me as well. By getting to know those around me, I also learn if they need help finding services or if they can help me find services we might have trouble with on our own.

The second area that fits my teaching style is: Engage school staff in discussions and activities that offer an opportunity to explore attitudes, beliefs, and values related to cultural diversity and cultural competence. I feel that this is a great way to network with other teachers within a school. It forces teachers to be accountable for what they teach and provides opportunities for teachers to learn from each other. This is also a great way to learn about the diversity among the school as a whole and to learn what is and is not an appropriate way to teach or engage socially.

The third area that fits my teaching style is: Network with other schools that are developing and implementing culturally competent systems. Adapt the processes and information that are consistent with your school's needs and interests. Much like networking with teachers in the same school, I think it is important to know what is going on in other school, whether they are in the same district or around the country. By networking with other schools, opportunities arise to learn new concepts or teaching methods that might apply to the needs of the environment in which you teach. It is also a way of keeping you on track for what might already be working, as well as keeping up to date with what is actually a culturally competent system. This could be a great way of knowing the whole country is teaching similar content.

3) Cyber Bullying

After completing the "Are you a Cyberbully" quiz I found that I am a Cyber Saint! The only offense that I have been victim to is using occasional bad language. I take pride in making a good example of myself and do my best to use appropriate language and tell others when I am posting pictures of them online. I know that I often think less of people who do not care for the language they use, or allow on their webpages such as Facebook. I also am very causious about the pictures I post because I would not want to be seen in a bad light like I see others when they post provocative or incriminating photographs of themselves or others.

Reading about the different types of cyberbullying really opened my eyes to the wide range of types of byberbullys and why they do what they do. As a future educator I now know that the "revenge of the nerds" type of cyberbullying is linked to the fear some students have in confronting their peers face to face. The internet has given them the power to confront them, or return the pain they may feel at school in a media based way. Because this is often the most dangerous type of cyberbullying, I think it is important to get to know students as much as a teacher can and incorporate communication skills in every lesson to get students comfortable speaking to one another. There constant communication could teach them how to effectively address concerns with one another, as well as get them to realize the impact, good or bad, there activities at school and on the internet effect each other. Another thing I learned was that it is important to know all they types of cyberbullying and the tools students use to harm or threaten each other with so you are not kept in the dark. Keeping up with technology is keeping up with your students and society as a whole.

4) Kathy Schrock's Guide for Educators

Under the Subject Access area of the Kathy Schrock's website the area that most interested me was the Heath, Physical Education and Fitness. Here I was able to find a link to an Activity Calorie Calculator. This would be a great tool to use in a health or physical education classroom to get student to understand ways their bodies burn calories on an everyday basis. All the students, or anyone, needs to do is enter their body weight and the number of minutes of activity a day you engage in (you can even enter one minute), and the result is a list of over 200 activities and the number of calories you burn per minute you are engaged in those activities. Under the teacher helpers section of the website found the critical evaluation tools most interesting. There I was able to find a form that would be useful for students to use to evaluate websites that they may use on an everyday basis or for academic use. This would be a great ways of analyzing where information comes from, such as from a primary or secondary source. It also allows students to be aware of the quality of the sites they visit.

5) Multiple Intelligence
Logical-Mathematical 81%
Interpersonal & Intrapersonal 75%
Musical 69%

After reading, taking the quiz, and watching the video on multiple intelligences I have learned that it is important to recognize and utilize your intellegences. Everyone is smart, just in different ways. Schools are now recognizing this and even developed a whole school based on students learning with their multiple intelligences as a way to develope and figure out how and what they learn best. By using your intelligences in learning, it is easier to identify what you are skillful at and apply it to everyday life, just like the students did in the video and in their Smartville.

6) Teaching Tolerance
Grade 9-12
Subject: Science and Health
Topic: Is It Okay To Go Gray?

This lessons is about learning how student persive the elderly and teaching them about stereotypes. In this lesson, student can discuss what they feel makes someone elderly, such as how they look, what they do, and how the public (advertising) portrays elderly people. After a class discussion on individual findings, students can work in groups to find advertisements, movies, or even songs that portray elderly people in a good or bad way. This is a great assignment because it gets students to understand where they may form their ideas of people and what they can do to change their perception. Students could also go visit nursing homes, or other community programs that are specifically for elderly people to get a further understanding. By doing this students will also gain knowledge of how they may want to live their life and envision what they want or hope to be doing when they are considered elderly.

7)Mulitcultural Education and Equity Awareness
The questions that I found most interesting were:

What percentage of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and trangender high school students report that their teacher never or rarely respond to homophobic remarks made by other students, according to a national study by GLSEN?

Compared with their U.S. born peer, how likely are immigrant men, ages 18-34, to be in jail or prison, according to a 2008 report from the Immigration Policy Center?

I think it is interesting that both of these studies were developed by a group, and then results were found in favor of those groups. I would like to know more about the studies, such as sample size and who was surveyed. I do not doubt the true answers, but I understand them. Sometimes I wonder if students miss when teachers actually respond to homophobic remarks because they are traumatized by them, or that the teacher has addressed the issues before and doesn't feel the need to repeat the discussion. I know some teachers find it easier to ignor remarks to be able to move on with class. As for the immigran men and there less likely to be prisoned than U.S. men ages 18-34, I believe most immigrants come from different countries with more strict consequences so they do not engage in activities in fear of those consequences. U.S. prisons don't seem so bad when prisoner get 3 meals a day, a bed to sleep in, and abilities to do things (like finish a college degree). I feel like prison should be hell and people should not have their rights if they break the law. I think the immigrants understand this concept and want to live a free life in the U.S.

8) Netiquette Guidlines
I scored a 90% :^D
It is important to teach students about Netiquette so they understand what they are doing as well as what others are doing when using the internet. I know that I have been confused about something someone has written because I was not able to hear them say it. Had I known proper netiquette I would have not been confused. Netiquette should be used at all times to avoid any confusion, but also to instill a person's safety while using the internet -) . It is also important to inform students that using the internet is just like interacting with people at school or in their community. It is always best to be polite and remember the golden rule!