I interviewed my sister. She already knew that it is important to make sure that you don't give out your address, number, and other details about yourself online. She knew that it is important to search only wholesome things and to exit quickly out of inappropriate sites.
I explained to her how real child predators are and she was surprised how easily they can manipulate. She thought that if she just avoided giving out personal details, she would be okay. But I gave her some websites to look at that gave personal accounts of people who had internet relationships with child predators. These child predators began their manipulation by casually reaching out to the children then slowly and gently building up to more. When I told her to make sure that she was only looking at things online around other people, she was a bit defensive saying that she could handle herself. But I explained that many people start out small or accidentally happen upon an inappropriate website. Being around others would just help prevent her from getting accustomed to these sites popping up and beginning to feel okay with them.
It surprised me that she was defensive because I was only trying to help. I suppose though that she wanted people to trust her and believe that she is a person that would never do something like that.
I think that she will be very careful now to only talk with people who she knows in person on the internet now. I don't think she was talking to people she didn't know before but I think she will be more careful now. I think she will also make sure to keep her internet usage more open.

video resources

I watched faux paw. This video would be great to show kids because it is a cartoon that helps kids understand rules about the internet. Rules discussed were: don't give out your name, number, or address online, don't meet someone you met online, and tell a parent if you find something bad on the internet.
I watched cyberbullying. This video on Frontline really showed how brutal some children can be to others. But this bullying is much more serious than other types because it often is in secret. It can be avoided if parents regulate what happens on their children's computers.
I watched the child predator fear video. This video showed how parents need to really be involved. The scary part about the internet is that parents can't always control what happens there. The predators can find anything on the internet.
I watched a revolution in classrooms and social life. This video showed me that teaching has become so much more involved in technology. It shows how technology advanced children are. Also children are so overexposed to several things quickly all the time on the internet that it makes it harder for kids to focus in school. The internet lets people get away with doing things quicker and with less focus.
I watched webwisekids: Katie's story. This showed me how real child predators are. They make the kids feel like they are wanted and that they need this person and isolate kids from other people. They slowly and gently bring sexual content into the conversations. The predators use crafty schemes to reel these children in.
I watched Netsmartz: Julie's Journey. This video showed me how scary internet relationships can be. She became very close friends with a 56 year old murderer. She thought that she knew him but she didn't really know who he was. Its scary how people can pretend to be someone else and manipulate others on the internet.

Internet Article

I read "Tangled in the Web". This article taught me that spending too much time on the internet can really interfere with the rest of your life. It messes up the balance because your focus is centered on only one thing.

reflection on readings and video

I think the most important thing I learned from the readings was that we need to be sure that there is high fidelity for a good purpose in the things we look at on the internet. High fidelity means that there is a good amount of similarity between reality and the simulation of reality. But we don't just want high fidelity in our internet usage because the reality of our world is often immoral or wrong. We want high fidelity with a good purpose. We want to see good things as they really are on the internet.
I also learned that it is important to watch and read things that go along with our standards. Despite the fact that we think immoral things on the internet don't affect us, they usually begin to seem normal to us and so we don't see any harm in following suit.
Another thing I learned is that keeping the computer you use out in the open can help you avoid temptations. You won't want to open anything immoral on the internet where someone else can see you doing it. Also make sure that your family understands the internet and what to do when something immoral comes up.
Another important thing I learned is that the computer will only do what you tell it to do. If you place a filter on your internet and only search wholesome things, then you should have nothing to worry about.

google earth

this is my google earth presentation: http://sites.google.com/site/bluthie/googlemaps

final report

lesson plans

This is my math lesson plan: http://docs.google.com/View?id=dcfpm6nq_3chhkfxhq
This is my science lesson plan: http://docs.google.com/View?id=dcfpm6nq_2fjw5kkgf
This is my language arts lesson plan: http://docs.google.com/View?id=dcfpm6nq_1gsw5vjfk

technology videos

The most important thing I learned from the videos is that when technology is used in the classroom it needs to be exciting for the kids. It needs to help the children see the material in a new and exciting way. I really liked the spider activity because they got to use technology to capture the spiders with the cameras and then share their findings with another school in a different state. The other two videos were also great because they allowed the students to make their own powerpoints. This expanded their knowledge through actually seeing and doing rather than just hearing the teacher lecture about it.
Another great thing about technology that I learned is that it is such a great way for children to show off their work. With the spider activity, they shared with the students from another state. Both classes were able to see each others success and learn twice as much material. The Brown Bear and Habitat also helped students show off their work because they were able to create a powerpoint and slide show that they can show to their friends. This is good because students should be excited about what they have done and want to share it with people. It will give them a sense that their work is important and they can do what they set their minds too.

technology

I didn't realize that she had so much technology available to her. I think that the technology could be a real asset to her classroom if she used it more. I have seen her use the TV and the overhead but she could use so much more. I do like the way that the school has the computer lab set up as a special though. This gives computer exposure to the students relatively often. But I think that more technology could be used in order to make the teacher's lessons more interactive and exciting. I did the first, second and third step of this weeks assignment.

clouds- voicethread

My science activity will be to perform an experiment in which the experimenter creates clouds in a bottle. The clouds you see in the sky are formed when water vapor is cooled enough to form tiny water droplets. When moist, cool air rises to a higher altitude, it cools, water droplets are formed, and voila - you have clouds. In this experiment I will duplicate this same process by causing air in a bottle to rapidly cool.
The content is weather for fourth graders. I chose Objective 2: Describe the water cycle.
1. Locate examples of evaporation and condensation in the water cycle (e.g., water evaporates when heated and clouds or dew forms when vapor is cooled).
2. Describe the processes of evaporation, condensation, and precipitation as they relate to the water cycle.
The pedagogy is observing, classifying, inferring, predicting, measuring, acquiring and processing data. This is relevant to my content because before I do my experiment I will make predictions, then I will observe what happens. After I have observed, I will make inferences as to what happened and acquire data.
The technology I will use is kidsperation and google sky. Kidsperation will help my students make connections and google sky will help them see clouds in real life.

I watched Jennifer's, Janet's and Nancy's tours and commented on each of their blogs. They all had really great activities that helped the students explore the subjects in greater depth.

My tour is for third grade and satisfies Objective 3:
Demonstrate how symbols and models are used to represent features of the environment. And standard:d. Locate continents and oceans on a map or globe (i.e., North America, Antarctica, Australia, Pacific Ocean, Atlantic Ocean). My subject matter is the continents and oceans. I chose this because it is important for students to understand how our world is laid out and the tour really helps show it well.
I used teaching tools such as letting the children discover on their own what they need to learn but I also gave them specific instruction about the subject.
The technology I used was google earth and this is helpful to the content because it helps the students get a great perspective on the material. It is helpful to the pedogogy because the tool allows the students to explore the material on their own.

Location Activity Description Google Earth content
1. North America Use the ruler tool to discover how wide North America is.
picture
2. Australia Determine which oceans surround Australia.
picture
3. Pacific Ocean Browse around the ocean and determine what land masses border or are encompassed by the Pacific Ocean.
picture
4. Atlantic Ocean Look up on the internet ten different kinds of wildlife that live in the atlantic ocean.
picture

This is my tour:

These are the videos I watched and commented on:

Steph: I loved this video! The song fit perfectly and you matched the pictures well to the song. It is a great and simple message.

Ryan and Carmen: This poem is great! It helps teach about money and how to tell a story through poems. The pics were also fun.

Camila: I loved the pictures that you drew, they fit so well with the story. Also the music was fun.

Ashley Howden: Your pictures were really great in communicating your message. Great job!

Kristen: Even though she didn't use alot of pictures, her story was still well done. Her voice inflections really helped make the story.

Brittany Crowder: I think that the words to the story typed out will probably help the students follow along and help with reading. That was a good idea. I also liked the way she used so many pictures.

Storyboard!

This is my storyboard! Its called How to make the perfect story and cake!

My wiki address is http://bluthie.pbworks.com/. I learned from web 2.0 that there are several free tools on the web that can really help in teaching. It was really helpful to learn about all of these tools. I really liked the diigo site. This tool is very easy to use and is helpful when trying to find info on specific topics. It was the most useful. The most difficult thing to do was the wiki because there are so many different things to do on it that it was hard to do them all.

education

I love education because it helps people! Knowledge is the greatest gift a person can be given and i want to devote my life to giving. And I love kids of course:)