Internet Safety for Students

My Top Internet Safety Issues

1. It is far too easy for students to access inappropriate content, whether intentionally or accidently.
2. The Internet is like a playground without adult supervision, and therefore a breeding ground for cyber bullying.
3. There are so many ways for online predators to gain access to children and their personal information.
4. Sharing personal information is a huge factor in many other Internet safety issues, but it seems important enough to get it’s own category. Once you put something on the Internet it stays floating out there forever, even if you take it down.
5. Ways for people to connect online include email, IM, chatrooms, and social network sites. These are not well monitored for children and many of them are not designed for children.
6. When students share pictures and videos online they don’t realize that they are giving everyone in the world a window into their lives.
7. BYOD- Bring your own device- Many schools are starting this in order to get technology into the hands of more students. However, if the technology belongs to the student we have no control over the content on the device.
8. Cell phones/ iPads/ Wi-Fi enabled devices- Students have so much technology right in their pockets and many of the other Internet safety issues apply to these hand held devices even more so because they are so portable.
9. I feel as though online gaming isn’t quite as big as it once was because there are so many other avenues of communicating online. But then again, many tv console video games now connect to the internet, so it isn’t just computer games anymore.
10. One click on a link can get your computer horrible viruses.

   

  Social technologies can be very helpful to students. It gives a way for students to communicate with each other and with the teacher to enhance their learning. It reduces paper use with online quizzes and assignments. It could also be harmful to students if they get involved with people outside of school that may or may not be safe. I think we need to use social technologies so that we can teach students how to be safe online. Social technologies are also super helpful for teachers. Sites like Pinterest allows teachers to share their ideas with teachers all over the country.

   

     Teachers being friends with parents and students on social networking sites is a very bad idea. I may not post anything inappropriate on my Facebook account, but I have no control over what other people post on my Facebook. I need to keep my work like and my home life separate. If I had older students I might create a separate teacher Facebook account.

    In my district the web filter blocks a lot of things online. Anything with keywords that might be inappropriate will automatically be blocked. Many social networking sites such as Facebook, Tumblr, and Goodreads are blocked. I think that more blocked is much safer than less. Usually when we are doing research my students come across several sites that are blocked, some for good reason, some not for good reason, but we just go find another website to use. It is not a big deal.

    There is nothing set up specifically in my school to deal with teachers when their students access inappropriate content online. I do not think this should be the teacher’s responsibility necessarily. The teacher should be aware of what their students are doing at all times, especially if they are working on the Internet. The teacher should also make a point to discuss appropriate Internet behavior and train students on how to safely use the Internet. If all these systems have been put into place and a student chooses to break the rules and intentionally view inappropriate content I think that student should be held accountable for their actions.

    If inappropriate content is accidentally accessed I do not think there needs to be a protocol in place. It is very dependent on the situation, what was viewed, how inappropriate it was, how many students were involved. Disciplinary action should be taken and a loss of technology recourses should be in place. Otherwise I would discuss the situation with my principal.

           

To prevent inappropriate content from being accessed the district should make sure that firewalls and anti-viruses and web filters are in place. That will help a great deal. Schools should promote a positive climate of good character. Teachers should instruct students on correct internet behavior and do a lot of modeling.

I am usually fairly successful in searching for information on the Internet. I understand that there are different ways to go about searching for information and each has a specific purpose. I teach my students any tricks I can think of to help them when searching online. My students are in third grade, so I think that when looking for one small piece of information Wikipedia is an appropriate and easily accessible resource. I also use this a teachable moment that if something looks funny on Wikipedia we should check the fact somewhere else since Wikipedia can be edited by anybody. When we are writing research papers, we do not use Wikipedia and we use other sources online. I also just discovered that there is a way to adjust my Google results by reading level so that my students only come across things that they can easily read. That is a very good researching trick. 

Teacher Technology Requirements

I know that incorporating technology into my instruction is vitally important for my students. However, the technology requirements don’t mean a lot to me for many reasons. Unfortunately, technology is not anywhere near the top of the list of priorities for our school districts. Technology might be part of our performance based teacher standards, but principals in general are much more concerned with our students’ growth, and don’t care as much how they got there or if technology was involved. Also, there are so many different technology standards out there. There are 21^st Century skills, NETS for Students, NETS for teachers, teacher performance standards, and state technology standards. Plus a cornucopia of other resources designed to help us implement technology such as Marzano’s Instructional strategies, multiple intelligences, and Big 6 research strategies. No teacher in her right mind would want to use all of them.

I feel like I sound very cynical about this but I just try to be realistic. I am a young and relatively new teacher that is constantly working and researching to learn more and become a better teacher with technology. There are not many of us. For teachers who have been teaching many years, they might not even know that there are technology requirements upon them. It is going to be a rough transition for them to change the way they have been doing things for years. School districts need to step up to really help us implement good technology in our classrooms.

            I think that adding a Knowledge of Technology standard to our performance based teacher standards is a good step in the right direction. Very soon, it isn’t going to be optional for teachers to use technology. But right now, I do not think it is doing much good. Technology just isn’t a priority. Getting student scores up is.

            I am not saying that I am the perfect proto-type of implementing technology in the classroom. But the important part is that I work very hard and I try new things constantly. I am one of the most tech savvy teachers in my school. I lead the school technology team. Others come watch me teach and ask me questions about their technology. I have 4 iPads in my room that I use every single day, but not for every lesson. I have a document camera and projector that I do use in every lesson. I make sure that I am not just including technology to say I did, but that the technology is really meaningful and aids in my students understanding of the concepts I am teaching. 

    Upon reflection of the Colorado Performance Based Standards for Teachers in technology, I think that my somewhat cynical point of view is still true to a certain degree. The standards are very vague and broad, allowing for different interpretations. Being broad right now is good, because it allows many different levels of technology implementation. Apply technology to the delivery of standards-based instruction could mean anything from every student having their own device, to using one iPad once a month. But I think this is not driving us in a technology-focused direction. I have also changed my thinking in that I cannot compare everyone to myself, and my level of technology implementation. Every teacher is at a different level and every teacher has different strengths and weaknesses in their teaching. I think technology is a strength of mine, but maybe my writing instruction is a weakness. I could learn from those veteran teachers some skills and ideas about how to better teach my students. I could even throw in some technology to out my own spin on it. As long as teachers are making an effort and trying to use technology we are moving in the right direction. 

Classroom Technology Integration

First of all, technology is not one more cumbersome thing we have to squeeze into our school day. Many teachers have this mindset, especially teachers who have been in education for many years and are set in their ways. Technology should be in student hands as much as possible. It should help us be more efficient in our instruction and engage students better. However, just because students are using technology doesn’t mean they are engaged. We need to be aware of how our students are learning as much as always. Technology is an excellent motivator for students. Reading may not be exciting for them, but reading a book on iPad is suddenly very appealing. There are so many teacher created resources using technology that allow us to collaborate with teachers from all over the world and share our ideas.

Teachers need to be up to date on current educational technologies available and working towards integrating them in their classrooms. They need to make an effort to learn new strategies and best practices to accommodate our tech savvy students. It would be doing a disservice to our children who are going to need this technology training to be able to thrive in their society. However, technology resources available are largely dependent on funding, but more schools are dedicating larger amounts of money to establishing new technology. We also need to be realistic as to what teachers can manage to have on their plate. With all of the changes in education that happen every year, we can’t expect teachers to completely change everything about the way they teach. It’s unrealistic. But if teachers are trying a few new technology practices each year, they are moving in the right direction.

I think technology integration is meaningfully incorporating different technologies into the classroom to create greater student understanding of desired learning objectives.

PLACE Technology Test

    I think that this study guide and practice test for the Instructional Technology PLACE test is quite helpful. The categories give me a good idea about the information on the test, and therefore, the information I should know to be a successful Instructional Technology Specialist, even if I don’t take the test. I could answer almost all of the practice questions on the PLACE Instructional Technology test. The two test objectives I need to learn more about are understand the role of technology and its social, ethical, legal, and human issues and understand how to implement and manage effective learning environments supported by technology. In that last objective, the specific strategy I think I need to work on is the management of diverse student learning in a technology-enhanced environment. I try to use technology in my classroom a lot, but in my experience, some students get caught up with the technology itself and not focus on the content the technology is helping to teach. So I need to work on managing the students in this way. 

Technology with Marzano's Instructional Strategies

•   Is it effective to use technology with all of the strategies? Or is it better not to use technology with certain strategies?

It depends on a lot of things: If you have enough technology resources for every student, If the technology is appropriate for your grade level, How your students respond to different technologies. There are technologies that my class last year loved and my class this year doesn’t understand. I think that non-linguistic strategies should not be used with technology. There are just too many good activities that are more hands on and incorporate movement that would work better for my students.

•   Does the use of technology with Marzano’s Instructional Strategies add to classroom understandings? Or are students more interested in the technology?

This also depends on the technology being used and the students using it. In general, using Marzano’s strategies with technology is greatly beneficial. But with specific technologies, the students got distracted with the technology and ignored the concept. Some technologies are also too complicated for my grade level to use well.

Bibliography

Crisp, K. (2012, August 17). Behavior freebie! [Blog post]. Retrieved from I Do, We Do, You Do! website: http://idowedoyoudo.blogspot.com/2012/08/behavior-freebie.html

Leander Independent School District (Ed.). (n.d.). Marzano websites and research. Retrieved January 12, 2013, from Instructional Services website: http://classroom.leanderisd.org/webs/marzano/home.htm

Sams, A. (2011, November 11). The flipped class. Retrieved January 10, 2013, from The Daily Riff website: http://learni.st/learnings/

47643-the-flipped-class-shedding-light-on-the-confusion-critique-and-hype

Tapscott, D. (2012, December 3). Discovery learning is the new higher learning. The   Globe and Mail. Retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/don tapscott/interactive-learning_b_2231594.html