Week 3 course 525

Last week, we started with a review of some resources that are available. I could see using the BrainPop in my sixth grade science curriculum, but the other websites seemed like they would not be very useful for me as a sixth grade teacher. The next topic we discussed was the article about the cyberbully from New Berlin. There are always going to be creeps out there and this was another example of why we need to remind students to never put something on the internet that they would not show their parents! I am also torn about the social networking as a teacher’s idea. Should we as teachers allow students access to our Facebook accounts and have them as our friends so that they know that we can view their sites? If we did that, students would know that we are watching them and they keep them clean. Or, are we going to look like creeps for viewing student’s Myspace accounts. I have opted for blocking students from my social networks just as a precaution. However, I am torn on this because somebody needs to monitor what some of these kids are doing on the net or it becomes too tempting to abuse. It is kind of like giving students shop tools and not teaching them how to use them safely.The last thing that we did was to go to a professional online network. I found it interesting to be in the network and I checked out some other sessions on the environment that were going on. I have taken a course through Blackboard and I think that it is an amazing to use tools that spark conversation and build on thoughts and ideas!