Internet Safety Reading Questions

1. Let our Voices be Heard - M. Russell Ballard
• What does Elder Ballard say is our “biggest challenge” related to media?
To choose wisely what we listen to and what we watch.
• What guidelines have our Church leaders been giving us for safe use of media such as the TV and Internet?
“Do not attend, view, or participate in entertainment that is vulgar, immoral, violent, or pornographic in any way. Do not participate in entertainment that in any way presents immorality or violent behavior as acceptable. …
“Have the courage to walk out of a movie or video party, turn off a computer or television, change a radio station, or put down a magazine if what is being presented does not meet Heavenly Father’s standards. Do these things even if others do not.”
• As a teacher, how can you appropriately influence children and parents to develop healthy patterns of media use?
I can be an example by only using uplifting media. I can send parents notes home about internet safety and encourage them to be involved with the media their child is involved in.
2. Provident Living Guidelines Regarding Internet Safety
• Which of these guidelines do you follow?
Place computers in high-traffic areas of the home.
Teach children not to share any personal information online without parental knowledge and permission.
Educate yourself about your computer and how the Internet works.
• How might you share these guidelines with family and friends?
I can talk about these guidelines with my family and help them understand the importance of following the safety precautions.
3. Technology and a House of Learning
• What experiences have you had at home with the balance between protecting and providing when it comes to technology use?
When I was growing up, my parents would always have the internet have a password. They always knew when we were on-line and why we were on-line. The computer was in a high-traffic area so nothing was secret about what you were doing.
• What ideas do you have for learning to preside, provide, protect, and nurture when it comes to technology in your own home?
I will learn how to put a filter on the computer so that I can know what my children do on the internet. The internet will have a password so that I know when they are on-line and what they are doing. The computer will be in a high-traffic area. Our family will have discussions about internet safety so that everyone know what is expected of them.
4. Article of your choice under categories of Media or the Internet
1. What article did you choose to read for your fourth article?
“I Have a Question,” Ensign, Mar 2001, 58–59
2. What were the most important things you learned from the readings?
The internet is becoming more and more a part of our everyday life and we need to be able to cope with it in a healthy way. We need to be aware of what is out there and then make the necessary changes to protect from what we do not want in our homes.
3. How will what you have read influence your actions as a parent and/or teacher of children and youth?
I will be more prepared to face the challenges of internet safety. I can promote internet safety at home by helping the parents of my students be aware as well.
4. How can you use what you have learned from the reading to have a positive influence on family and friends?
I will be more prepared to face the challenges of internet safety. I can be more confident in making rules and knowing that the leaders of our church have given guidelines that we can follow.

Internet Safety Conversation

For my internet safety conversation I talked with my husband (24 years old). I felt like we were pretty aware of the dangers of the internet beforehand. However, as we discussed in further depth, he did not know a lot of the things I learned from watching the videos. The main topic of our conversation was how we could as future parents be involved enough in our future childrens' lives to know what they are doing online. We discussed ways to monitor the internet in our home. We talked about the importance of building good relationships with them so that we could talk about things that we were worried about openly with them. I think that it was very effective for us to have this discussion.

A couple things I learned from presentations

I really enjoyed watching and listening to and learning from the technology presentations from our practicum. One of the main things I learned was that the Title 1 schools are spoiled as far as technology goes. It was much easier for them to prepare a lesson where the students were actively involved with the technology. Those schools had access to much more technology than did a school such as mine. I also learned that technology is not always reliable. One of the presentations in my group had an extreme difficulty in that the technology did not even work. I think that technology when it is accessible and integrated can be very valuable in teaching.

Practicum Project

Technology Project

View more presentations from bherrick.

Practicum Project Idea

For my practicum project I will be doing a geometry review lesson. I will do this on Thursday. I found a PowerPoint Jeopardy Template on line and I am designing questions for the students to answer to review the geometry concepts they have learned throughout the year. I think this will be a great lesson especially at this time of year when the students are getting ready for their end of year tests!

Technology Lesson Idea

In my class, we are reviewing for the math core tests. I think that it would be really efficient for my class to have a review that they could re-visit to help them remember what they need to for their tests. I think that I would have the students take pictures of the main points they are learning. I would load the pictures onto photostory. Then, the students can record their voices explaining the concepts they have learned throughout the year. This would give the students a visual way to remember what they need to for their core tests! The teacher can use the laptop and projector to show the kids the review (they share a laptop and projector in each grade at my school).

Technology Inventory

It was surprising for me to see the technology that was available to the students in my school. As far as technology in the actual classroom, they were pretty limited. The only computer in the room is for the teacher at her desk. They have an old-school projector (which they use quite often) and calculators for each student. In the school, they have two computer labs available for the students to use. Each lab has 30 PC computers in it. Each grade level has a laptop and projector that is available to them. My class does not use technology very much (except for the projector). It will be exciting to introduce technology when I do a lesson with technology. I am worried that it will be more difficult than I expect.

Virtual Tour Link

Here is the link for my Virtual Tour!

http://sites.google.com/site/utahvirtualtour/Home/utah-virtual-tour

TPACK for Google Earth

Content: The content I am using comes from the Utah State Core:
4th Grade Standard
Social Studies 1.1
Classify major physical geographic attributes of Utah.
The students will also be learning about the significance of some of the sites they will explore in Utah.

Pedagogy: The pedagogy used in this lesson is very interactive and independent. The students will be able to go through this virtual tour on their own. They will be able to explore at their own pace. I think that this is effective pedagogy because the students will be able to take control of their own learning. They must complete the stated criteria, but if they would like, they can continue to explore the wonderful and diverse geographic attributes of Utah. I think that this is a good fit with the content being taught because the the students will be held accountable for obtaining the information about physical geographic attributes of Utah while they are independently exploring an interactive map of the world.

Technology: This lesson would not exist without the technology. The students will view a virtual tour from Google Earth designed by me. This virtual tour will show the student diverse physical geographic attributes of Utah. Google Earth is a wonderful tool to help the students realize how complex and diverse our earth is. This tool ties in to the pedagogy of the lesson because the students are able to move at their own pace through the tour and they get to take more from the experience than is required than they have to. This style of teaching helps students be intrinsically motivated to take control of their learning. The technology is a great fit with the content of the lesson because Google Earth is an interactive and accurate map of the world and specifically Utah. Because the students will be able to view terrain levels and close up satellite views of the diverse destinations, the students will get a more realistic experience than they would if they were to look at still photos.

Virtual Tour Plan

Location	Activity	Google Earth Content
1Balanced Rock	In the first activity I will have the students look at a picture of Balanced Rock in Arches National Park.	Measure how high it is from the tip of balanced rock to the ground.
2.Dead Horse Point State Park	For the second activity, the students will read about Dead Horse Point in Wikipedia and look at a picture of Dead Horse Point Lookout.	The students will measure the narrow neck of land that leads to Dead Horse Point.
3.Mount Timpanogos	Read the Wikipedia Article. Record how high the highest peak is.	Watch a path of photos from near the summit of Mount Timpanogos.
4.Bonneville Salt Flats	Notice how flat and large this area is.	Read the Wikipedia Article about the Bonneville Salt Flats and their many uses.
Details of image overlay / path / polygon:	The student will follow a path of 5 photos from near the summit of Mount Timpanogos.

Mother Goose

Storyboard and TPACK Info.

The content I will be using for my story board will come from the Utah State Core for Literacy. In third grade Standard 5 Objective 2a: Read aloud grade level text in meaningful phrases using intonation, expression, and punctuation cues. I have chosen Mother Goose rhymes for the content because they are well known. Also, the rhymes flow easily for beginning readers. The text is also predictable and fun and engaging.

The pedagogy this lesson uses includes modeling. As the students will watch the presentation, they will hear the words to the rhymes as they look at the pictures. I will model how to use my voice to make the phrases of the rhymes more meaningful by using expression, intonation, and punctuation cues. Then the students can practice reading the same poems they have heard. This is also a form of scaffolding to help the students understand the concepts behind punctuation. Children must have examples set before them to be able to do something on their own.

The technology used for this lesson would be Photo Story 3. The students would watch the movie clip of the nursery rhymes and the modeled readings. As the students practice, they would be able to return again and again to the video to catch things they may have missed. For this reason, the technology of Photo Story would be a great fit with the pedagogy I am using because the students would be able to listen to a consistent voice pattern as they review the rhymes. The Photo Story technology is great because as the students are hearing the words to the rhymes, they are also seeing a visual to connect with each rhyme. It is possible to have music playing in the background as well to add to the aesthetic nature of the project.

TPACK Questions

1. What is the content you are focusing on in your science lesson?
In my lesson I am focusing on being able to distinguish living and non-living organisms in an environment by using criteria to do so. The criteria for a living organism is that it must be able to grow, move, and reproduce. If an organism does not meet that criteria, then it is classified as a non-living organism.
2. What is the pedagogy you are using and why is it a good fit with the content?
The pedagogy I am using in this lesson is focused on hands on activity. The students will be actively engaged in collecting the data from their environment. Once they have collected their data, they will have easy access to refer back to it again. I think that discussing how to determine what criteria makes an organism living or non-living is a higher level thinking activity. By implementing higher level thinking the students are challenged and more apt to participate and stay interested and also remember and connect what they have learned for a longer period of time.
3. What is the technology you'll be using and why is it a good fit with the content and pedagogy you are using?
The technology I am using is digital cameras and the ability to download the pictures onto a computer for easy access. Although this technology is simple, I believe it is very effective in this lesson because it helps with both pedagogy and content understanding. It is helpful with the pedagogy because the students have taken pictures of objects that they can call their own. Ownership of a project makes the lessons go easier and the students are more involved in taking control over their own education. It also helps with the content because the ability the technology gives the students to gather data and also refer back to the exact image they saw initially allows for accurate descriptions to take place.

The Tech Savvy Teacher

For my science challenge, I used principles we learned about TPACK to better present a lesson I could teach to a third grade class.  The content I focused on in my lesson was from the Utah State Core Objective 2.  In this objective, students learn how to classify living and non-living things in an environment.  The criteria that the UEN Website gives to classify an organism as living is that it has to be able to grow, move, and reproduce.  

The pedagogy aspect of this TPACK lesson comes in that to be able to teach effectively, a teacher must use their environment to their advantage.  Taking pictures of the environment around or in the school takes only a little time before you can again gather your class to discuss their findings.  The technology used in the lesson was to use digital cameras to obtain data and information.  The great thing about using pictures as data for an experiment is that the data does not change.  It is a constant variable that the class is able to refer to during discussion and it helps the visual learners in the classroom make a connection with data that they can see.  Putting it all together was not as difficult as it seemed to me at first.  I think that that is an important lesson for me to learn as a future teacher.  Even though I do not have an extensive background in using technology, I can still apply technology techniques to make the learning atmosphere of my classroom up to date.  The students feel ownership for the data if they are able to take the pictures of the data themselves.  I really enjoyed seeing and applying what I have learned about TPACK into creating a lesson that is realistic to use in my future classroom. 

Science/Math Challenge

I am experimenting using technology to increase the effectiveness in my science lessons in the classroom. There are many technological resources that have been created for enhanced instruction in the classroom. For my experiment, I am using basic computer knowledge to fulfill a third grade science curriculum objective.

3rd Grade Science Project: Is it dead or alive?

Objective: Classify living and non-living things in an environment.

For this experiment, I collected pictures of things we see in our environment everyday. All the things we see are either living or non-living organisms. So, how do we know which things are living and which things are not? To find the answer to this question, I examined the pictures below that would be found in the environment we are surrounded in each day to determine what classified an organism as living or non-living.

This leaf is a living organism because it can grow, it can move, and it can reproduce.

Water is an element that can move and it can change form, but it can not grow or reproduce so it is classified as a non-living organism.

Flies and all other animals and insects, including humans are living organisms, they have the ability to grow, move, and reproduce.

Trees and all plant life are living organisms. They can grow, move, and reproduce.

Brick is not classified as a living organism because it can not grow, move, or reproduce on its own.

The different characteristics that make an organism living are that they have to be able to grow, move, and reproduce. The characteristics for a non-living organism is that they are not able to grow, move, and reproduce.

By taking digital pictures and using that data to observe the different characteristics of things the students would learn how technology can make the study of science easier. By taking pictures of organisms in their environment, the students are able to refer back to those pictures in many different areas. This makes teaching easier because you do not have to leave the classroom for long to do an entire lesson. By taking pictures and bringing them back to be observed, the data is also in hard copy form. The students are able to organize the data they have collected easier because they can refer back to a specific picture easily to identify its characteristics.

Photos were taken from:
Fly: thekebun.files.wordpress.com
Leaf: www.greengeek.ca
Brick: www.freefoto.com
Tree: www.evergreenspecies.com
Water Bottle: southernfriedfatty.wordpress.com

Stellarium

We had the chance to explore the Stellarium program during class. I thought that this was such a cool program. I remember doing a science project where I was supposed to observe the phases of the moon every night and record what we saw. Sometimes the nights were cloudy or I forgot so I just made up what I thought it was supposed to look like. This was not the most effective or correct way to do the project. Stellarium is a program that doesn't give you an actual view of the sky, but a simulated view of the sky. I thought it was so handy to be able to change the view and where you were on the earth. It was useful to be able to speed up time and see all the phases of the moon in a minute. I think that this program would be very helpful to present the phases of the moon, or the rotation of the stars, or many different things about the heavens.

TPACK

Technological Pedagogical And Content Knowledge. First of all that is a mouthful, but it is really useful information to know as I am about to enter the teaching field. As I was learning about the different relationships between my technological knowledge, my pedagogical knowledge and my content knowledge, I realized that I have a lot of different things to balance. To me, a really good teacher has to have all three aspects of knowledge to teach effectively. Personally, I need to continue to work on how I can improve my knowledge of technology to be able to teach in an effective way. Technology is such a big part of childrens lives right now and as a teacher, I need to be able to teach them how to use tools that will help them in their future. I think that it shows good pedagogical knowledge when a teacher can teach the content using technology. When all three of these are combined to make TPACK, the ability for the teacher to get the content across to their students multiplies. I want to be able to become more technologically sound so that I can apply this knowledge into my own teaching in the future.

Web 2.0 Wow. . . who knew!

So today we explored how to do RSS feeds and we made a Goodreads account and a Delicious account. I never knew that computers could do so many crazy things. I've decided that RSS is going to extremely useful as a future teacher. I can see why so many school districts are moving toward getting information out to their teachers using this tool because you skip all of the Spam and stuff that doesn't apply to you. It's definitely more user friendly when you are trying to search through all the information available on the internet.

So, this class could be interesting for me. I have almost no technology experience except a typing class in 7th grade. However, for my work I do use a computer often. This will be a great course to help me out!