Internet Safety

After reading a classmate's blog about how her child's teacher passed out a pamphlet on a parental guide to internet safety,(Net Cetera), it has got me thinking about the subject and how I can help my students use the internet safely at school and at home.  (Not only did my classmate mention Net Cetera, I also found in my reading, that Vicki Davis (coolcatteacher) posted a link about teen internet safety.) 

I have always encouraged my students to discuss what they do on the internet. We talk about different websites, and through the smartboard, I share with them some sites I think they will like and be educational.  We discuss internet safety and the dos and do nots.  Even though my students are 6 and 7, I know that internet safety is important and they need to start hearing and following the rules now. Hopefully, by the time they are a little older, they will not be swayed into bad habits or be put in danger.

Today, I was at Borders, and found myself browsing through their collection of Berenstein Bears books (my childhood favorite series books).   As I was perusing, I found a newer title:  The Berenstein Bears' Computer Trouble.  It even included internet safety rules and a story about how computers can be "addicting."  It sends the message that even though computers are helpful, they shouldn't run your life. Spending time with family, friends, and being outside is important for your health and relationships. 

It is refreshing to know that there are now story books that can help young children learn about computers, internet safety, and about keeping a healthy balance of computers and free time.

Twitter Here I Come...

This past Tuesday, I was told by my EPSY 556 instructor that I should definitely try out Twitter.  I have been procrastinating and holding out on Twitter for a couple years now. My fear was that I would just not care what people "tweeted".  I didn't want to waste my time on reading about where people were at, what they were doing, eating, etcetera, etcetera.  After listening to my classmates and instructor discuss about the information they receive from Twitter concerning education, technology, and the benefits to students, I have decided to give Twitter a chance. Before Tuesday, I had heard of several benefits for high school educators and Twitter, but I have never put much thought into how I could use Twitter to an early elementary teacher. 

Today I signed up, found 10 accounts to follow, and voile, done! My goal for using Twitter is to find useful and prevalent information from the people/groups/businesses I follow to help me as an educator. My plan is actively use Twitter for a month. Once my month is up, I will then re-evaluate to see if using Twitter has been worthwhile for me. These are the accounts I am following:
@DanielPink
@edweekevents@EDUCAUSELI
@DiscoveryEd
@techlearning@web20classroom@coolcatteacher@ClayShirky
@Discovery_News
@Discovery

As I was searching, I found Deadliest Catch's Mike Fourtner and Dirty Jobs' Mike Rowe. I love watching these two shows, but I resisted following them. I can easily see myself getting caught into celebrity tweets. Ugh!  PLEASE let me know if you follow or know of any other Twitter accounts that I may find useful, in regards to elementary education and technology. Help the newbie!!! I truly would like to find good resources that will make spending my time worthwhile and useful.  Thanks for your help.  :)

Little Bird Tales

As a first grade teacher, I try to have my students read and write as much as possible. I just wrapped up a big writing unit on fiction stories. Each student was asked to pick a picture from a variety of choices. From the picture of their choosing, we worked on identifying story elements, the importance of each element, and from there built a fiction story. This process took weeks to complete. Yesterday, 1B "published" their stories and shared them with the whole class.  To know that 6 and 7 year olds created lengthy stories that had "meat", "substance," and depth was a big success in my book. However, the technology portion was missing from this unit and that bothered me. (Now and in the future, most students are and will be creating new content on the web. This is something I feel students in my first grade class should get  familiar and comfortable with.)

In EPSY 556, someone mentioned "Little Bird Tales."(http://littlebirdtales.com/)  I hadn't heard of it before and it made me curious to find out more.  I must confess that I did a little happy dance to find out that my students would definitely be motivated and excited to try out this story building website.  I have all of the technology available at school and/or home to help make creating new content on the web a reality in my classroom!  This is something that I believe my students can comprehend and just dig in with once I have shown them how to use the "mechanics" of the website through my Smartboard.  I am very excited to get started using this website in my classroom.  Most of all, I would love any suggestions, tips, and advice if you have used this website before to help or guide me in this new "story building" journey.  

I will post more as I try this out in the next weeks to let you know how it goes.  :)