Attention Span

I don’t feel that Educational technology is shortening our student’s attention span. In a way I might even argue that technology is actually benefiting our students attention span. If you think about it who can really sit through a two or three-hour lecture with out having your attention span go crazy. However if you use technology or make sure you are giving some breaks to the students you are now engaging them and allowing them to stay focused. If anything video games, T.V. and the Internet has helped students with the ability to sit for an excessive amount of time.

I believe that being able to multitask is an important tool for people to have. Its an art in its own way, having the ability to concentrate on more than one thing at a time is a useful tool. I remember as a young kid listening to music while I did my homework. I found that I was able to concentrate better on what I was trying to do. However when my parents came in the room I was told I could not do both. I could listen to the music when I was done with my homework.

So one of the things that have stuck with me so far is the idea of meeting the students where they are. Catering to the student’s strengths and abilities. So when I read this line “Students today are born with a “mouse in hand”” from the online article “Is Educational Technology Shortening Students Attention Spans” I thought yeah if the students are learning to use a computer before the walk why not use technology to reach our students. We have learned that when you teach another something you learn it as well. So why not use their strength of technology to teach and reach each other. Why would you as a teacher not want to meet the students where they are and use their strengths to learn?

Cyberbullying

Cyberbullying is defined as when a child or teen uses the Internet (facebook, Myspace, Blogs and other internet sites) or portable communication device to embarrass, harass, threaten, torment, or put down other students. Cyberbullying does not refer to adults only children and teens.

Working in a high school I have seen firsthand students using the internet and cell phones to cyberbully each other. On more than one occasion I have had students in my office complaining with this issue. Usually it has to do with Facebook and Myspace or text messaging. Usually this will end in some sort of mediation between myself the Vice Principal and the students. I personally have never had to deal with any type of cyberbullying or cyber harassment.

In today’s schools I do feel that this is a problem and needs to be dealt with. Since a chunk of the cyberbullying is going on, on school grounds the school for sure should step in and deal with it. Even if these acts of harassment are going on off campus, they are still causing on campus problems. Thus I feel that even if these acts of cyberbullying are happen away from school, the school still needs to deal with them since it being brought to the school.

It is hard for the schools to deal with the cyberbullying that is going on off campus, since there is a big gray area on when a school has the authority to punish a student for stuff that happens off school grounds or times. I know that if a student gets in a fight on the way home on the bus, the school still can punish that student. This could apply to if a student is at lunch sending text messages to another student, or if they are on their way home harassing another student. However I do feel that if the problem is being brought into the school it should not matter when the occurrence took place. The school should still have the right to punish the students involved.

I think in my class I am going to want to be preemptive on any issue that may come up. I have always been taught that it is better to be preemptive than reactive. That way you are nipping anything in the butt from the start. The students will know what your class rules and expectations are. At this point I am not sure how I would let the students know what is expected.

Copyright

What are some new things you learned about copyright that you hadn’t known before?

I think the biggest thing I learned had to do with the classroom and what a teacher and students can use. One of the biggest things I learned was from our conversation about movies or music. I never really thought that using a movie or song in class or even using them at home could be violating the copyright laws. I always thought about downloading them illegally or making copies of movies illegally.

One of the things I learned for in the classroom was how much of a material you can use before you are breaking the copyright rules. Also that it is not a good idea to use something more than once in a semester or year, and not to use it year after year. If you do get permission to use something it is only good for two years then you have to ask for permission again.

Do you believe that copyright laws are fair as they are currently written? What specifically do you believe to be fair/unfair?

For the most part I feel that the copyright laws are there for a good purpose, and that we do need laws like this to protect individuals and ourselves. However I don’t agree with the fact that using a movie, music or part of a book, poem or any other material that is not being used to profit should fall under the copyright law. I find it funny that if I buy a movie or CD and let someone else borrow it I am technically violating the copyright law, which I don’t think is fair at all. Now if I took that movie and made a copy and gave it to my friend then yes I see how that is violating the copyright law.

Tell me what you must do to make sure whatever you are using in your classroom will fall under Fair Use protection.

The biggest thing I think I will do is follow the guidelines that are laid out for us to follow. Making sure that if I print something out for my students that it meets all the requirements of the copyright laws. Not printing too much of something like a whole book or more than 250 words of a poem. Along the lines with movies and stuff I think I will still show movies where it is appropriate to do so. But try not to use the same movie year in and year out. I think using YouTube will probably be a good idea since most of the stuff on there is short clips and will protect you under the Fair Use law. When in doubt I probably will not use something or go through the proper procedure to get permission to use what I need.

How will you enforce copyright within your own classroom with your students?

I plan on going over the copyright law with my students at the beginning of the year before we do any presentations. So the know what they legally can and can’t do. I plan on having rubrics for each presentation laid out in advanced, so they know what is expected of them. That way there might be less chance of having them break the copyright law. Plus that way if they do break it they also would not be following the rubric I laid out for them.

Wikipedia Friend or Foe

I usually do not use Wikipedia for straight research. I tend to use it more for a quick reference on a subject, place, or person. I have used Wikipedia on a couple assignments where the teacher specifically told us to use the site. This was the only time that I used just Wikipedia as my main source.

The idea of letting students use Wikipedia as a source is a hard one. Since yes there is a great debate on how reliable the information is. Yet you still want your kids to be looking for the information. I would say 9 times out of 10 when you type in something specific into a search engine Wikipedia is going to be one of the results. I might let them use the information but it could not be their only source. I would probably have them use at least 5 Internet sources and some peer journal articles and books of course.

In today’s world you have so much information at your finger tips. You can pretty much find out about anything that you want. Some of the problems today is finding reliable sources. In my class students will have to have at least 5 web sources along with 2 book or peer reviewed journal articles for a research paper.

Digital Natives/Immigrants

I would have to consider myself to be cross between a digital native and a digital immigrant. I consider myself to be this digital hybrid of sorts since I have grown up with technology all around me. I have seen the Internet go from being dial up and slow, to high speed that you can take with you virtually anywhere. Yet I also remember life before the Internet and this technology era.

Growing up I used actual books to do my research for school. It was not till I was in college that I started to use the computer and the Internet for my research. You can see how much technology has changed the way teachers are teaching these days. It is so amazing to see how in a relatively short amount of time things have changed so drastically. I have now been using the computer for 10 years or so and have seen myself go from a digital alien to a digital immigrant in regards to computers.

Growing up I have had other technology besides the computer around me, such as T.V., VHS, DVD, Walkmans, CD’s, Cell Phones, I pod’s, and Multiple video gaming systems. I have been using some of these things since I was a little kid. I was in elementary school when I got my first Nintendo; I was in middle school when I had CD’s, and a Cell Phone when I was in college. So I have been living my life in this technology era, I just happen to start more at the beginning. That is why I see myself, as the digital hybrid, someone who has grown up with all kinds of the technology around them, yet is still new to some of it.

I think that in this technological era that we are in, you almost have to use technology to help teach and reach today’s digital native students. Personally today’s technological era fits my learning style so I am all for teaching students with technology. I know in my classroom I will be using all types of technology to reach my students

Using Blogs In The Classroom

One of the first things that has stuck with me during these summer classes is the idea of meeting the students where they are. In today’s technological era we are going to have to use technology to reach and teach today’s students. So the idea of using blogs to teach is a great idea. One of our jobs at teachers is to help students be good community members in our everyday lives along with our technology lives.

In the article Don’t Feed The Trolls I liked the idea of teaching the students to self monitor themselves. It does not matter if our students are out in the world or virtual world they need to be good citizens. I liked the quote in the article that says “If you think maybe you shouldn’t do something, you probably shouldn’t”. Almost all kids know what they should do and not do. So by having the students do the self-monitoring, it is a great way to keep themselves and other in check.

I thought it was pretty cool to see how Mr. H uses his blog to teach his students. I like the fact that they have homework available for them and their parents to see. This has been an idea that I have been playing around with. I would like to use a website or a blog to help reach all my students and parents. I liked his use of the gadgets on the sidebars and student pictures as a gadget. This seems that it might give the students some ownership of these sites. I personally am going to try and find ways to reach the students and blogging might just be the way to do it.

Social Networking

I just did a Google and yahoo search of my name and was pretty surprised to see how much stuff pops up for my name. It was not all me but it was pretty interesting to see. I did both my full name Marcell Molenkamp and nicknames Marc and Marco. I also searched myself on Pipl, this was kind of scary to see what people can find out about you with just a little money. In all of these sites that were linked to me there was nothing bad just seemed like an invasion of privacy on some level.

When I did the Google and Yahoo searches of my name the first things that came up where Wilson Baseball and Portland Public School sites. Since I am still employed with Wilson, my name and work info came up on these sites. The thing I found interesting was how many of these random sites that I have nothing to do with had general work information or these classmate and reunion sites that had info. The only other site that I was linked to was Facebook, a memorial site for my mom, and my blog spot. I was surprised that my MySpace page did not come up at all. I also tried checking my handles and only onsite that was linked to any of my handles came up and that was to a car site.

When I did the Pipl search I was amazed on how much information came up. When I put in Marcell for my first name the first two things that popped up were an old address and phone number, and my birthday and parents address. Other information that I found was one of my email addresses and Relatives of mine. When I put in Marc as my name. My MySpace page came up along with my blog, classmates, and more Wilson baseball and Portland Public School info.

For me there would be nothing that I would change. The social networks that I do have are set to private and only my friends can look at them. The other sites that are linked to me are nothing that I am embarrassed about. I do think that teachers probably showed be held to little higher standard. We as teacher have a very big impact on the youth of today. Is this far? Probably not but that is the way it is. One of the things that I always find so interesting is how students, teachers, and other people don’t set their social sites to private. Just like in the article when the kids change theirs to private. I know so many high school kids and teachers that do not do this and I find it so amazing. All you have to do to help protect yourself is click on small little button.

www.spoke.com/info/pCpZmhS/MarcMolenkamp

http://www.facebook.com/people/Marc-Molenkamp/214900595

http://www.wilsonhsbaseball.com/Newsletter/2007/NL-July2007.pdf

www.board.pps.k12.or.us/.docs/pg/.../boardbook_comp_061206.pdf

www.facebook.com/people/Stan_Molenkamp/1019008400

wilson.pps.k12.or.us/.docs/pg/400/.../Student_Handbook_08-09.pd

http://www.classmates.com/directory/school/Wilson%20High%20School_11.jsp? org=8518

http://www.portfolio.com/resources/executive-profiles/Marc--Molenkamp--105476806

http://molenkamp.blogspot.com/2009/07/digital-nativesimmigrants.html

http://home.comcast.net/~pollymolenkampfund/

http://osaa.org/coacheducation/coachescertified20070801mn.asp

http://www.2gstratus.org/forums/index.php?&name_box=&sort_key=members_display_name&sort_order=asc&filter=ALL&act=members&max_results=20&aim=&yahoo=&icq=&msn=&posts=&joined=&lastpost=&lastvisit=&signature=&homepage=&name=&photoonly=&st=3720

Introduction

My name is Marc Molenkamp, I am planning on teaching high school Health and P.E.

My favorite animal I would have to say is the Mountain Gorilla, since they are strong and powerful yet kind and caring. If I could be any animal in the world, I would choice to be one of the magnificent silverbacks gorillas.

Rod Run 09

Well another year has come and gone and its time for all of you to mark your calenders and get your old hot rods ready to head to the 26th annual Rod Run to the End of the World in Ocean Park Washington. This years event will be held on the second week in September the 12th and the 13th. So mark those calenders, clean those rods and get ready for a crazy weekend.