Ms. Cassidy seems like a very caring, enthusiastic educator. She recognizes children are starting to use technology in their daily lives at a much younger age than before. Ms. Cassidy urges the use of technology in the classroom; if you're not using it, she feels you're only "handicapping" you're students.
In the midst of using technology, she understands the importance of her student's safety and takes necessary precautions to maintain that. She stresses to her students that they should never reveal their last name on the internet. Also, they should never post their pictures alongside their names. Keeping the students' identities safe in this manner will put a lot of parents' minds at ease.
Another factor that might please parents is the maintenance of an online portfolio. Instead of waiting for a parent-teacher conference to be brought up to speed with the child's progress, parents can monitor everything online. If they have a question or concern about a particular lesson or assignment, it can be addressed a lot sooner.
Ms. Cassidy also touches on commenting. She tells her students that if they are to leave a comment on someone's blog, they should post something nice. As the old saying goes, "If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all." After all, these kids are just starting out and they need encouragement more than anything, not criticism.
Towards the end of the interview, an EDM 310 student asked Ms. Cassidy if she was ever concerned about current students copying work from students in the past. I thought this was a legitimate question. It's true that so much is accessible through the internet, and many may take a shortcut and "borrow" the ideas of others. I think Ms. Cassidy has a great solution to that. She understands that information is becoming more collaborative, therefore the professor should become more creative in the way they ask to present information so that it's not possible to take just someone else's work and claim it as your own. It's a little reminder that, as educators, we shouldn't become passive in our work. Our job is to stimulate the minds of our students, so we need to be creative ourselves.
Hello Lana!
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed reading your post. You did a great job on summarizing the interview. I found Ms. Cassidy to be a very interesting person also! Until this class, I felt I had no use for technology with my students. Now I am very glad I have had this class. Teachers like Mrs. Cassidy have inspired me to learn more about technology. I think you picked out what is most important about her students blogging. Have you learned anything from this post? What kind of things will you use in your classroom? I have found a great technique in remembering things I want to use in my classroom. I have a file saved on my computer of notes and pictures to help me remember.
I agree. Individualized, personal projects can reduce the using of other's work.
ReplyDelete