C4T Summary #1

My assigned teacher was Jenny Luca from Melbourne, Austraila. At the begging of her blog she had a short video http://www.youtube.com/ImprovEverywhere called Say Something Nice. A megaphone was set up on a podium with a name plate that simply said say something nice. The video showed random people stopping to say something or sing something. In my comment I left to Mrs. Luca I talked about how we never know what ear a nice word may fall on. It could be meaningless to us but crucial to another. That's one thing that wont cost you a thing, just say something nice.

In the body of her blog she wrote about writing a post for VLFR blog http://plpnetwork.com/2011/08/26/5-reasons-why-our-students-are-writing-blogs-and-creating-eportfolios/. I followed the link and read the article. She covered five to six reasons why writing blogs and creating portfolios were important to students. She wrote of leaving positive digital footprints for their future. She also told of how the students were learning to communicate with digital tools, helping them to understand the language of the internet. As I commented to her one of the most interesting to me was her comments on the transparency for parents and families. I had never thought of it in this way almost a digital scrapbook. Students can look back over there academic years and times in their lives at their comments and the comments of their friends and family. She also talked about schooling her students on effective digital citizenship and how to conduct themselves in digital space. I feel this is much needed since many children take advantage of the social networking and use it for harm rather than good. As I parent I hope these technological advancements will be available for my kids when the time comes. I want for them what every parent wants for them to be able to experience life to the fullest.
In the second blog post I commented on she was explaining why there school was paying for Ning. Ning is a social networking site that the school had used previously with their students for free, but had stopped using in the past few years because they started charging. She blogged that they had tried other sites with unsatisfactory results and decided for this year they would spend the $239 dollars to use the Ning.They used this with 8th grade students over a weeks time with the subject of triumphing over adversity. The students are able to form groups and chat after school hours,and they could also communicate and archive evidence of their research. She excitedly reported that after giving the students their first assignment to be posted on the site most of them immediately completed the assignment and started receiving feedback from other students and teachers to help them along with their topics. I think this is a wonderful opportunity for these students and makes learning more interesting. The Ning may have cost $239 but what they are giving to these students is priceless.