I recently read a post by Will Richardson which referenced the 2008 National Cyber Security Alliance’s Baseline Study on Cyber Security, Ethics, and Safety. I was shocked to find out that less than 25 percent of teachers feel comfortable talking to their students about these types of Internet Safety topics. Why? I’m thinking it’s something along the lines of not wanting to have “The Talk” with your kids. So many parents fear that discussion as well, although again I wonder why. I think parents and teachers are afraid to broach uncomfortable subjects with kids. I tend to think that many parents these days try to protect their children from any discomfort, which I think is horribly wrong, but more on that another time.
So I read the full report to find out what teachers are saying about why they feel unprepared to discuss this topic, and basically their responses are either “It’s not my problem, ask the IT guy,” or “I don’t understand this myself, so how can I teach my students?” or “Stop giving me more things to teach my students, I’m already overwhelmed!!!” (Ummm, those are paraphrased, by the way…) First, I have to say that I totally understand where they are coming from. Teaching is an extremely difficult profession, and teachers get nowhere near the respect (and pay!) they deserve! So now you add Cyber Safety to the mountain of other subjects that teachers have to be trained in, so they can properly educate their students, in addition to all those ridiculous tests (oh, don’t get me started on tests…), and no wonder we are overwhelmed.
But I think what the teachers who don’t feel comfortable with this topic don’t realize is that Internet Safety is not just something we have to teach our students, it’s something we ALL need to know about. Just as someone else said, we don’t think twice about teaching our children to look before they cross the street! The Internet is here to stay. It is part of our world. And if you are going to use a computer, then you should know what to look out for, so you can stay safe. It’s not hard to find the information you need to get informed. Ask a friend, look up Internet Safety on the Internet(!), invite your IT guy to come explain to the class how he keeps them safe every day (a new superhero!) We can’t be afraid that we will scare our students, or rub their parents the wrong way by teaching them about the dangers that are out there in Cyberspace. Wouldn’t we rather be safe than sorry?
Monday, February 9, 2009
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
Say Yes to Dirt!
Finally, I have found an article that confirms what I have said all along regarding allergies and diseases: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/27/health/27brod.html?_r=1&em
We are TOO CLEAN! All this antibiotic, antiseptic, antibacterial nonsense is doing us more harm than good! Our bodies NEED to be exposed to viruses, germs, and bacteria so that we can build resistance to them. But there are so many people out there telling us to wash, wash, wash; boil, avoid, sanitize! I personally, think it has become a little crazy.
When I was pregnant with my first child, my former boss actually told me to avoid eating peanut butter while pregnant because the baby might become allergic. Well, guess what I craved? I couldn’t stomach lunchmeat, so I had a PB&J almost every day for lunch. My doctor told me that was ridiculous- he said, “You drink water- is the baby going to be allergic to water?” Yes, a simplistic argument, but he made his point. Then, after she was born, everyone said, “Make people wash their hands before they touch her! Don’t let other kids touch her! Don’t take her out of the house until she’s 6 weeks old!” RIDICULOUS! I was encouraged, by all well meaning friends and relatives, to wash her clothes separately in special detergent, and boil her baby bottles, and boil water for her bottles, and boil any toys that fell on the floor, and wipe other toys with sanitizing wipes, and for gosh sake keep her away from other babies and kids. Meh. I basically ignored all that. I used (gasp!) tap water to make her bottles, and let her crawl around on the ground, and took no special measures when it came to cleaning her toys or washing her clothes. And the same goes for my second child as well. And you know what? May God bless them, they are two of the most healthy kids I know. They both had some mild “allergy-type” issues when they were little- they both had reflux and were on Soy formula for a few months, but they grew out of it.
Now, what would I have done if they had major allergies? I guess I would have different opinions, but as far as our experience goes, their exposure to everyday germs and possible allergens has made them healthier. I think we need to rethink as a society our need for “extreme clean.” I think a little dirt just might make us all a little healthier.
We are TOO CLEAN! All this antibiotic, antiseptic, antibacterial nonsense is doing us more harm than good! Our bodies NEED to be exposed to viruses, germs, and bacteria so that we can build resistance to them. But there are so many people out there telling us to wash, wash, wash; boil, avoid, sanitize! I personally, think it has become a little crazy.
When I was pregnant with my first child, my former boss actually told me to avoid eating peanut butter while pregnant because the baby might become allergic. Well, guess what I craved? I couldn’t stomach lunchmeat, so I had a PB&J almost every day for lunch. My doctor told me that was ridiculous- he said, “You drink water- is the baby going to be allergic to water?” Yes, a simplistic argument, but he made his point. Then, after she was born, everyone said, “Make people wash their hands before they touch her! Don’t let other kids touch her! Don’t take her out of the house until she’s 6 weeks old!” RIDICULOUS! I was encouraged, by all well meaning friends and relatives, to wash her clothes separately in special detergent, and boil her baby bottles, and boil water for her bottles, and boil any toys that fell on the floor, and wipe other toys with sanitizing wipes, and for gosh sake keep her away from other babies and kids. Meh. I basically ignored all that. I used (gasp!) tap water to make her bottles, and let her crawl around on the ground, and took no special measures when it came to cleaning her toys or washing her clothes. And the same goes for my second child as well. And you know what? May God bless them, they are two of the most healthy kids I know. They both had some mild “allergy-type” issues when they were little- they both had reflux and were on Soy formula for a few months, but they grew out of it.
Now, what would I have done if they had major allergies? I guess I would have different opinions, but as far as our experience goes, their exposure to everyday germs and possible allergens has made them healthier. I think we need to rethink as a society our need for “extreme clean.” I think a little dirt just might make us all a little healthier.
Monday, January 26, 2009
New Media
I, for one, am fascinated by the possibilities of technology. I spend way too much time a lot of time surfing the internet for information about the latest trends, as they apply to education. And also, as they apply to making life easier and more interesting. My “Totally Tech” elective is going to be discussing the topic of New Media, so here’s a little cross-post from our class wiki:
“Recently we have begun a discussion of New Media. What is it, and why do we care? Well, our class did some research on what it means, and the consensus was that:
“New Media is any kind of digital, interactive way of getting and producing information.”
Some of the examples that we listed were:
Youtube
Facebook
Twitter
Myspace
Blogs
So, why should we care about this? Well, the way people receive information is rapidly changing from even the way our parents did. For example, when your parents were your age, they may have watched the news or read the newspaper to find out about current events. For today’s students, there are countless options available through the use of technology. Sure, you can still watch the news or (gasp!) read the paper, but you can also have your RSS feed reader send you automatic updates from MSNBC.com, or use your iphone Twitter app to check updates from your “following” list, which may include our new president. If you just said “huh?”, don’t feel bad. Technology changes so rapidly it is hard to keep up! Check out this link to one of my favorite blogs for another way phone and internet users are changing the way we get our news.”
My recent pesonal example of this was the CNN/Facebook live Inauguration “party” (although I doubt that’s what CNN would call it). Basically, if you went to http://www.cnn.com on Inauguration Day, and logged into your Facebook account, you could stream the video of the ceremony and comment about it with other users (hmm… I wonder how many people signed up for an account that day just so they could comment…clever marketing, Facebook!) It was very interesting to watch the Inauguration from this perspective. And one of the most interesting things that happened to me that day was that the news about Ted Kennedy broke on the live chat BEFORE it even appeared on the television news! For a person who is on the verge between being a Digital Native and a Digital Immigrant, this was COOL! You see, in my classroom I had both the TV and the live CNN stream on the computer going at once. There was a bit of a lag in the online stream, but not much. However, I suddenly started seeing user comments wishing Ted Kennedy good luck, and things like “I hope he’s okay,” and so I turned to the TV and started flipping channels so I could figure out what they were talking about. NBC, CBS, ABC, CNN, etc. had nothing about this. I did a quick Google News search on Ted Kennedy. Nothing. Comments were flooding in to Facebook. About twenty minutes later, the NBC news reporter mentioned something about it on TV. So, somehow, the online community learned this news before the television news media got a hold of it. That’s pretty interesting, and I think this is only the beginning.
We are the creators of our news. Just watch and see.
“Recently we have begun a discussion of New Media. What is it, and why do we care? Well, our class did some research on what it means, and the consensus was that:
“New Media is any kind of digital, interactive way of getting and producing information.”
Some of the examples that we listed were:
Youtube
Myspace
Blogs
So, why should we care about this? Well, the way people receive information is rapidly changing from even the way our parents did. For example, when your parents were your age, they may have watched the news or read the newspaper to find out about current events. For today’s students, there are countless options available through the use of technology. Sure, you can still watch the news or (gasp!) read the paper, but you can also have your RSS feed reader send you automatic updates from MSNBC.com, or use your iphone Twitter app to check updates from your “following” list, which may include our new president. If you just said “huh?”, don’t feel bad. Technology changes so rapidly it is hard to keep up! Check out this link to one of my favorite blogs for another way phone and internet users are changing the way we get our news.”
My recent pesonal example of this was the CNN/Facebook live Inauguration “party” (although I doubt that’s what CNN would call it). Basically, if you went to http://www.cnn.com on Inauguration Day, and logged into your Facebook account, you could stream the video of the ceremony and comment about it with other users (hmm… I wonder how many people signed up for an account that day just so they could comment…clever marketing, Facebook!) It was very interesting to watch the Inauguration from this perspective. And one of the most interesting things that happened to me that day was that the news about Ted Kennedy broke on the live chat BEFORE it even appeared on the television news! For a person who is on the verge between being a Digital Native and a Digital Immigrant, this was COOL! You see, in my classroom I had both the TV and the live CNN stream on the computer going at once. There was a bit of a lag in the online stream, but not much. However, I suddenly started seeing user comments wishing Ted Kennedy good luck, and things like “I hope he’s okay,” and so I turned to the TV and started flipping channels so I could figure out what they were talking about. NBC, CBS, ABC, CNN, etc. had nothing about this. I did a quick Google News search on Ted Kennedy. Nothing. Comments were flooding in to Facebook. About twenty minutes later, the NBC news reporter mentioned something about it on TV. So, somehow, the online community learned this news before the television news media got a hold of it. That’s pretty interesting, and I think this is only the beginning.
We are the creators of our news. Just watch and see.
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