#8 Common Sense Media App

This app will be beneficial to use in the classroom. The reason being is that it will increase the students reading, math, and tech skills. It will be useful for starting a forum to discuss and answer questions pertaining to a particular class subject. It can be used to teach students to read and write reviews. Lastly, it has a feature to teach students to make great choices while on the internet. Personally, incorporating this app in my lesson plan will be a rewarding experience for my future students.

#5 How Shutterfly and Other Social Sites Leave Your Kids Vulnerable to Hackers: Summary and Reflection

This article list a few social sharing sites who have millions of users and who care less about using encryption to protect users’ private information. To begin, Shutterfly is a social sharing site that allow users to upload photos, home addresses, gender information, emails, phone numbers, school names, jersey number and school schedules all in one place. Their privacy policy claims the whole site is protected by SSL that keep websites from being hacked into but is not. SSL stands for secure socket layer, which starts with “https” instead of “http”, it provides assurance that the site is legitimate, that the connection to the site has not been modified or hacked, and no one is intercepting the information flowing between the user and the site.

Without SSL, sensitive information can be easily obtain by anyone who is tech savvy, a quick download of a program called Cookie Cadger and a computer with the right equipment. Shutterfly has been aware of this for six months and recommend users not to send or receive sensitive information over unsecured wifi networks as protection. Eteamz another social sharing site catering to youth sports team do not use SSL across its entire website leaving username and password vulnerable and TeamSnap do not use SSL across much of its website.

I am appalled to learn that a lot of social sharing sites that collect personal information on its users does not care about providing privacy. And that Shutterfly’s solution to this problem is for the user not to use public wifi. I feel if people were aware of this, these sites would not boast about how many users they have because they would not have as many. Likewise, I feel when you have sensitive information, it will be ethical to do everything you can to secure it. As a future educator, I am happy I read this article and I will make sure that I use sites that start with "https".

#4 With Tech Taking Over in Schools, Worries Rise: Summary and Reflection

With the growing use of technology in schools today, some parents are concerned about how technology companies are collecting a vast amount of data about students from kindergarten to high school. These parents are worried that different websites might collect different kinds of information that could be aggregated to create a profile of a student, starting in elementary school. And that sensitive information about a child, like data about learning disabilities, disciplinary problems or family trauma could be disseminated and disclosed, potentially hampering college or career prospects.

Just last month, legislators in the state of California passed a law to comprehensively restrict how such information is exploited by the growing education technology industry; prohibiting educational sites, apps and cloud services used by schools from selling or disclosing personal information about students and from using the children’s data to market to them.

This article explains how parents are worried about their children personal information being exposed and used by public companies. I was unaware that educational sites, apps, and cloud services collect, use, and sell personal data about their users. Now that I am aware, I agree that there needs to be a law put in place in every state to keep technology companies from collecting and disseminating private information.

#6 Podcast

I listened to two 2014 audios in Podcast from the Ted Talks Audio: Ideas Worth Spreading. The two audios were Success, Failure, and the Drive to keep Creating by Elizabeth Gilbert and How to make hard choices by Ruth Chang. Both presentations were presented by grit women who found happiness with their career choice and presented ideas to help others find happiness. Elizabeth Gilbert began talking about how she always wanted to become a writer and how she was approached by two women who recognized her as the author of Eat Pray Love. This was her first successful published book after about six years of failure. Gilbert talked about the drive of not given in to failure by giving up on your dream because of rejection. She urges her audience to find the inspiration to pursue what you love just as she did regardless of failure or success.

 

Ruth Chang, the author of the second audio began asking the audience to think of a hard choice they will face in the near future. Chang states the fear of the unknown is a common default in dealing with hard choices. Early on in her career she contemplated what she wanted to be, a lawyer or a philosopher, so she took the safest option, something we all have done one time or another.  Fear and the expectations of others led her to be a lawyer and she was unhappy in this field. Chang states that people who don’t exercise their normative power in hard choices are drifters. And drifters allow the world to write the story of their lives; they let mechanisms of rewards and punishment, pats on the head, fear, and the easiness of an option to determine what they do. Chang mentioned that hard choices are not a curse but a Godsend and in the space of hard choices is where we become the person who we are.

So according to both presenters, the best alternative to finding happiness in a future career choice and who we are is to look inside of ourselves for the answer, never give up on what we love regardless of failure or success from another career, and continue to push through.

#7 Concept Map-Basic American Sign Language

Basic American Sign Language

I. Communication

American Sign Language (ASL) is visual meaning information is processed through the eyes rather than the ears. It is communicated through hand movements that express words and concepts. Moreover, you have a dominant and a non-dominant hand when signing. The dominant hand is the hand that is moving while the non-dominant hand is the one that remains stationary. Some of the language can be conveyed using one hand while others are conveyed using two. Furthermore, the dominant hand is the hand you write with.

A. One-handed Signs

B. Two-handed signs

II. Grammar

American Sign Language (ASL) have its own grammar and rules which is not the same as spoken language. In ASL, the word order is different than the English language. ASL normally uses object-subject-verb structure and places an adjective after a noun for example, dog small I want. The ASL also eliminates helping verbs in sentences. With this being said, WH-words always come at the end of a question such as "You eat what?" versus "What are you eating?"

A. Words

B. Phrases

III. Alphabets

American Sign Language (ASL) users also communicate with the manual alphabet, which uses hand symbols that correspond to the letters of the alphabet to spell out words and names. There is an ASL sign for each letter of the alphabet using only one hand, the dominant hand. Additionally, several letters have the same hand shape, and are distinguished by orientation such as the letters I and J. Furthermore, fingerspelling is a method of spelling words using hand movements and can be used to communicate but is time consuming

A. Letters

B. Fingerspelling

IV. Numbers

All numbers under one thousand are signed using a single hand. Moreover, the word order for stating time is time-topic-comment and AM or PM does not exist. They simply sign morning or afternoonto denote AM or PM. For instance, I'm going to school at 9:00 AM would be 9:00 morning school I go. Furthermore, to sign a date, sign the month and then the number of the day just as you would say it in spoken language.

A. Counting

B. Dates

V. Education

The best way to learn American Sign Language is through a course taught by a deaf person. The second best way is through the University of Southern Mississippi. One the other hand, Sign language may be acquired naturally as a child's first language or it may be learned through exposure and use. Furthermore, according to the Bureau of Labor and Statistics, the job outlook for a career in sign language is growing rapidly. As a sign language interpreter, you can work in a variety of job settings such as schools, medical facilities, and local government agencies.

A. Baby Sign Language

B. Classes

1. Careers

#3 NMC Horizon Report 2014 K-12

 The NMC Horizon Report: 2014 K-12 Edition  examines emerging technologies for their potential impact on and use in teaching, learning, and creative inquiry in schools. The Goal of this report is to enhance teaching and learning with the use of technology. Education today has been the same since the last two decades where the teacher is standing in front of class instructing students. More and more students drop out of school daily and this panel is trying to find ways to retain students’ interest.

A student is more likely to drop out of school if he or she is behind in studies. Today and always have been, students have to read aloud in class. Some students are embarrassed of this because of peers listening to them. So the panel feel if technology is in class then children can individually work on school projects which will build confidence and develop learning skills. With the use of technology in K-12, students will be better prepared for college and the workforce. They also feel if they change the classroom atmosphere then children will feel more comfortable.

Maybe have class outside or in the stairway for a day will spark something in kids. This panel of advisors suggest flipping the classrooms meaning removing all traditional seatings from class and replacing with video rockers of some sort, removing hard copy books and replacing with eBooks, and instead of the traditional step by step teaching method begin using the free open educational resources.

This panel is aware that with the changes teacher will have to continue their education and upcoming teachers need to have the skills and knowledge to run a class of this sort. The good news is teachers will be in class as coaches and guides and better able to give individual help. This panel on the NMC Horizon Report predict these changes in schools around the world in the next five years.

#2 Reflection of "The Learning Myth: Why I'll Never Tell My Son He's Smart"

After reading the article, The Learning Myth: Why I'll Never Tell My Son He's Smart by Salman Khan, I developed a new perspective on teaching. The article talks about people’s mindsets toward learning. The article proposes to guide students toward success we must encourage them to persevere during difficult times. That during these difficult times and struggles, our brain is grasping and growing. My newfound strategy for teaching is that I will teach my students that failure is an option; in fact, failure is good if we learn from it.

Furthermore, students like to be praised and according to Khan, praising a child for attempting a difficult assignment is actually encouraging a student to take risks. There has always been the notion that praises and encouraging words empowers and motivates one to do their best.

Khan provided evidence from Dr. Carol Dweck of Stanford University to support this statement. Dweck suggest you should look for positive things to say about a students work even when pointing out mistakes with the work. Likewise, praising someone’s process is more profound than praising someone’s innate trait.

So to sum things up, this article has affected my approach to teaching. First, I will explain to students that intelligence is grown through effort, struggle, and failure. Secondly, in order to learn anything you must embrace and make positive use of the struggles and the mistakes of learning. The Wright brothers did not give up the idea of flying a plane because of the struggles and the failures they encountered, in fact, they persevered and became successful. Lastly, I will reward students for their effort knowing all students doesn’t learn the same. And in doing all of this, I am teaching students a growth mindset to help them grow their mind.