Technology Agreement

     Technology, internet, the way we communicate and how we do research has come a long way in the past ten years. Social media, research, news, and books have become instantly easy to find and do and within reach of anyone's fingertips in seconds. This can be seen as a good or bad thing. Schools now have what is called an acceptable use policy for the use of internet in schools. This is both for the student and for the faculty and staff of the school. Teachers have started to and more increasingly using technology in the classroom but everyone needs to be safe when using the internet. The use policy will help protect the students from inappropriate materials, viewing them, spreading them and in general. It also prevents faculty and staff from using the internet or technology on school grounds for personal use.
    Even though this policy is set and place and there are rules and standards for the teachers to follow when teaching their students if a parent does not feel safe and does not agree they are the parents and can set further rules with their own child. Even though this may exclude them from using parts of technology in class, it will not mean that they will be left out in class or activities. I believe that this policy agreement is a needed part in schools today and will be used for the safety and well being of students. Below I have posted a link to the Palmerton Area School Districts acceptable use policy for parents and students to view.


Palmerton Area School District Technology Agreement 

UDL

      I had never heard of UDL and was excited to here that there is a guideline to help me cater to the needs of diverse students and to think of more ways to better my lesson plans. When I saw how long the list I thought "wow, this is going to take a long time." It did take a long time, I had never thought of or new how to respond to many of the guidelines and spent a lot of my time going back between the meanings, my lesson plan and filling out my personal guideline.
     I found that I had many "features" or met many of the requirements guidelines in some way. For most of "barriers" I had just never thought it necessary or just thought of the guideline at all. It will be difficult to meet most of the requirements in another unit of art such as ceramics. But i understand the intentions of trying to meet the guidelines and with some practice it won't take such a long time and will not be that frustrating in the future.


Links:
  Lesson Plan (without the pictures because it will only let me upload one page on google dox.)
  Power Point
  UDL Guideline pt.2

Survey Monkey

       My first Survey Monkey that I have ever done. This will theoretically be used to help me in planning my curriculum for the school year and use different teaching methods to connect with with the kids in my classroom. I am hoping to teach in a high school art classroom. I wanted to ask my students questions that could help me understand what kind of resources they have available to them and what kind of computer skills they already posses. The most basic question I asked was where they access the internet or computers if at all and this will help determine my foundation for my use of technology in the classroom.
       I also asked if my students are familiar with blogs, where they would be most comfortable to find updates about our class such as a facebook group and where the students have searched for pictures. With this information I would hope to determine where would be best for me to communicate with my students and parents about school work, projects, ask questions or hold discussions. I am interested in where my students have searched for photographs or pictures to see if it could be possible that we begin individual accounts or a class account for example on deviantart and critique each others work as well as have artists from the outside critique their art work as well. All of these questions will play a big role in my planning as the year goes in the classroom, from just small research for papers or a virtual classroom tour of a museum.

Prezi Guidelines

My first Prezi, is the guidelines of computer, internet search in the classroom that I made for my second post.

Guidelines

Gabriela Elvir
EDTE 476

1. Treat others on social networking sites as you would like to be treated, with respect. No cyber bullying.

            Cyber bullying has become a very big problem for the new generations. It is very easy for anyone to get on another persons facebook page or spread rumors through emails or texts that are not true. Personal pictures once online are anyone’s pictures and with photoshop could be made into crude images. When it comes down to it treat others as you would like to be treated that includes the internet.

2. Do not give out personal information to websites, chat rooms, or social networking sites without a parental advisor’s approval.

            Personal information is personal. There are so many predators out in the world with so many outlets to try to reach children or any age group and hurt them. It isn’t just a van and candy anymore and spam hits you at every turn. Stealing a person’s identity, money, or an address can leave people in situations of life and death. Everyone needs to be careful with any opportunity that presents itself online or anywhere.

3. Only use the websites that are credible, that are authentic and trustworthy. If the information comes from a site that has an anonymous author, lack of quality, and has bad grammar or spelling it is most likely not credible.  

            Using a website that is not credible could hurt us in our learning. We need to learn the right materials from the right people and the right places. If I were to read something that was a complete lie, I don’t think that I could benefit from it, I would be believe in a lie. I want my students to learn everything in a truthful and trustworthy fashion.

            4. Do not plagiarize; do not use the information from a website without giving it credit in a paper or any assignment that asks for research on the web.

Plagiarism is simple, it circles back to treat others as you would like to be treated. If you were to make a project and someone where to steal it and take the credit how would you feel? It’s fine to take the information, learn from it, summarize it in your own words but you need to remember to give the credit to the person who created, wrote or discovered it. This also includes photography not only written material. 

Boilerplate

 Gabriela Elvir

          When I read that the assignment was over boilerplate I thought that I was going to be reading about internet safety, what the second part of the assignment is supposed to be. I realized that it was about a mechanical man, I immediately thought of the movie irobot. While reading through the introduction to boilerplate and about the creator of boilerplate, Professor Archibald Campion I thought to myself, how did I miss this awesome part of history?

            The more that I explored the website, it did not take long for me to realized that this could never be real; other than the obvious book reviews on the left hand side of the website. It was completely confirmed when I came to a section about boilerplate’s graphic novels. This has to be one of the cooler things I have ever read about online through a class, let alone an education class. Even though there are many historical fiction novels for adults to read and for teens, I have never been that interested but the way that Paul Guinan has written boilerplate into history I have to admire. In fact still after only a few minutes on the website I found comments from many people asking if this was a true story and how great they found the history and boilerplate.

            I cannot help but compare boilerplate’s story to integrating subject areas in the classroom. Boilerplate’s stories in different periods of history can help people that are interested in the story to find history approachable and easy to learn. The same we can do with any subject areas, integrating English with art, or math and science to better catch the interest of our students. But the best integration that we are really talking about is integrating technology with all of our subject areas to really captivate our class.  

            Websites can be deceiving with their information just like many people could not tell the difference if the information from the boilerplate website was true or not. Sure the stories through history where really well made and there are hyperlinks connecting you to more webpage’s that have information about that certain person, phrase or even in history. Those hyperlinks are similar to other websites that are credible and Wikipedia which everyone uses. The other problem with this website is that there are a larger number of pictures that are photo shopped to make it look even more truthful.

This can also be the same with any website that the children in the classroom might stumble upon. If they do not understand how to use the internet correctly for research and cannot tell the difference between a credible site and hoax then they will most likely be using internet badly. On many sites that help us determine the best ways to evaluate site and their credibility, there are some key points that they all agree on. Credibility of a site is a big way to determine if a website should be used or not. Easy ways to determine the credibility of a site are whether the author is reliable in the first place. Simple questions are what is the author’s knowledge? How did he/she become knowledgeable? Through schooling, a degree, their job? Who published the website? A company or an organization?

Another significant key is the accuracy of the information on the site. Wikipedia is a website that many people turn to for research but it is also a site where people can change the information on their own. I used Wikipedia for a paper once and found a date on the site and the next day it was gone. We also have to rely on consistency and fairness. Just like we should not plagiarize websites need to site their information statistics and facts.