Journal 6: Ten Reasons to get rid of Homework

Journal 6: Ten reasons to get rid of Homework (NETS-T 1, 5)

Spencer, J. (2011, September 19). Ten reasons to get rid of homework. Retrieved from http://www.educationrethink.com/2011/09/ten-reasons-to-get-rid-of-homework-and.html

Summary:
John Spencer offers ten reasons for getting rid of homework. He states that he has not assigned homework for the last four years and that there are alternatives to homework that would most likely satisfy students in a better way. Homework has been an essential part to schooling in the United States but, what’s the need for it? Young and older students are busy and can’t find the time to play, reflect, and interact when hours are being added to an already busy day. Homework isn’t always accessible for every child; some struggle to have adequate lighting or are constantly moving to baby-sit their younger siblings. Homework de-motivates students and doesn’t raise their achievement. The goal for students is the desire to learn. Homework is the wrong focus for students; it kills the natural desire to explore, question, and learn what’s outside of the classroom.

Analysis:
I think that John Spencer makes perfect sense in all of his ten reasons to abolish homework. The most difficult thing for me is to find time learning outside the classroom and spending time with my family when I have so much mandatory homework that is asked from me. Homework ruins the fun of learning and it turns into a chore instead of something engaging. Most of us do it for the grade and forget the connection to the real world or goal of the lesson because our focus is directed by one thing- the passing grade. Homework should be abolished and turned into something positive instead that fuels our desire to learn and makes engaging conversation.

5 Alternatives to Homework:



Go out! Apply what you know! Take every chance that you go out an experience to learn something or apply what you learned earlier in the day. Count the change from the store, visit a museum, reflect on the work your mom/dad does, or count how much 25 %, 70%, or 15% off would be from the price of clothes.
Build Community: Get together with friends and volunteer, share your dreams, or reflect on what is important to you. Make service projects that help the environment and the people around you.
Play games and watch T.V. Play puzzle games, word searches, or checkers and exercise your brain. Watch the history channel, Discovery channel, or a game show like “Are you smarter than a 5^th grader?”
Use technology: Email important people in the White house or in your local city. Make a blog and interact with people from all over the world. Play games online and test your skills in a fun and interact manner.
Exercise! Establish a daily exercise where you calculate how far you walked or how long you swam. Calculate how many calories you burned. Sing the multiplication song as you jump rope or play basketball.
　
　

Journal 4

Journal 4: Join the Flock (NETS-T 1,3,4,5)

Ferguson, H. (2010). Join the flock. Learning and Leading with technology, 37(8), 12-14. Retrieved fromhttp://www.iste.org/learn/publications/learning- leading/digitaledition/digital-edition-june-july-2010

Summary:“Join the flock”, by Hadley Ferguson talks about using Twitter as a way of bringing together a set of individuals from around the world to converse and share ideas. Your PLN is just that, a community of individuals that come together and learn from each other. Twitter helps these strange groups of people come together to create a community which is based on building communication and collaboration that is dedicated to making learning and education the best it can be. People use Twitter for different reasons, personal reasons and professional reasons. Twitter is a great place to develop both interests and get new ideas through other people in your PLN. Twitter is not a difficult thing to use. You simply surround yourself around people who share the same interests, you collaborate and share ideas, and expose yourself in a positive way by your tweets and the hash tags.
Analysis:I think it’s great that Twitter is coming in handy for both personal reasons and professional reasons. Personally, I did not think that so many people on twitter could share the same ideas as myself. It is interesting, however, to find out that many Twitter users are interested in the same things as I am and often have the same questions as well. It’s great to know that perfect strangers from around the world can actually become close through the shared interests and hash tags that are transferred with each other on Twitter. Twitter is fun, easy to use, and a great place to collaborate with others who share the same interests as yourself.

Question 1:What does PLN mean?PLN stands for Professional Learning Network that is used to share ideas and resources with others who are interested in the same ideas as yourself.

Enhance Your Twitter Experience (NETS-T 1,3,4,5)

Miller, S. M. (2010). Enhance your twitter experience . Learning and Leading with technology, 37(8), 13-16. Retrieved from http://www.iste.org/learn/publications/learning- leading/digitaledition/digital-edition-june-july-2010

Summary:
Shannon Miller, author of “Enhance your Twitter experience”, has been encouraging teachers, students, and others to join Twitter and to create their PLN’s. She stresses that Twitter has paid off in a number of ways for herself and her students. Miller gives quick tips on how to make your Twitter experience simple to use and organized. Once you find out how to use the resources on Twitter and you network with friends, it is easy to jump right in and build your own PLN to connect with others all over the world.

Analysis:
I enjoy reading Miller’s article because it offers quick tips that everyone can use to make it Twitter an easier tool. Many people get overwhelmed with the resources on Twitter and it is strategic to get organized and manage tweets in a clean manner. The twitter engagement formula definitely summarizes the importance of twitter and the significance of this network.

Question 2:What is the Twitter Engagement Formula?The Twitter Engagement Formula is 70 % of Twitter time should be for sharing other voices, opinions, and tools. 20 % of tweets should be directly responding, connecting, and collaborating with Twitter colleagues, and 10 % is chatting with trivial details about life.

Journal 3: Students Need a Digital Driver's License Before They Start Their Engines

Journal 3: Students Need a Digital Driver’s License Before They Start Their Engines(NETS-T 3,4,5)

Swan, G., & Park, M. (2012). Students need a digital driver's license before they start their engines. Learning and Leading with technology, 40(5), 26-28. Retrieved from
http://www.iste.org/learn/publications/learning-leading/digitaledition/digital-edition-february-2013

Summary: The increasing use of technology for replacing textbook and other devices is becoming a reality in the k-12 school system. With the expanded use of technology the Children’s Internet Protection Act and the Protecting Children in the 21^st Century Act emphasize the responsibility of schools to teach students about proper internet etiquette. Teaching internet safety is comparable to teaching driver’s education, students need a course in how to recognize and react to certain situations on the internet. This includes: cyber bullying and copyright infringement. The Digital Driver’s License (DDL) project, does this by delivering self-paced modules that is free and easy to use in order to gain exposure to concepts in a digital world.
Analysis: I think that this is an excellent project that really reaches out to students who are maybe not aware of the “bad” side of the internet. We are taught how to manually use a computer or ipad but are never actually taught how to react when it comes to certain sticky situations. I also like that the project is flexible and can change from district to district. I like the two different assessments that the students are able to take because they are able to practice first and then prove it with feedback in the end. The project is a fun way of learning about the messy parts of the internet and it’s a nice feature that students get detailed feedback on the correct answer.
Question 1: What does the DDL cover?
The DDL project covers cases of Digital law and rights, Media fluency, digital commerce, access, heath, wellness, and responsibilities.
Question 2: Is this program only available to certain states or countries?
No, this program first started in September 2011 and has since had 14,000 students participate in it. This includes students from six U.S. states, Australia, and Hong Kong.

Journal 2: Learning without Borders

Journal 2: Learning without borders (NETS 2,3,4) 

Anderson, S. (2012). Learning without borders. Learning and Leading with technology, 40(5), 12-14. Retrieved from http://www.iste.org/learn/publications/learning-leading/digitaledition/digital-edition-february-2013

Summary: “Learning without borders” is about a school in Pennsylvania, USA that agreed to help develop a virtual international classroom exchange with students in China. This classroom exchange was called the Schoolwires Greenleaf program. The program gave a chance for Chinese learners to collaborate with U.S. students and prepare them both for a digital work environment. Anderson agreed to work with the Greenleaf program in her high school social studies class. She liked the idea of her students learning and building first hand experiences with students in another country. The structure of the program allowed her to integrate a collaboration of technology and social studies objectives with her students. The program gave the students a sense of global awareness, global citizenship, multicultural understanding, and project- based learning.
Analysis: I really like the idea of this program because it seems like an enjoyable way to learn through technology and about different cultures. It seems like this program brought many difficult and exciting tasks for the students in both the U.S. and China. I found it interesting that the teacher was able to connect technology and many of the social studies objectives through this online communication. I would definitely use this in my own classroom because students are able to work as teams and communicate with others who may not fully understand them. Students are also able to see how relate able they are to one another even though they are from two different parts of the world. Many of them found out that students in China also liked the same sports and pop culture that they did, here in America. I especially liked the fact that both the Chinese students and the American students had to write properly for one another. The U.S students were not able to use slang or abbreviations because the Chinese students would not fully understand what they were trying to say. This is a great tool that brings fun and learning together with technology.
Question 1: Do the Chinese and Americans have the same technology?
No, they do not. The difficult thing about this program was that the American students were more technically advanced than the Chinese students. It was difficult to exchange some documents because the Chinese were using older versions of Microsoft Word as well as PowerPoint and the Chinese government had prohibited the use of Google Docs.
Question 2: Do the teachers enjoy this program?
Yes, they do. The teachers as well as the students learned about the multicultural differences and similarities with each other. Sue Anderson explained that as an educator, she enjoyed the opportunity to collaborate with teachers from another country. She learned that teachers around the world share the same joys and frustrations of teaching as she does.