Capstone II Session 4

The first article in the docket for this session is a real snoozer.  "Global Education On a Dime:  A Low-Cost Way to Connect" by Alexander Russo on the Edutopia website shares some free resources to help classrooms around the world connect for learning.  The article talks about locating globally connected resources in your community first.  It encourages teachers to focus on content and not technology.  Then it shares a list of free collaborative tools and ends with a note on about dealing with time differences.  Nothing in this article was new to me.

Next up was "Behavyourself.com:  Online Manners Matter," by Laila Weir.  The general idea is that teaching online behavior is important and should be done in schools.  The one true benefit of this article is the list of netiquette rules that it has at the end of the article.  Again nothing I didn't already know about.

The third reading was "Passport to Digital Citizenship," by Mike Ribble.  While I don't like the heavy emphasis on the ISTE standards at the beginning, I do like some of the things Mike says at the end.  Specifically I like his comments about "gearing down" where students actually have to get rid of or stop using technologies that they use at home when they come to school.  I also like the nine standards that are mentioned.  As always I would like to see some more concrete examples of each, rather than the pie in the sky academic writing.  I do like his idea of having a common language when it comes to technology between the home and the school.   

The program shared a few other web resources related to internet safety that I was already aware of.  (Are you sensing a trend yet?) 

Thank goodness for IT techs

I learned

• to check and make sure the tool you need to fix the problem  is working BEFORE you create the problem...
• that when the laptops we use at work can not find the network they operate under a temporary setting which causes the user to FREAK OUT because they think all of their files are gone...
• that just because I do this real cool technological thing in the classroom it doesn't mean that it was a good instructional practice
• how my works network is set up  

I was reminded

• to see the good in people rather than the bad and that no matter what a person looks like, they are still a person worthy of love...
• how important it is to talk with my wife on a regular basis.... 
• that Jesus died for our mistakes