Lesson Eight

Due to the nature of our program, every student has a computer in the classroom and is on that computer for the bulk of the day. It is extremely important to keep these machines secure. In order to do so, first we have an acceptable use policy in place. That is sort of the first line of defense. Secondly, every computer has McAfee virus protection. All of this runs behind a firewall that is pretty darn secure. To reduce the instances of exposure to viruses, certain sites are blocked through the server. All social networking sites are banned, along with any site with questionable content. Students do not have access to email through the server, and cannot get to sites like hotmail or gmail. Teachers are repeatedly warned about opening any attachments or emails from people that they do not know. Despite all these precautions, our system is still not one hundred percent secure

My biggest fear where hackers are concerned is the security of the personal information of students. Our program files often contain references to cases in the juvenile justice system and mental health issues in addition to grades and personal info. If a hacker were to get access to Infinite Campus and the hard drives of the Comprehensive Care counselors the intruder would know a student's name, address, grades, discipline issues, court cases before the judge, and any mental health issues a student was being treated for. Can you imagine the calamity that would ensue? Parents, rightfully, would be incensed.

I truly believe that our district does everything within its power to keep the system secure. As far as I am aware, we have never had an instance of outsiders hacking the personal information of students. This is not to say that we don't have our share of viruses that shut down the system at times. Today, for instance, have the classrooms in the building had a virus on their email that somehow morphed into destroying the network connection of those classrooms. Monitoring students, along with the latest virus protection and smart usage, can help reduce these issues.

Lesson Seven

The piece of software that I'd like to discuss this week is one that I use in my classroom daily--TeenBiz3000. This fabulous software is a web-based program that delivers timely articles to students based on their lexile score. So, while every student is reading the same activity, they each have one that is customized to their individual Lexile score. This program meets many of our school-wide goals and objectives. Because of the nature of our student population, we typically have students who are at least 3 grade levels behind in reading. Teenbiz helps us meet our DJJ and Title I program goals to improve CATS scores in reading comprehension. We actually saw a decent improvement in the number of novice scores in reading this past year, though this is only our second year using the software.

Students and teachers both find it extremely easy to use the program. It is based on an email user interface. Students are familiar with the email inbox layout and this mode of delivery relates to what they are using in real life. Another plus is that there aren't a load of questions to answer for each article. The questions cover several higher-level thinking skills, but don't bore a kid to death with DOK 1 drill scenarios. Through using the program, I've found that students should not access TeenBiz every day. They soon tire of it and think of the program as a chore. Also, though it's risky, sometimes it is a good thing to enable the games. After a set number of passing scores on articles, student should be able to earn stock market or game time as an incentive. Another thing I've learned is that a good training is essential. The whole first year that we had the program I had little idea of its capabilities. The first training for our building was sketchy and somehow I got left out of subsequent trainings. Luckily, this year I was able to attend a small group training that was 100% hands-on.

Teenbiz is fabulous. I would recommend this program for -any- school district that wants to engage students in relevant reading experiences as well raise their CATS scores. It's a research-based program that is tailored to state standards and NCLB standards. TeenBiz also gives teachers reports that predict how students will perform on high-stake tests according to how they've performed on similar items in the program. Once again, if you have the money, get this program! And teachers, there is no additional grading for you to do. It's all done for you, you just have to interpret and utilize the results you are sent.

Lesson Six

This week's lesson required creating a webquest. Fortunately, I used an immigration powerpoint with my students recently that was very heavy on interactives and actually linked to several terrific webquests. The one thing that I really wanted them to do was to write more. The powerpoint assignments were really more about exploration and video/sound/interactive quizzes. There was no real opportunity to get creative or apply what they had learned. This is why I decided that journaling would fit the bill perfectly.

As the students create a diary in the character of an immigrant coming to the United States for the first time, they can put themselves into someone else's life and what they have recently learned becomes real to them. Studies show that making learning apply to student's lives helps them remember information longer. When using QuestGarden to create the webquest, I really didn't like that there were three parts to the "process" section. I think it could have been better served with just one section. Also, there was no drag and drop for pictures from what I could tell. Yes, you could insert but not necessarily just where you wanted the image. In addition to these few little quirks, the actual formatting was limited unless you wanted to pay for the service. There are too many free web templates at oswd.org to ever pay for what you want. You can just tweak a template and upload it to your google account.

The good thing about Questgarden was that it gave you a great foundation for including all portions that are essential to a successful activity. The site walked you through the process, giving examples and advice all along the way. I definitely recommend using this free thirty day trial to create as many webquests as you can, after which you should be comfortable enough with the components to venture off on your own.

Feel free to browse my Immigration webquest and use it as you like! I plan on tweaking it in the weeks to come.

3rd Circuit Issues Differing MySpace Student Speech Opinions - Civil Rights Law - Decided

3rd Circuit Issues Differing MySpace Student Speech Opinions - Civil Rights Law - Decided

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Lesson Five

This week's lesson was about online communication tools. In my research for the graded assignment I discovered the most fabulous site--Edmodo. I cannot wait to use it with my class! Two of the questions for this week are posed below:

1. Have you ever used online communication tools in the classroom before? If so, detail your experiences. If not, what has prevented you from using online communication tools? Yes, I have used online communications tools in my classroom frequently. The only reason I used them is that they were built into the software and were only email or comment areas for the online classes. I much prefer the Edmodo website for all supplementary materials because of its features which I plan to discuss below.

2. Identify one online communication tool you can use in the classroom and discuss how you will prepare your students for using this communication tool. There will be very little student preparation to use Edmodo because it is in a form that students are familiar with and use on a daily basis. When I previously polled my students, there wasn't a single one who did not have either a MySpace, Facebook, or Twitter account. Often they had all three. The great thing about Edmodo is that it is set up identically. What makes it especially useful to me in the classroom is that I can send and receive assignments from students, set up groups for specific discussions, utilize it for portfolio submissions, send links, alerts, and updates. I've already set up the first assignment for when we return from spring break. Initially I plan to walk them through the site and the submission process using the projector and smartboard. I anticipate very few problems with learning and using this system. One thing I do regret is that I don't have a cellphone with unlimited data plan. It would be nice to be able to get automatic updates when a new thread is posted to Edmondo--just in case it is a student question that needs answered right away.

Lesson Four

Link to my powerpoint.

If you have created a presentation for the classroom, describe your experience. Is there anything you would change? Is there anything you found particularly effective?

When creating my powerpoint presentation, I was browsing online for examples that might help me with a middle school social studies lesson. "Why re-invent the wheel," right? So, not wanting to start totally from scratch, I found a really great website called PPST.com. Essentially, there were loads of powerpoints to get ideas from. In the end, I decided to adapt a powerpoint from a lady named Liz Wernig at Mendon-Upton. I know what you might be thinking, but you would be wrong--there was some "lifting" but mostly I had to rework huge portions of the 37 slide presentation. There were lots of problems I encountered with the previous material. First of all, it was a little dated. The links that she had were typed out and not hyperlinked. Also, the slides had an odd chronological arrangement. They started with an introduction, went to Lady Liberty, back to steerage, then some activities, then back to Liberty, and so on. The media that was used wasn't as engaging as I wanted. There were several videos snippets on the History Channel that were just too good not to be included in any powerpoint about Ellis Island. All of the factual information was correct, though. Also, I had to insert my own activities, keeping only one that was based on an Excel graph. I can't use that one this year, as there were no instructions and I'm still learning to use Excel to enter data and create graphs. So, after adding some awesome SchoolHouse Rock, about 5 updated video clips, and two activities, I feel like this is practically mine from scratch. Also, I wasn't happy with the background colors, transitions, etc, so I changed them. With all this in place, I was ready to use it in the classroom!

The presentation was a hit with my high school test group (which is the level I teach this year). They completely fell in love with the Schoolhouse Rock video and begged to watch more of them at the end of the day. Also, they liked the Statue of Liberty deconstruction. It was fast-paced and had great music. The videos from the History Channel had real people the kids could identify with. The students were surprised at the size of Lady Liberty and impressed with the splendor of the Great Hall on Ellis Island. They didn't get to do many of the activities, but they did want to watch the live webcam and unfortunately, it was down. Later in the week I plan to let them do the webquests, interaction with the Wall of Honor, and take the practice citizenship tests. Overall, this was a great experience. I've used powerpoints in the classroom before, but definitely not any with so many interactive opportunities. Now, I'm off to embed some music!

Ellis Island Video — History.com

While making my powerpoint for class, I stumbled across this:
Ellis Island Video — History.com

Watch it, it's fabulous!