Mod 10

Gina Heckel Mod 10

As I read the “Tweeting” article I was surprised that tweeting was even part of a educators tool box but as I continued through the article I understood some of the usefulness.  The authors discuss how using this informal communication (tweeting) would enhance student/teacher relationship by providing insight to each other outside of the traditional relationship perimeters.  This gives each group a glimpse of what happens outside school walls and gives each a way of relating to each other on another level.  I have to admit, I feel I have a better relationship with many of my grad professors because of the sharing we have done in the past.  I feel that this friendship has helped me stay invested in my education. 

But I believe as with any tool used in the classroom, we have to “rules” in place.  I think if you are using twitter in the classroom, it should have time restraints on responses, it should not be used to “share” information and should be monitored by teacher regularly.  By monitoring you can make sure no bullying or bashing is occurring and make sure students are using correctly. 

And when Dunlap and Lowenthal mentioned that bad grammar could be a drawback because of the 140 character limit I was happy.  Students need to be encouraged to at all times, to use proper grammar and grammar rules!

I LOVED THE IDEAS IN THE HERRINGTON, HERRINGTON, KERVIN AND FERRY ARTICLE!  I think the Austrian Department of Education has developed and designed a program to help new teachers and retain them.  The online support for novice teachers has to be an awesome tool and give these new teachers another place to look for help.  The BEST program that the University of Wollongong put into place is something the States should consider.  I know after we graduate (in Ohio) there is a mentoring program but I think the BEST program is more intense.  Students are actually paired up with mentors while student teaching and in their final college courses.  I think this is a great way to build self confidence in new teachers and give them someplace to go with questions.  I believe with these tools new teachers could do nothing but succeed.

O’Brien’s post on what parents want from communications with their school and school officials brought back memories of trying to find and get information from my daughter’s school.  We had to either call or rely on the brown envelope for information.  I agree that schools should have some sort of email system in place because this would provide privacy to sender and receiver and not put it out in the public events and such.  I don’t think that schools should not share too much information because you are just giving those that may prey on kids more information than they need.  The big point in the article that I liked that O’Brien brought up was all information shared with parents has to be accurate!!  Whether you post on some sort of social media or emails the information has to be true because parents need to know fact not hearsay.

O’Keefe’s article on school communities needing to build partnerships with the businesses they share space with I think is very important.  I really think this is something that has changed in the last 50 years; if you look at how those without children in school now vote for levies and how businesses are not involved as in the past you can see how schools have lost out on money, support and knowledge.   O’Keefe reminds us that we are all stakeholders in a child’s future and how the school need to again reach out to the resources around them.  Again, we want to give our students all the tools to succeed.