Module 4 Reading Response

After reading the article "Social Networking Goes to School" it really gave me a lot to think about. I teach high school students and I know that most of them have twitter and facebook, so it would make sense for me to use it. However just like the article mentioned, you have to be careful to seperate work and personal lives and not get involved. I know that I have a facebook account and my students are told that they cannot friend me until they graduate. Just like the article mentions teachers can instead create blogs and wall wishes that would do the same thing but under the control of the teacher.

I like the idea of using twitter for professional development purposes especially because I collaborate with my fellow teachers all the time. I ask them for advice on how to teach different things and how to handle a students if I do not know how to, or if I want a second opinion. I welcome the thought of using twitter, and think that it may be something for me to get involved in. I have thought about creating a twitter account and letting my students follow me and I could use it to remind them of important dates, but just like the article mentioned you have to get that approved by principals, and I would just rather not deal with that hassel.

Overall, I thought it was a good article and one that a lot of educators should read that way we can see how beneficial it is to use technology that most people are already using.

Module 3 Reading Response

I really enjoyed reading the article called "Fostering Creativity and Innovation Through Technology" because I thinkt it had a lot of valuable points to make. I like the idea of getting kids involved and interested in learning as soon as possible. The earlier students become fans of learning it will make their high school years easier because they will not be turned off of school. I also like anything that gets students excited about learning to the point that they take their work and then finish it at home because as a high school teacher, I know a lot of students do not do that. I also like that the students can see how doing this like creating video games relates back to math and science.

Students need to understand how important these STEM classes are and how important it is to get involved in these classes at an early age. My only issue with the article is that yes a lot of the software may be free however getting a lot of computer labs in high school is difficult. I like to use the computer labs for lab experiments in my Physics class. I have to schedule them almost two months in advance and then only get them for a day and it makes it difficult because I have to pressure them to finish the lab in one day.Which if a school can get money from outside support, good for them, but in my school district I know that it is difficult to get that. Overall, I think that it is a very good article because it focuses on the need to get students excited about STEM classes at an early age and once they are interetsed in those courses then we have to keep that interest in order to create more advances in those fields.