"Friending" Your Students

I enjoyed this article because it tackled an issue that I still am unsure about. I lean more towards the no side; as in, a teacher should not friend request or accept friend requests from students. While I think the quote about "a lot of flirting" happening on Facebook is silly and kind of extreme, I agree with the commenter who said he accepted the friend requests until he started later seeing his college bound students doing keg stands. It sounds bad to say that accepting friend requests leads to too much responsibility, but essentially that is sort of what it does. As a teacher, you are already a mandated reporter. So if you see your 14 year old student talking way more sexually to another student than he or she should be, are you going to report that, or just pretend it doesn't exist? Right now, my current mind set is that I wouldn't accept the requests, but if some teachers want to, they should go for it.

Nothing's Impossible

This article brought up some topics I hadn’t really thought of before. .Technology is generally geared towards able-bodied people, but there really is a wide array of things out there for people with learning disabilities or the like. I had never heard of any of the technologies they covered in the article, but they sounded very interesting, and I would like to learn more about different types. It is hard to picture what sort of learning environment your students will need before you are actually in a classroom, so it would be nice to know about a whole variety of technologies that could help a student. I also liked the idea of the school Sara went to, since it really catered to every need. I wish more schools were able to do that, and I would love to teach in one that is like that.

Better Late Than Never

(Mod. 11 is posted below- This is for Mod. 10, as I forgot to do it last week.)

This article was much more interesting than I expected it would be. Which isn’t saying a whole lot, but still… it was better than I imagined. I really liked how the teacher set up his blog, including so many interactive tools, and really making it “for the students”. I especially like that he had a blog for a class that many people would say isn’t really a blogging type of class. When I think school blogs, I think English, maybe History, science is somewhat of a stretch…and NOT math. But he proved me wrong, and I’m rather glad he did. I want to make my blog that cool, though I feel like it will be easier to do once I actually have students, and can get their input on what they would like to see.

Parents: Love 'em or Leave 'em

This article was an interesting one, since it pointed out the potential role parents can have in the classroom. The last part of my website I left was the blog I created for the parents in place of a discussion board. I had wondered what topics I should post and if parents would even care. Honestly, I also wondered if I wasn’t giving the parents TOO much information. If I ask the parents what they think of the curriculum, is there really a point? If I have 20 out of 25 parents tell me they hate it, what am I supposed to do about it? So, this article was a good one, because it focused on gaining respect, not love. Another good topic they brought up is sticking to your guns about things. For instance, don’t just let the parents show up and demand a meeting at any old time. Make sure you plan a meeting, so you can prepare what you want to say. Being unprepared and vulnerable never makes you gain respect. Another point I liked in the article was about not picking fights. For instance, if you have a parent who is on your case about everything, the author said maybe it is possible to let it go when the parent wants to meet 15 minutes ahead of their scheduled meeting time. Know your battles, and choose them wisely. I really appreciated this article and was glad to read it.