Social Bookmarking: NETS 1,2,3 and 5

After opening up a Delicious account at Deliciouis.com, we were asked to research several websites and "tag" them with keywords on our page.  A tag is a bookmark that anyone can use from any computer.  Delicous is a social bookmarking website that promotes collaboration as other people who have the same interests as me can see what sites I find to be important or resourcefull.  I will use this website in the future when I'm conducting research as it makes surfing the internet easier since other people have most likely already searched out and tagged whatever it is that I'm looking for.  My tag roll is embeded in the column of this webpage.  Everyword in my tag roll is bookmarked and the larger words are the words that I tagged more frequently. 

1.  On the American National Archives website I found a very interesting exhibit that showcased World War II Propaganda posters. Classic posters such as the one featuring Uncle Sam that states, "I Want You" were a not so subtle way of winning the hearts and minds of the civilians who weren't necessarily on the front line of the war but they were effective.

Using primary sources like this one in the classroom provide students with real world historical artifacts. By using posters, students that prefer to look at pictures rather than read out of a book can relate to the historical significance of WWII propaganda. As effective teachers, it is imperative that we continuously question the curriculum that that we are required to teach. Primary sources are a great way to integrate information into the classroom that is important for students to learn but may not be featured in the textbooks.

2.  There are many groups that are over represented by the California public educational system achievement gap.  They include but aren't limited to students of the working poor, Latinos, African-Americans, English second language learners, gay, lesbian, bisexual and trans gender groups.

To help myself in becoming a more culturally competent individual, I would start by conducting a self-assessment of my own pedagogy.  As an effective teacher, I will always be reflecting on what techniques work and which ones don't and consequently making adjustments to my teaching style so that my classroom will encourage the participation of all students in an inclusive manner.  In order to teach effectively one must also have a knowledge base about the local community so that the teacher can teach key points and concepts to the students that the students are able to relate to in their daily lives.  Without a substantial knowledge of the community, a teacher’s ability to make connections between the course content and the students is limited.  Students will automatically pick up on how involved their teachers are in their community and will reward their teacher with respect and attention during class.  The third strategy that I will use to reach all of the students in my class will be the use of a culturally relevant curriculum and a delivery of this curriculum.  It is important to integrate resources by a wide plethora of individuals from all walks of life.  It is also appropriate to discuss multiple perspectives on issues of controversy or historical events.  Hopefully by varying my pedagogy and utilizing culturally relevant resources, all of my students will develop an affinity for education.


3.  I scored an eight on the cyber bully test.  I'm a bit cyber risky according to the grading key but everyone makes a few mistakes. Right?  My two worst cyber crimes that I have committed numerous times were teasing someone over Instant Messenger and insulting someone in an interactive game room.  I have a few friends that I like to kid around with over instant messenger.  It goes both ways and is totally benign.  The interactive game room insulting however is different.  I loathe World of Warcraft players that are so wrapped up in their virtual world that they forget about enjoying life outside of their computer room.  I have insulted them and I will not apologize.  Really people, get a life and some real friends because your guild of dwarves and elves doesn't count.

One interesting article that I read on the educator link was about Teenangels.  Never heard of them?  I hadn't either.  They are basically a group of adolescent students between the ages of 13 and 18 that design and present offline presentations on all aspects safe internet surfing.  They offer presentations to parents, teachers, children and even other teens.  The FBI and FTC are just a few of the governmental agencies that participate in their training.  As computer savvy teens they are up to date on what cyber crimes their peers are committing online and they report their findings to governmental regulatory organizations so that these agencies may better protect citizens from cyber crimes.  The program is great in that it empowers youth to teach other youth about safe internet surfing.  They have even been used to expose and detain sexual predators.
4.  Under Subject Access I looked into Earth Science for an interesting link and I found a fabulous resource for the classroom.  I clicked on Volcanoes of the World and the link took me to a wonderful volcano website that had a map of every volcano in the world.  Then when you clicked on the map image it would zoom in to the region of interest and allow you select individual volcanoes. This site had a picture for every volcano in the world!  It even comes with an "Ask Jeeves" type of link called "Ask a Volcanist" where a real volcanist will respond to your questions.  If I ever get the opportunity to teach an earth science course I would have the students do group presentations on a volcano of their choice.  They would use this website as a resource to describe their volcano to the class.  The picture that I included is a picture that was taken this week of a recently active volcano in Indonesia!

Under the Teacher's Helper section I clicked on bulletin boards as I'm not the most creative person and I want my classroom environment to be fun and stimulate the student's inquisitive nature.  I clicked on "A galaxy of Stars" and was shown a great idea for putting my students’ names on the wall in the room.  The stars are designed to be stars in the galaxy and every star has a students name on it.  Get it. Stars...  :)  It is a way to provide the students with ownership for their classroom as well as a segway into studying astronomy.


5.  I watched the video that was titled, "Multiple Intelligences Thrive in Smartville".  It was about an elementary school in the Midwest that bases their entire curriculum and pedagogy around eight intelligences.  It is believed that everyone has an innate ability for success in certain fields and that we all have different areas of strengths.  The eight areas that were described in the article and video are: musical, verbal, physical, interpersonal, visual, logical, intrapersonal and naturalistic.  My top three intelligences are as follows:  naturalistic 100%, interpersonal 81%, verbal linguistic 67%.  I completely agree with the results of the test.  Wow!  That’s impressive.

6.  Air Quality: An Indicator of a Families Income?

Students are not often interested in math and graphing as it doesn't relate to any sort of real world scenario that might stimulate their curiosity.  However, in this math lesson for seventh or eighth graders, students will learn about air quality and how it varies depending on where you live just as income level also dictates where you live.  Therefore income level, racial segregation of intercity areas and air quality can all be related to one another.  Research on the temperature and air quality of various cities in both rural and urban areas will be collected prior to the lesson and then analyzed by the students in class.  In this lesson they will learn the mean, median and mode as well as bar graphs, stem and leaf plots and variable data relationships i.e. air quality and average family incomes.  By working in pairs, all of the students will be included in the project and students will also get to develop their interpersonal skills.  At the end of this six period lesson, students will present their findings to the class and reflect on any inequalities that they have discovered.

7.  I was completely appalled by the inequities in our society after taking this quiz.  The statistics about the unequal distribution of wealth in this country and the world in general stood out to me.  The three richest people in the world have as much money as the 48 poorest countries in the world.  An average CEO makes as much as I make in a year in one day.  What?!!!  Yet I work my fingers to the bone and live hand to mouth while rich CEO's are probably hardly working at all.  In the bigger picture, whole countries are struggling to find one meal in a day while crime rates and disease which are both directly related to poverty are only growing exponentially.  The ambiguous solution to these complicated problems lies in education and if the rich elite weren't so greedy, they could help one of the poorest 48 countries.  Haiti isn't the only country that is in a state of constant disaster.

I was also surprised that the penalties are drastically more severe for possession of crack cocaine than they are for powdered cocaine.  These are essentially the same drug except one is a known as a poor black mans drug while the other is most likely in the pocket of the above mentioned CEO.  Knowledge of a flawed system brings on feelings of outrage.  With knowledge of these inequities in our world, it is our responsibility to fight for change and implement action.  While there is no clear road to reforming society, just passively looking onward certainly won't help change our flawed institutions. As educators, we can help by voicing our opinions to see that something is done to improve injustices where we find them.  

8. I scored a nine on the quiz. d:-D I believe that it is quite important that we teach our students about netiquette because if we don't then they will become as oblivious to the proper way to behave online as they probabally already are to cell phone ettiqute, table manners and chivalry.:-r There seems to be a direct correlation between traditional corporal punishment parenting techniques loosing popularity and children never learning proper etiquette, whether it be online or at the table. As the etiquette among today's youth is becoming ever more obscure it is important that as educators we teach manners where we can, even if it is just in an online world. +:-)