Webinar-ReadAbout:Content.Comprehension.Cool

After watching ReadAbout Webinar, I learned that reading declines after 4th grade. Research shows that 61% of 4th graders and 65% of 8th graders are not proficient in reading. Anchoring instructions improves students’ comprehension. Anchoring is providing a video to the students prior to the text. This method allows students to get information and make a mental model on what the author is trying to say, important for struggling students. Anchoring provides students with vocabulary support thus helping them to comprehend. Through anchoring teachers can teach the various learning styles that are in the classrooms and motivate students through fun interactive non-fictional content.

NAEYC- Professional Organization

The National Association for the Education of Young Children has a membership charge that varies from state to state. The annual membership for North Carolina is $110-Comp, $70-Reg, $55-Student. With more than 80,000 members, NAEYC is the largest early childhood professional organization in this country. This group publishes Young Children, an early childhood journal of ideas, findings, and issues. NAEYC also publishes books, posters, and other media materials. NAEYC has annual conferences that offer profession training on a range of important topics. To continue my educational endeavor I plan to become a member and attend annual conferences and workshops.

Using the Web Cam to Skype

Throughout this week, Carrie and I had sent each other e-mails about linking up on Saturday to Skype. I let Carrie pick the time on Saturday to link up because I knew that she had a three year old and finding the quite time to Skype would need the help from others in her family. We did our Skype on the web cam and we talked about references and resources for our final unit plan. We both were not sure if we were having a final exam in this class. We talked about how Skype would be a great tool for teacher conferences with parents who may not be able to come to the school. I really liked doing Skype this week. I plan to get my military friends who live far away to download Skype.

My First Skype

This week we had to download Skype and link up with a classmate to discuss our final project or something about technology, we then had to blog about our experience. I thought Skype was easy to download. On Friday, Butch had posted that he would be on that night along with his Skype contact name so that others could link up with him. I added Butch to my contacts and let him know that I would link up, Peaches also linked up with us. We talked about what technology we liked this semester and we talked about our final project; I was not sure want more we had to do on it. I liked that with Skype you can talk to multiple people and in different ways, e.g. through typing, talking, video. I really enjoyed getting to know some of my other classmates; I just wish we had learned about Skype more towards the beginning of the semester.

Cyber Bullying

www.pediatricsafety.net/.../cyberbullying-knowing-the-signs-can-save-your- child/

www.hazelden.org/web/public/rmmay10_bullying.page

kidshealth.org › Parents › Positive Parenting

Bullying today is not the same as it was when most of us were growing up. Today bullying is a very serious and sometimes a deadly thing. With technology at children’s fingers, they have become bold and more hurtful with their words and actions. Sadly, at times parents have lowered themselves to a child’s level of bullying with the help of technology. Cyber bullying is bullying through email, instant messaging, chat room exchanges, or digital messages/images sent by a cellular phone or personal digital assistant. Cyber bullying, is similar to the traditional bullying that most parents have seen growing up in that it involves an imbalance of power, aggression, and a negative action that at times repeated. Research has shown that most children will not tell an adult if cyber bullying is happening to them. Therefore, it is up to parents, teachers, and caregivers to look for any warning signs of cyber bullying in their child or student. Some signs to look for are nervous when an e-mail or text message appears, decrease in academic performance, trouble sleeping, loss of appetite, spend long hours on-line, or withdrawn from friends. Most schools have established procedures for responding to cyber bullying. Parents can take measures such as putting a block on the computer; limit your child’s access to the Internet, and knowing your child’s friends and what sites they visit to help reduce their chance of being a victim of cyber bullying. If your child is, cyber-bullying parents should explain how their actions affect others, and in severe cases seek professional help for their child.

My Reflection

Looking back to my first blog “My Goals” made me laugh a little. My blog was very simple and not a lot of personal information or detail on what my goals for this class was. I stated that I wanted to learn all that I could about technology, but don’t we all. I am willing to bet that no one is taking this class just to kill time. :)
Throughout this semester my blogs have been somewhat consistent on their length. Reading and looking at all my old blogs I noticed that they were pretty much brief and to the point. I think that has a lot to do with just being so set in my way of the KISS method that writing long blogs or anything seems hard for me to do. I have tried to make my blogs longer; I start out writing a long blog, but then at the end most of the information to me does not seem that important and I end up with my short few paragraphs blogs.
Rereading all my old blogs I noticed that as the semester moved along I did start to add personal information and my prior knowledge to the topics we were discussing, although that did not change the length of my blogs. Something that surprised me as I was reading my blogs was that at times I was not very confident in my technology skills. I know that there are others in the class that are way more advanced with technology than myself, but knowing that and my frustration with technology should not take away my confidence on what skills I do know and the ones that I am learning. I think that right now I am getting so much new information that at times it is hard for me to digest it all, but I know after this semester is over I will be in a more relaxed state of mind and have more free time to play around with the technology I have learned through this class.
This reflection has been fun. I plan on keeping a blog after this class is over and this summer working on expanding my Delicious account. I plan on only take 2 classes during summer semester so I will have more free time to expand and improve on my technology skills that I am learning right now.

Math Scores Soar with SMART Response

I think the SMART Response is a great way for teachers to get students engaged in the classroom lessons. Most kids today know how to use a cell phone and are text messaging to friends all day long so for them to use this device would not be hard at all. With the SMART Response students only have to press a letter e.g., A, B, C, D, for multiple choice questions or they can text answers that are not multiple choice. Students and teachers get their results immediately on a display screen. With the SMART Response student participation is 100% because the response of each student is displayed on a screen, but students do not know each other responses thus, taking away the fear of embarrassment for saying the wrong answer.

I am doing weather for my unit plan and my age group is kindergarten. I think this would be a great tool for quizzing them on the types of clouds. I could name the characteristics and have them press the letter to the cloud the matches that characteristic.