M-Word, Copyright, and Social Media... OH MY!

Through out my many years of school I have used Microsoft Word many times. In elementary school I remember the whole class excitedly lining up and walking to the library and having the librarian teach us about using word. In middle school we used it again to do little reports and in class essays. Often if I was supposed to make a power point at home or right something down, I would use a different application called Open Office because I could not afford the absurd price of the software. This continued on until I was in eleventh grade when I began duel enrollment and was granted access to Microsoft office 2016. Having not used the real in many years, every time I had to make a power point or do something creative with the program I would go all out and be as creative as I could, weaving pictures and GIf''s into all my slides and design them with all kinds of colors and overtime it became one of my absolute favorite things to do. Most of my teachers in in high school and college also used power point for everything from morning questions to lectures and everything in between. Because of this, I never really saw them using Word unless they were making an assignment or test for us. Even then, they could have been using Word Pad or even Open office and I probably wouldn't know the difference.

I will be the first to admit my frugality. In the days of my youth, I would pirate everything from movies to music to games and other digital treats. As a student, many of my teachers would pull up clips of movies on YouTube to emphasize a point or liven up a lesson. Some teachers that I had were very unprepared and in the morning I would watch them frantically searching the web for a power point that someone else had made about the topic they were going to cover while I watched in horror. (I normally sat close to the teachers desk because it helped me focus.) Then they would stumble over this power point that they had just pirated while the students struggled to read the watermarked slides. I would often think to myself why they wouldn't just make their own slide shows so they could present better and not be so flustered during class. (Then a few weeks later I'd be reading an essay that I had written at 2 in the morning in a sleep deprived haze whilst my teacher was checkering other papers that were turned in for plagiarism.) As a teacher, and a student it is so easy to give into the temptation of procrastination and plagiarism. However, these can result in legal consequences which is why it is important to present information in your own words and in your own works.  I know many people who got in trouble for plagiarism, normally they would get suspended for two weeks and a zero on the assignment. They would always get tagged because the school used a special software that would read the document and match it to its own database and anything that matched on the web. I do not see plagarism as a problem because of these systems, but I would want to discourage it by splitting the projects into multiple assignments so that they would have to plagiarize multiple times, or reverse engineer the plagiarized assignment. Copyright laws don't bother me either because of how much I enjoy creating power points and tests and quizzes, plus after the first time I wont have to re-make the power points until the curriculum changes or I get tired of them, and I will only have to change a few words on assignments and tests every time.

Now, I want to discuss cyber bullying. Unlike copyright and academic honesty there is much less I can do to prevent this. I can not forbid high-schoolers from going on social media. Often times cyber bullying is complex and students will not want to show authoritative figures what people are saying or doing to them online because of how it may make them look. The best thing I advise to my friends as of now is abstinence from social media. There is something to be said about how emotionally and mentally draining these platforms can be. They are addicting and promote an unhealthy culture of self value through the validation of strangers, mutuals, and acquaintances. These can be avoided by setting your account to private and only letting close friends and family see your account of course, but then you're friend might let theirs see a post of yours and so on, until the one person or group that you did not want seeing your posts sees them. The best thing I can do is promise the students that I will listen, JUDGMENT FREE, to their problems and try my absolute hardest to do everything I can to make them comfortable again.  All three of these problems plague our schools, but we have to try our hardest to counter them.

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Technology in the Classroom, and the Rise of the Digital Natives.

With the exponential growth that is happening in the technological world it is evident that it is making its way into more of our classrooms. With that there is a need for a baseline of skill that educators should have with these new technologies so that they can effectively use them in a classroom setting. The ISTE, (International Society for Technology in Education) has provided such a list for educators, students, and leaders. In their seven point list of standards the two that stuck out to me where Citizen and Analyst. Being a citizen according to the ISTE means being a role model and mentor to your students. As a kid/teen I think most people are rebelling because they're unsure of who they are, and they put up a wall to anyone in positions of authority to try and figure it out for themselves; which is why I believe this is going to be the hardest of the standards to meet. Being an Analyst is to use the tools and what you know about the class to help teach them better. This is more towards my strong suite because I am always thinking of different presentation strategies and organizational methods. I am a strong believer that everyone learns in a different way and to teach an entire class in one way is unfair and cruel to the children in your class.

With the rise in technology the new first and second world generations are growing up surrounded by electrical cords and LED screens and thus have become very proficient with them. Because of this many have started calling Gen Z the "Digital Natives." I find this accurate, but what must be remembered is that not everyone on the globe has access to these technologies. It does NOT APPLY TO ALL OF TODAY'S YOUTH! Gen Y, or the "Digital Immigrants." who were introduced to these technologies later in life are also fluent with these techs but at a slower pace. It is much like using a language, when you are born into a world that uses it, it will come much easier than if you came from somewhere else. Soon there will be a new technological breakthrough and the "Digital Natives" will be hopping onto the boat of whatever the new technology is. and the cycle will continue.

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Introduction

Hello, my name is David Moore. This is my first semester at a real university, but I do have my AA degree which is in Secondary Education. When I had just started college I had no idea what I wanted to do when I got older. I went from wanting to be a chef, to doing EMT work, to nursing and I just couldn't figure it out. Then, in a career class that I had we had to do a project on our future occupation, and I loathed the teacher that taught that class. So naturally I did my presentation on teaching to spite him, and tell that that he was a horrendous teacher. Three years have passes since then and here I am, about o finish my education minor.

When it comes to technology I am pretty hit or miss, I can whiz through most android phones with ease because I had a part time job at Cricket Wireless. With computers I am pretty average and can figure my way through most things. When you put an iPhone or Mac or anything that runs OS or IOS I really stumble, I have a hard time using those types of tech. There have been multiple times at school where I have had to use a Mac and I have to have someone next to me that knows how to use these because I am always asking how to do something.

In this class i am hoping to learn to use different learning software that will be able to help with things such as grading, classroom organization, and the presentation of information to the class. So far many of the teachers that I have talked with still do much of their grading by hand and use software like Power Point to convey information to the class. I am hoping to break away a little from this and find easier and more effective ways to relay information to a class.



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