Digital Citizenship for Our Future!

           

                  Digital Citizenship is a concept which helps teachers and technology leaders understand what students should know to use technology appropriately which serves as a way to teach students how to react in a world of technology. ("Open Thinking, 2007). For digital citizenship, I chose to focus in on a third grade classroom environment I chose this age because they are older enough where they are being given the responsibility to use computers, and the internet to do research independently.

In a              In a world that is ever evolving in the area of technology, we as future teachers must keep ourselves educated in order to be able to provide our students with current and useful information and resources. It is very important that we do so, or our students will pass us right up! The knowledge that today's average third grade student has of technological resources is mind blowing! Therefore we must be the eyes and ears there to remind them of how to properly use technology and keep themselves safe and secure on the internet. Children, at this age, do not know any better than to get on the internet and type in exactly what it is asking for. This could be a name, phone number, address, or photo. Also, kids do not know that not everything on the internet is true and if we do not teach them these things, who will!

As y               As young as children may seem to us at a third grade level, unfortunately there are still many issues that can arise for them when using the internet. Today's third graders know much more than we did when we were young about technology and they know the resources but, they do not know how to use them until they are properly taught. Because of this, we as future teachers must make them aware of digital citizenship and how to keep themselves safe on the internet. At this age, it would not be uncommon for them to have cell phones and to be taking harmless pictures with their friends but what may be harmless to them can be very dangerous to put on the internet for multiple reasons. Therefore we must be there to teach them what is appropriate and what is not. Also, they may come across a website that asks them for their information such as phone number, address, name etc and they do not know potentially how dangerous this could be. If they are not taught to not make this information public they are more than likely to do so. On the Internet, unfortunately in some cases, pop-ups are not blocked and if this occurs, our students need to know that the information being given is 99.9% of the time false. It is easy for an adult to in some cases fall for a free ipad or Hawaii vacation let alone a child who does not know any better.

Anot             Another aspect of technology that is harm full for children that they may not be aware of is that every picture or word they put on the Internet, even if it has been deleted, it will never be gone. This is very dangerous for young children who do not think before they act. This could be detrimental to their future endeavors if their digital footprint is negative. It is our job as future parents and teachers to educate children about digital citizenship and how to keep themselves safe on the Internet. Below is a Prezi that I created on the idea of digital citizenship. Within the prezi I have some information on how digital citizenship can be incorporated in a classroom and some different information including the nine themes. Also, I have links to four use full sites that can be used in the classroom to introduce and teach digital citizenship. These resources were all found on current teacher websites and I checked them all to make sure they are appropriate and useful. Hope you enjoy! Thank again for visiting my Blog!!

 

Works Cited

Learning To Unlearn

     The thought at first, to unlearn to ultimately become a better teacher seems backward but after reading the chapter in order to understand the meaning behind it, it makes complete sense.  Unlearning is the process of leaving behind old ideas or ways of doing something and basically trading in those for new, more efficient ideas or ways of doing things.  In my opinion, I feel that this is going to be a struggle of mine even though I know that it is going to be beneficial to my future students.  

        I feel that there are multiple things that we as future teachers are going to have to unlearn and relearn because times are changing. One of the most important things that I think we must unlearn as a whole generation is the idea of technology in the classroom.  Most kids nowadays depend on technology to much in my opinion and most teachers do not utilize it enough.  There are so many great opportunities that come from technology such as whiteboards.  This is a great way to get ideas for your class through other teachers. We as teachers also must learn to unlearn that we are the teacher we need to be open and able to learn from our students.  We need to teach our students how to communicate with others and also how to relay information to there classmates. I feel that we have to become the student and think back to how we were taught and reflect in our own teaching ways.

My first attempt at Flipped Learning!

Hello Again!
In my Tech for Ed class we were recently introduced to a new form of educating students called, "Flipped Learning". This was my first time hearing about flipped learning and I have to say that I love this approach. I feel that this kind of teaching is better suited for upper elementary grades and may only be 100% successful if all of your students have access to a computer at home which unfortunately is not reality. Although, with that being said this is something I invision to be very beneficial to students because with this model, they get more time where the teacher is helping them one on one with there specific needs. This is something that I know is becoming more and more popular in my area so hopefully when I become a teacher this is something that I can utilize. My flipped lesson is geared toward a second grade class in the subject of math. The video is a lesson on how to use regrouping when adding. My video does cut out in the middle because I messed up :/ but it was my first try so all in all I think that it went well. In the begining coming up with the idea was challenging because we are always taught to make a lesson plan for what you would do in class but I enjoyed the challenge!
For after this lesson, the next day in school, I would have the students bring in their practice problems and according to how they did I would split them into groups by ability and have them work in groups to complete problems on their level. I feel like flipped learning is a great way to build students confidence in the fact that when they come in (as long as they had an assessment at the end of the video) you as the teacher will always be able to group them and help them according to what you know they can do! I feel like flipped learning is most definitely an option for me as a future teacher! Hope you enjoy my video thanks!!

This Week!

Hello again! Our assignment for Tech for ed this week was to post about our previous week in regards to our education classes and what we have been doing.  The one education class that I am in from BC3 is Children's Environment.  The past few weeks we have been learning about how prenatal actions taken by a mother can affect a child for the rest of there lives.  To me, this topic is very interesting but also sad at the same time just thinking how every decision we make affects children so drastically. In that same education course, we are planning our field placements for this upcoming fall semester.  I am super excited to do field and finally get the chance to make relationships and teach children.  In the Edinboro education course, we are working on presenting a calender time that is geared toward lower elementary schools to our class.  It is challenging but we have a great group so we always make it fun!  Thanks for reading!  I'll keep you posted on how my road to being a teacher is progressing everyday.

A Twitter Find!

So, I just became a part of the twitter world for my Tech for Ed class and at first I was not happy about it. Although after being on there for about a week now I realize that it is not all bad. I have been finding many interesting posts and following other education students, educators, and principals. I now agree that this is a great resource when used for the proper reasons. One of the more recent interesting things that I came across was a tweet about the 20 movies that every educator should see.  This list includes an overview of the movie and why the educator should see it.  Hope you enjoy it as much as I did!

Welcome to OUR classroom!

Hello everyone! Welcome to a part of our future classroom. This is my most recent project for my Tech for Ed class. This presentation is a version of what I will present to my future classroom and there parents. It includes an introduction of myself, my teaching philosophy, and how I plan to integrate technology into my future classroom. Also, attached is a feedback form. If you take the time to read my post please leave me feedback. Thanks, Ms. Tiffani Suszynski

Look What I Found For My Future Classroom...

I recently began to follow eight different teacher, of various grade levels, on the Scholastic website.  Each of the eight teachers is from a different state across the United States and all have a different area of interest.  I feel that this particular blog site will be very beneficial to someone like myself, venturing to become a future teacher, because being from different states means they will all have a different spectrum on the same issue.  Also, because they all have a different area of interest, I feel that with any problem I will come across in my future one of the eight will have my solution at hand.


I LOVE TO TEACH!!

Today, when I went on this blog, the featured teacher was Genia Connell, a third grade teacher from Michigan.  The featured blog was, Help for the Organizational Challenged Teacher, which gave numerous tips on how to keep your classroom organized.  One of my favorite tips from this specific blog post was this.In my mind, this is a smart way to keep your classroom organized   This may not be something that you as the teacher does but I feel that giving out an award to the students for the cleanest desk will promote them to keep their areas clean.  What third grade student does not want an award to take home at the end of the day? And this offers an easy way for them to receive it, and it also helps the teacher out immensely at the end of the day when they are ready to clean the room and go home!

All About Me

Hi I am Ms. Tiffani Suszynski.

My dream is to become a teacher, one who teaches young children, but that is not where my dreams stop.  I would love to own a bakery someday.  Making cupcakes and cakes has become my true hobby.  Another hobby of mine is simply spending time with my family, friends, and my boyfriend.

I have a great family. Big and Italian describes us perfectly! However, I only have one sibling.  He is my older brother who is currently serving in the Air Force. He is far away from me and my family, but the different world that he is getting to experience is awesome and life changing for him.  I have great friends who I can count on.  My boyfriend is awesome.  We have been together five years and we are both going to be teachers. Hopefully one day we will get to share the dream together! 

Another thing that I would love to pursue in my lifetime is traveling.  I want to see the world!  I am not fond of over used sayings, although I do agree with Yolo or as I refer to it, you only live once.  My favorite travel spot thus far in life is New York City.  I have been there about seven times and would love to live there one day.  

To be honest, this class turned out to be a lot different than I had expected.  This is not a bad thing at all because I am very excited for what it is going to entail.  Day one was busy and I feel like I have already learned a lot.  I would describe my technology skills as sub par.  I choose not to be a part of the Twitter and Facebook scene because of the way people utilize the social networking sites.  Although I do rely heavily on Google for school work along with Microsoft programs, I also utilize the online library for most of my work.   

I feel as though technology has been ruined for me by those who do not use it correctly.  In saying this, and hoping to become a successful teacher, I am very eager to develop my technology skills and learn more.  I feel that technology should be a tool used for learning, however not the main source.  I feel that is where I get lost.  I do plan to bring technology into my classroom and teach children how to utilize it to make it an effective tool for learning inside and outside of the classroom.