Social Media

by Yoel Ben-Avraham Flicker

Kids are using social media to communicate and get informed. Not only are they using social media to express and educate themselves they are doing it in a way they enjoy. As a future teacher my goal is to have a student be able to learn in an enjoyable way, so why not incorporate social media in the way we teach. Allowing a student to use a tool such as twitter or Facebook, a familiar networking site, to translate what they feel about a new subject or as a form of education. Social media has impacted the way we educate students in todays age. It’s not as acceptable to parents and other adults due to the risk  that comes with it, we teach parents to beware of all the bad things that are out their, but have we informed them about the potential this tool can give a child. Using moderation is key, for example kidsblog.org this is a perfect example of a balanced technology tool for kids. Educating our new generation for the real working world is our goal as a teacher and using technology should be on the top of the list in order to get our kids ready. Social media seems like it has a faster update than the news now a days and it also allows the audience to voice out their opinions. This is what makes an innovated person who is not afraid to voice out new ideas and throw out pitches. Social media is very important in todays world, allowing it in our educational lectures should be beneficial.

by Spencer E Holtaway Flicker

Crystal Ball

http://www.popplet.com

Popplet is a website that has been in use since 2010. This educational tool is also used by large companies to visualize, brainstorm and map ideas. Popplet is a simple tool to use, making it available to any grade level. Brainstorming is a very important step, this allows the student to process all the information they know and still need to start no the big project. As a teacher this can be monitored with Popplet. Popplet has educator plans that are priced per student by year. The teacher can give a code that every student can use to access this website and even collaborate with other students for a group activity. Please check the video bellow to see this in action.

This tool has great features and the ability to navigate thru the site is very easy, that being said this tool has also great potential to expand. Expanding this tool with more designs, backgrounds and pre-layouts can help get the creator inspired to start their new Poppet. Besides the lack of inspirational resource this tool lacks of it has more of an individualize form and can mold to any project. This tool does come with a price per student and its by year, meaning there are brackets that go by the amount of students that would subscribe and use Popplet and these brackets go by school year. Please refer to the pricing bellow provided by popplet.com

This tool could be used in the future, its Eco-friendly and easy to reuse. It also assist to the visual students that need to see the whole picture. The ability to use this in a group meeting is very helpful if students cannot meet and need an outline or to brainstorm, the boxes added are programed to have the users name in order to show the teacher who made that point or reference.

In conclusion this is a great tool anyone can use to map a bigger project. Student have the ability to have a taste of using technology, sharing it with their group, teacher, add pictures, videos and more.

Copyright

Learning about copyright laws shocking me and scared me a bit, okay more than a bit. Becoming aware of them was and going over what is fair use and how do teachers are able to use these rules way a great way to ease my mind. I feel allot more comfortable after reading and viewing the informations given to us the prior week.

Opensourceway / CC BY-SA

I was familiar with some of the copyright laws, I worked in the copy center at office max for 4 years. We were not able to copy worksheets, books, pictures and etc. I knew there was a piece of paper we would hand the customer is copies were needed and they had a copyright logo. I later learned that the piece of paper was the form one needs to requesting the permission to make copies. This law seemed intimidating to people and many of them including myself didn’t understand why we needed this. Then I was employed at a photography place where I learned about copyright on the other side, the person who held the copy rights to the photographs we shoot. I learned that many customers would come in and request the rights to the pictures they were in and for a fee we would print a certificate of a copyright release allowing them to scan and copy the images. Other customers would just pay the for the copy of the image, which was 3x the amount in comparison to Costco photo center. What surprised me the most was the idea of having four major variables to find out if the idea of using someone else’s work is illegal. At the end it seems like as long as us as the teachers are not causing the company or individual to loose money its in fair use. Making it a very manipulative law that can be perceived in many ways. As a future teacher, having a large gray area is difficult to know what is right and wrong. learning the rules of the copyright laws is very important for me as a teacher, since allot of the information that will be taught can be presented in a picture as a supportive visual prop i need to be able to make sure proper credit is given to the creator of the work in order to stay in the clear.

Hubble Telescope/Three pillars/NASA/ No known copyright restrictions