PLN 19

For this PLN I read an article on Roger's Personal blog called, "Retakes" which clearly discussed whether retakes for students should be offered or not.

Mr. Hess,
None of my teachers allow retakes on almost anything and I wish that sometimes they would. I believe that I am a hard working student, but sometimes I can just totally bomb a test on account of either being nervous or just unsure about a topic. Therefore retakes on tests could be very helpful in saving a grade sometimes. Then again like you were saying many students’ grades wouldn’t even change from the first test to the second test showing that not much of an effort change was made. Honestly if someone gets a very low F on a test chances are they aren’t going to get an A on the retake because obviously they were missing a big portion of the knowledge needed. Still a retake could make the difference from a C to a B which is a pretty big difference, and if that did happen that shows that there was more studying and a bigger effort in the retake than in the first test. So, then the question remains is it a good idea to have retakes available to those students that truly will try harder the second time around, or just eliminate that option and not deal with the hassle of the students whose performance remains poor on the tests? Honestly because I am not a teacher I can’t really say what I would do in that situation but as a student I think that retakes should be available because there are those students like I said who will really use that opportunity to improve their grade.

PLN 18

I read an article on Will Richardson's blog called, "Study; Young Kids Online" which was talking about how the internet is a "highly commercial medium" even to kids as young as ages from 2-8 years of age.

Dear Mr. Richardson,

I found this article to be surprising that already companies are trying to reach out their products to children at such a young age. I actually clicked on the links provided and did notice that you had to purchase a membership to either join the online learning and communicating site, or be able to access certain “abilities” that maybe a certain game had. There are advertisements everywhere, even in the most unexpected areas like these websites that will then connect you to another site that is sponsored by yet another site that just wants you to buy their products. The thing is it is not actually the kids who are paying for these products it is the parents! Last time I checked an eight year old doesn’t have a credit card which is what you usually need to purchase something online. It is total manipulation of the children and the parents, the kids want to be apart of the online community to maybe play the games or chat with other kids, and the parents can’t say no to a “learning” experience.

PLN 17

I responded to Kristin's post titled, "Quiet Student" which talked about the problem teachers have with having class discussions with students who do not participate.

I made many connections to this blog with mixed feelings about these situations. In many of my classes we have large discussions and have used the “fishbowl” technique. This reminds me of when we would have Socratic Seminars in middle school and my teacher would actually have us write down who we thought was the “Captain Obvious” (person who stated obvious facts that didn’t help the conversation), the “Silent Bob” (person who never talked), the “Chatty Cathy” (person who would non stop talk taking up the entire conversation), and the “Doctor Brilliant” (person who made very good points and contributed well to the seminar. Then he would actually read the names aloud of who got the most votes for each personality. Looking back at it I think that this was a horrible thing to do, because if someone was voted the “Chatty Cathy” then next discussion they wouldn’t say a word in fear of having that title again. In my opinion I think there are a few students who choose to not participate simply because they have no interest in the subject and don’t care all that much about their grade. Then again that is not fair to those students who do care but are too shy to speak their opinion. Therefore I like the idea of having alternatives to the discussion, that way if the student really does want to participate they will have that opportunity to do so. For example maybe the class could write down their views on a piece of paper and then the teacher could read what they wrote to the rest of the class, then to those who do enjoy speaking could respond verbally to that.

2 Presentation Reaction

For my second presentation I think that I did a little better on making smooth transitions through my PLNs and topics. I still need to make a little more eye contact but I think I did a little bit better this time. I spoke loudly and clearly and made good points and connections in all of my PLNs. My question seemed to spark a good conversation too so I was pleased with that. Overall I think I had a fairly good presentation the second time around.

PLN 16

I just recently read a shocking blog about an Elementary school teacher who had posted inapropriate information on their personal webpage. This blog was posted on Will Richardson's page titled, "Teaching Googleableness (Con't)".

When I read this I was quite shocked and appalled that an Elementary school teacher would say such things on a public site. At first I was skeptical on the whole “Googleing” people thing because I thought that it might be taking background checks a little too far, but now I think that it may be necessary. It kind of seems absurd that the school administrators had not seen any red flags before finding this online webpage. This relates to me because I am always being told to be careful about what I put online at all times. There is nothing ever private on the internet (in my opinion) so you always must be aware of what you are putting out there for everyone to see. I am not saying that this person should have “hid” there information better, but to those younger people especially must be cautious about what they post online.
On the question asked about whose to blame, well honestly I think that the people who hired this teacher are at fault a bit. Even though it’s not like they really could have seen this coming, I guess it just goes to show you never really can know what someone could be hiding. I still think that they did make a mistake on hiring what could have been a danger to these young students. This person obviously lived a life that was clearly not appropriate for children to be around. If they had done a more in-depth search on their employees I’m sure that just by typing their name on Google, MySpace, or FaceBook could have easily brought up this information before hand and saved them from dealing with this trouble. Therefore I have changed my opinion a little on making kids and adults “Googleable” because apparently it can be very useful in these situations