Free stuff

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For our debate in class this week we had to take a pro or con stance on free tools on the internet for educational use. I was on the con side and man, is it difficult to find someone to say something bad about something that is free. We all know what budgets are and we all look for ways to do things on the cheap and there are a TON of free apps, games, and lesson plans on the Internet. I could spend a day listing them and still not get through most. I subscribe to a blog that is called Free Technology for Teachers that is dedicated to free stuff for us educators. Free doesn't = terrible.

But I do stand by what I said on Edmondo. You get what you pay for, most of the time. There are very nice, very usable tools out there that are worth the money. In the free category you have a lot of junk to sift through to find the gems, but they do exist! I'm not going to go through and put any on my blog today because I know if you Google search for free you will have more than enough to choose from.

I do think about the programs my old school paid for and how useful they were compared to the free stuff out there. Education City was one that our school paid for- it was nice because you could look up the benchmarks for GA and it would show the games aligned with them. I could set up my classroom and generate reports and assign homework. It was nice when the kids wanted to just "play around" in the computer lab because they are games, but they did have a learning goal. I believe that was money well spent.

Bailey watching my sis play Timez Attack

We also had a subscription to BrainPop. I think by now every teacher knows about this site and all the good it does for kids of all ages. There are free videos available but I know I used the quizzes and book suggestions quite a bit and BrainPop Jr. was great for the younger kids. Well worth the money invested.

Timez Attack is another game that you can start for free but our school decided it was worth buying. I've even suggested this game to my sister and friends as a fun way of brushing up on their facts. Again, playing a game so it doesn't seem like learning, even though it is. And it can generate a report card, AND it customizes itself for each child while they play.

So, yes, I do believe that is worth districts putting in a little bit of money to buy useful subscriptions or technology tools. Research should be done first before any money is invested to make sure they are getting what they are paying for- something that promotes educational advancement.

This doesn't discount the free. Enjoy the free. Use the free. Share the good free you find. But make sure it is useful toward your end goal. Don't just use it because it's free.

Cyberbullying

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I've waited until Wednesday to post this because I've been doing a lot of back and forth on my opinion about the responsibility of schools getting involved with online, off campus material; basically, cyberbullying. My group was the con opinion but doing the online research showed me that a lot of people are conflicted about this as well. Legally, there have been cases all over the board, from the school district being sued for overstepping their bounds to people accusing the schools of negligence for not stepping in sooner. This is still new territory and the current laws aren't real clear when it comes to cyberbullying.

Photo from langwitches on Flickr
But this is about my opinion, not the law. In my opinion, when does it stop? When do we stop blaming schools, teachers, administrators for the faults in our kids? Cyberbullying, any bullying, is not ok. Schools can take initiative and teach students how to behave as compassionate, productive citizens which includes anti-bullying content. If an incident happens in school, the administration has every right to serve consequences as they see fit.

But for something that is happening off campus? I don't think the school has the right to dole out consequences. They have the obligation to inform the parents and possibly any other authorities, depending on the situation, but suspending a student for posting something online is like suspending a student for breaking their parents' curfew. It's not the school's job. 

If a student is caught posting something online at school, then you may have a case. The students should not, at the very least, be on a social networking site while at school. But for something being done at home, it should be dealt with at home. I really think this is something that is a parent's responsibility to deal with.

This might not make me popular but I have to say I think the whole debate is just a product of a greater problem. Parents are busy. A lot of parents (not all) expect the schools to raise their children for them. Teachers are expected to teach morals and social behavior along with academics. As a teacher I know I spent time daily over how to treat other people, whether it was in my lesson plans or not. Sometimes I found myself saying things that I wondered if parents ever said to their own children. Now, with cyberbullying, parents don't want to deal with the fact that their child might be a bully, might have done something wrong. So they expect the schools to deal with it. Take the power right out their parenting hands.

Schools deal with a lot. They have to deal with things that happen at school. Once we start letting them into our homes to deal with other issues, like I asked before, where does it stop? Detention at school for doing something wrong at home? Suspension for doing something wrong at work? That doesn't make a whole lot of logical sense, and having a school be responsible for giving consequences for what was posted online doesn't make a whole lot of logical sense to me. 

Again, this is just one girl's opinion. Feel free to disagree. This debate is obviously bigger and more prevalent in our society as it even has our legal system baffled.

Links to a few articles I read:
Education Week
NY Times
Teaching Students Online Strategies

PowerPoint vs Slideshare

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What a week! Every person I know from a different state chose this week to come visit. I have been to the zoo with friends from Georgia, I have spent the 4th with my uncle from Tennessee and my sister from Georgia, and finally today is the big day my cousin from California is having her wedding/baby shower.

It rained the whole time we were at the zoo. Smart orangutan.

I have been busy, busy, busy and its been nearly impossible to spend the amount of time I would like on my PowerPoint presentation for this week. Still, in the end, I think it ended up being rather cute.

My first obstacle in creating the PP was figuring out if I could make an actual PP or if it was just a "slide show." Everything I've looked at on Slideshare is a slide show, which is not what I consider PP to be. When I create a PP, animations for reveals are a big part. A slide show just shows a whole slide, one right after another. Therefore, I had to change my thinking about how I was going to present this project.

Then I had to pick a topic. I tend to lean toward math because it is my favorite or science because it can be easier to find things so I wanted to challenge myself a bit by doing something for ELA. I landed on grammar because it lends itself to a slideshow. And what is more basic for all students to know that nouns and verbs? Initially I had ideas for adjective and adverbs as well but my time got cut short so I focused in on the two biggies. It does make me want to work on an additional slide show, however, on those two things, the "ads" as I call them.

Making the slideshow wasn't overly difficult. But I will say that making it a slideshow and not a PP was work for my brain. I had to think about the whole project in a different light than what I would typically do for a PP. I had to make it simple, clean, and effective without the bells and whistles I associate with my normal PP presentations.

At first I was not happy to use Slideshare. But in the end, I will say it made me think about the bare basics of what I wanted to get across and how to effectively relay what I was teaching in a concise, logical manner. It was really a challenge and I like what I ended up with.

That being said, PowerPoint is still one of my favorite programs to use. I love the bells and whistles, even the subtle ones.

So I guess, in my opinion, one isn't better than the other. They are just different. And that's ok.