Cyberbulling

During this semester we have learned about different tools that can help to enhance technology in the classroom. With technology growing, expanding and coming up with different ways that people can access the Internet there are also things that teachers, parents and students need to watch out for. In of the projects that we did we cover cyberbulling through the resources on Microsoft power point. The power point was made to show parents and inform them that there are dangers online that they need to be aware of so that they can help to keep their child out of harms way. Some of the dangers include cyberbulling, online predators, gambling, pornography, identity theft and many more. Through the powerpoint that I created there are links at the end of the slide show that parents can go to that can help them in protecting their children from becoming a victim or participating in these cyber dangers.

Using Internet Resources with Teaching

A few weeks ago we learned how to set up an RSS feed in google reader. This RSS feed allows you to add and search for articles as well as different sites that you can add onto your feed that you can refer back to and that allow other individuals to follow the feed as well. You have a target group of people that the feed will benifit the most and allow them to obtain useful information as well in an organized way. The target group that I have for my RSS feed is for teachers that teach pre-k thru fourth grade. So far on my feed there are helpful tips for teachers, students and parnets.
One of the feeds that I have is:
http://www.teachingtips.com/blog/2008/07/21/50-useful-blogging-tools-for-teachers/
This link is for those who are interested in starting a blog or the things that you can add to or change with your current blog.
You can also check out my RSS feed at:
http://www.google.com/reader/shared/00512714402461627822
There is a lot of great tools that you can use online that can help teachers become more advanced in teaching with technology, RSS feeds is one of the great tools that can help teacher, students and parents.

Assistive Technology

Last week in my Ed Tech class we learned about assistive technology and the many different ways that it can help students with disabilities. We were assigned to look up some different websites that can help the teachers and students. As I google about assistive technology I came across many websites that have a lot of use tools that the teacher can use in her classroom. Some of these tools helped with reading and writing skills. There were website designed to help the parents become more involved into what their child was learning in school as well as parent-teacher involvement. There was one website that I discovered in my search that showed a video on you tube that had a teacher discussing a device that the child would use to communicate if the child can not speak. By a touch of a few buttons the child can express his or her self for what they need. For example the 1st button might be "I" 2nd button "want" and 3rd button "drink".
I think that it is amazing how technology has advanced so much to were it is there it be available to everyone who is in need of it.

Oh..... the Technology

So here's the thing, technology is one of those fascinating tools that keeps us updated with so many different idea's, ways of learning, news, media, you can go on and on. We all know that.....right? How does technology apply to my learning and how will I apply it to my classroom when I start teaching?
Technology is one of the keys in obtaining knowledge these days. Many of us in the United States as well as around the world use technology daily. It has become such a part of our everyday life that a number of different companies have now made technology available through cell phones, ipods, and blackberries just to name a few. If you are one of the hundreds of thousands of individuals with this type of technology you can receive e-mails and surf the web right from your cell phone. There are a number of different types of web browsers that can help us to obtain information within seconds. For example if you use the google browsre and type in let's say "US Presidents" it will give you a number of different websites that you can choose from. For example listed below are some links/websites that I came up when US Presidents was googled.

http://www.whitehouse.gov
http://www.whitehouse.gov/about/presidents/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Presidents_of_the_United_States

Classrooms from K-12 as well as colleges and universities are expanding in technology every year. Since I have a special interest in teaching children I googled "technology in the classroom for kindergarten" and a number of different sites came up. I decided to go with this website:

www.polson.k12.mt.us/cherry/teachers/crosby/crosby.site/kindtech/kindtech.html

There are four different links that you can click on and I went with: "Internet Resources for the Kindergarten Classroom" once I clicked on this link it came up with a number of different idea's that a kindergarten teacher could use in his or her classroom. It never ends to amaze me of the way that technology is advancing. My feelings on technology is that is it just going to keep on growing. It's a never ending cycle that will always be advancing and developing new as well as different ways of learning, entertaining and exploring.