stop cyber bullying

Cyber bullying is going on all over the world. Many children have committed suicide because of the things people have posted online about someone. It is worst than the rumors that get spread around school because they are able to link up and connect with people at other schools to get the news spread even further. So I found this really cool website that tells us how to prevent cyber bullying, what it does to the bully, and what happens to the victim. But here are some tips on how to prevent its.

"Teens have figured out ways to prevent cyberbullying. Follow in the footsteps of other quick-thinking teens and

Refuse to pass along cyberbullying messages
Tell friends to stop cyberbullying
Block communication with cyberbullies
Report cyberbullying to a trusted adult
You can also help prevent cyberbullying by

Speaking with other students, as well as teachers and school administrators, to develop rules against cyberbullying
Raising awareness of the cyberbullying problem in your community by holding an assembly and creating fliers to give to younger kids or parents
Sharing NCPC’s anti-cyberbullying message with friends"

http://www.ncpc.org/cyberbullying

Here are two more cites that can be helpful as well:

http://www.safetyweb.com/stop-cyber-bullying
http://www.cyberbully411.org/

skype!!!

Well I had my skyping session with Amy Mcroberts and Butch Abling. I have used Skype on many different occasions with some of my friends to keep in contact. This was only different because I had to discuss schoolwork but that didn't make it that much different. It was fun because it is easier to keep a conversation flowing when your actually talking other than emailing back and forth. I found out that my classmates and I share alot of the same feelings in our school work; not just in this class but them all. I was glad to know that my classmates liked the project and we could discuss some of the things openly.

Peaches Thurston on What I Wish I Knew Then

I have grown so much as a teacher this semester. My basic use for technology in a classroom was making printouts to post around my room, buying computer games that taught my kids concepts, researching information and activities to do with my kids. I reflected back to my first blog about my goals that I wanted to reach during this semester, and I have found that I have reached every single one! I wanted to learn about wikis, podcast, and assistive technologies. I have heard about Wikipedia but the way we had to create our wikis gave me a greater appreciation for the wiki world. A lot of hard work and research goes into creating this source of information. Learning about podcast was not that shocking for me because I was familiar with podcast but just did not know that it was labeled a podcast! I certainly learned a lot about different assistive technologies and I plan to save all of the websites to my delicious sites to always have as a reference. This was especially important for me because I want to open a daycare for children with physical handicaps and the technologies that need to be provided for them will be very important. I did not know that they made certain tapes that refrain the children from slipping in their chairs as well as placing the material on their desk so their stuff does not slip away. All of the tools and supplies they are provided with are a great help. I have learned so much this semester!
Cognitive: This has helped me cognitively because I have the information stored in my memory so if I am ever crossed with a dilemma I know of the resources that are provided to me and I will just have to go and get it!
Physically: I’m not sure how any of this has helped me physically but when I think of how I will let you guys know…if anything it has definitely helped my fine motor skills on this computer at all times of the night! Lol
Social/emotionally: This class has definitely helped me socially because it has shown me the benefits of working with other people in creating greatness for our future America. It has dwelled in me quite emotionally because I feel like I have been depriving my kids from great resources within the classrooms to extend their learning.
I have already began downloading more video and podcasts to show my children at work. When we talked about birds, I just didn’t feel as though a picture would do them justice so I downloaded videos and podcast to get them excited about their size and movement. They were very intrigued. Creating this wiki has caused me to be able to dig deeper and do greater research. I have some kids who were lacking in certain areas with their fine motor skills so learning about the different utensils has definitely been a great help on how I can help them

Reflection of my Semester Blogs

This past semester I was challenged to write many many many blogs on information I barely understood (hahaha). But through late night studying I think I finally grasped the concept of them all. Now how well I transferred that information was transferred to you, I rather you be the judge! But in this case you cant be because Mrs. Keesee wants me to be the judge....Thanks!

I have reread all of my blogs and I can honestly say I have seen the change of lazyness to being very intrigued in my assignments. Over a course of time I can tell that I have come out of my shell and began to explain what I was learning more in depth. I think sometimes I have overwritten things and said the same things twice and in different ways. One thing that I notice that I could have done was add more links or references. I think with written work, visuals are great no matter what your age may be. What I like the most about blogging is that through the blogs I can see how much I have learned. One way for me to prepare for test throughout high school and middle school was to write the information until I gained the understanding of each concept. This is what blogging has allowed me to do.
I would love to think that Reading is Essential was a post worth revisiting because I don't think a lot of people realize how important it is to encourage reading to children. Even if it is just looking at a picture and telling what one may think is going on. For the children that is reading!!!! Everytime I do a major transition in my class, my children are sitting with a book because I want their mind to think and put concepts together.
What suprised me most about my blogs was my grammar...I think you can tell I didn't do a great spell check (sorry!) Other then that I think you can feel the energy and my excitement about the topics I enjoyed writing about the most!

Technology in Early Childhood Family Education Classrooms

I attempted to embed this video but they have a block on the video so that no one can embed it. You guys can still check it out though!

I chose this video because it is a dream of mine to be able to use a smartboard in my classroom. I have said previously how I wanted to fill out the information to get a grant and get one but I am having problems getting the people over me to allow internet access in my classroom! Bummer, right?

Well, while I am waiting on that, I will still educate myself on ideas on how I can use them. I chose this video because it was preschool based and showed fun games for them to play. It showed how the teachers let the children play games that were appropriate for their age level and was still fun for the preschoolers. Circle time is critical in my opinion. Yes, while centers are important and you can have fun and learn in those too, what do you do when you have these new aged kids who do not have any interest in regular toys and are so technology based? I have some rather "fast paced" children in my room who attention is so hard to grab unless I pull my laptop out. I think the smartboard would be a great contribution to my room because I would be able to keep my children on the carpet for a longer period of time. The biggest obstacle I see with using youtube are all of the ads that pop up. You have ads that play for atleast fifteen seconds before your actual video starts, then you have an ad banner that pops up when the video comes on, you have ads on the side of the video, and then they list other videos that are related to the one you watch. I see a problem with that because you never know what someone will put as a title that may make the youtubers think it is a related video. I would hate for my kids to see any "racy", especially on my behalf. In some ways, I have already incorporated using youtube in my classroom. Now when you play a youtube video, they give you the option to download the video straight to your computer. I look up songs that are related to my topic or theme and then download them to my video library. I take my laptop and play the songs for my children at school. This has been an easier way for me to teach my children new songs instead of me just repeating it and them getting bored with my not so pleasant singing voice!

podcasting for dummies

Since Mrs. Keese wanted us to browse Youtube, I decided to find a podcast on the website. I chose the video , “Integrating Podcasting Into Your Classroom”. I used the rubric that was labeled “Podcasting Rubric”. If you follow it, it goes in order by Awesome Podcast, Cool Podcast, and L Podcast. I would label this podcast to be a “Cool Podcast”. It gave a great deal of information, utilized music transitions, cited other websites to use, and uses pop up information while she is speaking so that we may know the correct spelling for the information given. As you can see these may be great qualities to a podcast but it ended up being a “cool podcast” instead of an “awesome podcast”. Some things that I noticed throughout the podcast was that some of their music was too loud and I couldn’t hear what she was saying. Another major problem that irritated me was sometimes, two segments would overlap each other causing a commotion as well. In this podcast I learned about great software to use to create my own podcast, how and where to upload and download other podcast, as well as types of podcast to make and how they can be beneficial in my classroom. Over all it was a good podcast and full of information that showed us how to do things step by step as well as giving us great information!
Check It out!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ExkMeQfuLGc

Spreadsheets

As I have said before in my other blogs, I truly feel like spreadsheets and databases are too similar for me to explain to my group of preschoolers the difference. I just really try to stick to basic bar graphs. But a database shows comparison to things over time because you want to keep track on something as you go along. I chose for my database to do it daily on whether which one was more popular for that day but on my spreadsheet we will just choose which is our favorite over all. The children will only be able to pick one nursery rhyme to be their favorite. This will fit in the the NETS as creativity and innovation, communication and collaboration, as well as critical thinking, problem solving, and decision making.