Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, Xanga and Skpye are all things that allow us to keep in touch with our friends and family when we can not be around them. Though they may be great tools to use, they can also be very dangerous. There are a lot of predators and creepers out there on the internet. Many people are aware of this but may not take into consideration who will see what they put on their Facebook's and such. It is important to know that there are various ways to protect yourself online. For example, Facebook has a privacy setting where you can make only certain people see what you post and things about you. "Privacy controls have moved right next to things you share, so it's clear who sees your stuff. You can pick and choose who sees what" (Facebook) This is an awesome idea because it lets you protect yourself! So my reaction to this quote was good, because it is important to know who has access to you. Overall you need to learn about these things so you can look out for your future and so you are not in danger! 

http://www.sheppardsoftware.com/content/animals/kidscorner/kidscorner_games.htm

The educational game that I found, and chose is a game about animals. This game could help in the classroom in a lot of different ways. This game not only gives a good visual of each animal, but it also gives the player options to choose from for each one. For instance, you choose what animals you want to learn about, sea animals, forest animals, backyard animals, river animals, or grassland animals. Once you have selected what type of animals you want to learn more about the game starts. How the game works is it will show you an animal and then you select what breed it is (mammal, fish, mollusk,reptile, crustacean, or bird if you choose to learn about the sea animals. Once you have selected what animal is what breed it will show you if you are correct or not by putting the answer in red if wrong and black if correct. In the classroom I feel that this would be beneficial because it gives the children a chance to think on their own and come to their own conclusions. Also this shows them what they are doing wrong and gives them the oppertunity to fix it. 

Sitting in a classroom as a student is 100% different then if you were sitting in as a teacher. I never gave my teachers enough credit throughout school. Now that I am learning what it really takes to be a good teacher I have so much more respect for every one of my teachers than I have ever had. Sitting in a room as a student you may get bored, may not want to participate in group disscussions and sometimes not study for a big test or exam. Some people go through school just to get through it and they could care less if they learn anything. Sitting in class and listening to the lesson plans my peers have presented made me think about things in a whole new way. For teachers, when students decide not to participate in group talks, or decide to not study it makes you feel like you have done a bad job. Our job will be to teach students. If you put your all into a lesson and then give a test or quiz and most of your students do poorly on it, it will refelct bad on you. Even if you think you have done eveything you can to help them gain the knowledge there comes a point where you keep drilling it into their minds. On the other hand, you can not force someone to study or want to do well. It is our job to do our best and teach the students as much as we possibly can. Looking at my peers presenting their lesson plans makes me have more respect for teachers than I ever have before. It is not as easy as teacher's make it out to be. 

 

Reading everyone else's article reviews it made me think about my personal experience in school and with technology. Growing up I used technology in school but not as much as children today are. Yes we had computers, but not laptop carts, Ipads, and everything else. Going through high school we did have laptop carts but I feel like they are needed in high schools and not as necessary in younger grades. I would not want my child on the computer all day in school, or on an Ipad for most of their day. I would want them to experience what I experienced as a child. Things like recess and projects with poster boards rather than with smartboards. As a future teacher I am prepared to use things such as Smartboards, laptops and Ipads because that is what these children will be growing up with. I am not saying I will never have my students do a project with this kind of technology, of course they will. What I am afraid of is that these tools will be abused. I want to have a good mix of technology and "old school ways" in my classroom. Overall the articles made me realize what really is going on with technology in the classrooms and what I have to be prepared for. It wouldn't surprise me if my students some day have to teach me how to use certain technology tools! :) Now that is a crazy thought to me because I am the one who my grandparents, and parents turn to for help with these advanced things. Thinking that someday a student will be teaching me is exciting and scary all at the same time.

I love my friends almost as much as I love my family. With that being said, I think that the way you are raised, and your personal experience with school has a lot to do with the way people go about having friends. Looking back, in almost every classroom… well at least the ones I can remember, there were AT LEAST computers in every one. Mind you, those are the ones I can remember. As I got older, there was a lot more technology in each one of my classrooms. For instance, there were computers, and not only computers but laptop carts, projectors, then smart boards, we also had these clicker things which you could send in your answers through them. I do think that there is a need for these resources in certain classrooms. I believe that these kinds of things are nessecary for older kids, I don't think that kids in kindergarten need things such as laptops. If I would have had a laptop that young I honestly do not think I would be who I am today. I don't think that I would have the same friends, and experiences. It wouldn't be "Hey Mom, can I go over to Michelle's house and play?" it would be more like "Hey mom, do you care if I get on our computer and chat Michelle?" I think that intergrating technology into classrooms is awesome! I just think at times there is a need for it, and at other times there is no need for it. I know personally if I would have had the technology we have today in the classroom when I was younger I wouldn't be the same person.

Personally, writing a blog is brand new to me… I don't think that anyone reads what I say besides my classmates & my professor. I don't think that I have anything tooooo interesting to say… maybe somethings will catch someones eye but I don't consider my blog that cool or exciting! That probably sounds bad coming from me but it's just my thoughts. Reading through my classmates blogs was interesting because not only did I learn things about them, but I realized that we have a lot in common. We have the same views on a lot of different topics.. So all in all I believe that reading through other peoples blogs was helpful. Not only did it give me insight on what they think but it also made the comments I was making mean more. Overall, I think that having a blog and experiencing writing myself will help me in the future with my students!

Constructivism. When I think about this term a few things come to mind. Hmmmm, the main things that I think about are hands on, engaging, exciting, fun, and different than what most students are used to. Personally, I wish more of my teachers would have used this more in their own classrooms. It would have made more of the assignments fun, and it would have gotten us as the students more involved in doing them. When a teacher does the most boring things over, and over, anddddd over we all just want to go home, and no one is interested in doing anything. On the other hand, when they use fun tools like this it makes the students actully want to be included, and they are excited to do the task. 

In the future, when I have my own classroom someday, I will use this tool. Anything that will get my students interested and excited about learning I will be willing to use. Also, this makes it easier on us as the teachers. We won't have to listen to the moans and groans about an assignment (of course there will still be some, just not as many) and they will really want to do something fun. Hopefully I will be creative in what I have my students do! I am excited to someday have a constructivism classroom! :D School should be fun, clearly looking at these pictures you can tell we were all having fun in the classroom! 

My name is Allison Gray, I am a freshman at The University of Cincinnati. This is my first actual blog that I have ever written. Well I guess thats not 100% true. I do use Facebook all the time and I tweet like there is no tomorrow. Personally, there is not a person I can think of that doesn't know what Facebook is. It's very hard for me to think about life without these things. We have all become so used to going to Facebook or Twitter for updates on our friends, and family. Sometimes I will leave them a comment or tweet them instead of calling or texting them. 

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