Online Safety in the Classroom and at Home

LTSM, Students Giving their "Facebook Profile Poster," Demonstration.

As a teacher I think it is extremely important to educate children in technological matters. Without a doubt this will be the future of their lives. They will need a firm and educated knowledge of the online world to be successful.  Technology is only going to continue to evolve and the more they are comfortable with it now, the easier they will be able to evolve with it.

It is essential teachers and parents do their part to acquaint themselves with what is on the web and the sites their children are visiting.  It is our responsibility to make sure they have the knowledge to navigate the web safely and under our guidance and protection.

The best way for you to be in touch with your children is to know and understand their likes and dislikes, their friends, and what they are all obsessed with at the moment.  And boy is it fleeting! Once you realize what they are in to, it usually has already changed into something else entirely.  So, get ready to get actively involved!  

Awesomely enough, Disney, one of the mainstream players in grabbing your child's fleeting interest, has created a website to help you get in touch with the online world and what might interest your kids.

Here is the website:  Club Penguin. The online safety campaign, It Starts With You, launched with this very helpful and for me, fun, list of vocabulary your kids might be using right now. 

Enjoy!

The words included are:

POSITIVE WORDS

Epic - used when something is awesome or amazing

YOLO – an acronym for you only live once

Bro – a boy’s best friend

Like a boss - well achieved

Dece - means decent

Cushti/Kooshty - decent

Naughty - it is good

Savage - it is good

A touch - means something is good/positive

Reem - cool

Swag – from the word swagger, it means style/confidence

Fetch - awesome

Rare - desirable

Jock - cool/athletic

Player - Cool/attractive

FTW - for the win

Sick - cool

Rents - parents

Fly - cool

Keed - kid joke

Ill - amazing

Legit - good/authentic

Tekkers - skills



NEGATIVE

Crab/crabby - crap/crappy

Derp – stupid, taken from a character in South Park Mr Derp

Spinout - means weird

Gate - hate

Butters - means ugly, from butterface, as in “nice body, but her face…”

Lowe that – can't be bothered

Bun - general term of negativity/ swear word

Bov - means don't care

Jank - means gross/disgusting.

Ratchet – a new version of chav, a variation of wretched

Beach - bitch

Prep - snob/stuck up

Outers - out of order

Basic - simple/unintelligent

Noob - new inexperienced player/stupid

Troll - intentionally mean

Dub- unintelligent

Jelly- jealous

Tool - unintelligent/annoying

Blond - unintelligent

Creep/creeper - stalking/weird person

Owned - embarrassed

Neg - annoying

Beef - problem

B@ - banned

Pwned - To be made a fool of or proved wrong.

Be the Change You Want to See-Ghandi

I know, I know. It is very over used and may sound a tad cliche, but it really is one of the greatest motivators to stop complaining and make it happen.

I am extremely opinionated. I get an idea in my mind and think that everyone else should be able to see it as clearly as I do. Usually my ideas come from wanting to make the complexities of life, simplified.

Unfortunately, my frankness comes across as complaining. Now, I think there is a clear distinction between admitting there is a problem and creating a solution verses just complaining without reason or without a solution.

The listeners just don't get it.  Or maybe they don't think its a problem.  I think anything that makes life harder is a problem and therefore should be evaluated and solved.

One problem I want to solve is the gap between children and adults, or the controllers verses the controlled.  I want to see a future where the antiquated view of a child being less intelligent than adults or unable to control themselves is a thing of the 20th century, not the 21st.

Now, the older I get the more I realize age has nothing to do with emotional and intellectual intelligence.  There are a lot of kids out there do amazing things these days.  Kid President is one of my favorites!

There are also, just as many adults doing very ignorant things---HEllo? War, fighting over really stupid things liking parking spots or property lines.  I believe I had the same fight with my brother when I was seven: "This is my side! You can't touch my side of the seat! Keep your fingers on your side!"  Same argument, amplified context.

So, I want my students to start recognizing the importance of who they are now. I want them to have an active and partnering role in the learning process.

Which is why I decided to allow them to have an open discussion forum the next few days in class about what they like and don't like about our class, things they want to improve on, what they think they should be evaluated on, how they feel in our classroom, and things they like and don't like about me. (That's a wee bit frightening).

I admit I have always complained about the voices of children being lost, but now I am going to stop, address, the problem, and start being the change I want to see.

Wish us luck!

Vacation Summary Winners

This year in our class we are using more internet tools.  One of these tools is Blogger.  After the students write their assignments I will choose a few to highlight by posting them on this blog. This is entirely their work, written and edited by them.

The following are selections from students at Liceo Taller San Miguel in Pereira, Colombia.  They are all native Spanish speakers learning to read and write in English.

We hope you enjoy!

This summer vacation I did many things and had lots of fun. The first day of vacation was my birthday so I celebrated it by going to Boliz with my cousins. At Boliz we ice skated, bowled, and played other games. It was a lot of fun! After that I went to U.S.A to visit my dad and the rest of my family in Florida. With my dad I went to the beach, to Universal, to SeaWorld, and ate lots of hamburgers. Another thing I did was learn to scuba dive and got my scuba diver certificate. Scuba diving was fun because I was underwater swimming with all the fishes. Towards the end of vacation I came back to Colombia and stayed the last week at my aunt's farm. On the last day of vacation I was a bit sad because the vacations were over, but now summer is over and we're back in school.

Sabrina Gutierrez 8th Grade, at Liceo Taller San Miguel

MY FANTASTIC VACATIONS
(By Miguel Benítez Quintero)
On my last vacations my family and I went to Cancun in Mexico. These were a fantastic vacations.
We traveled from Medellin to Cancun. The travel was really comfortable. In Cancun we arrived to a hotel located on the beach, it was a fantastic hotel, with seven (7) restaurants and variety of foods, five (5) pools and a water park for all the family. The beach was very amazing, the sand was white, the water was warm and the weather was excellent.
In Cancun we were in the malls and in the Mayan museum, an important place where we knew about the Mayan culture.
Around Cancun we visited many important attractions; for example, to three hours from the city is Chichen Itza, the most important Mayan City, there we were walking to the Pyramid of Chichen Itza and other Mayan constructions and we were in the Mayan ball field and other interesting monuments; near from there we visited the fantastic Cenotes.
In other route, more near from Cancun, are the parks. We visited the most important and big park. It is Xcaret´s park, it is a wonderful place! We did many activities, we enjoyed much and learned more about the Mayan culture and the Mexican history and folklore. In this park, my father and I swam with stingrays.
Ten days later my family and I came back to Colombia after to live a great experience and enjoy the best vacations.
Miguel Benítez Quintero 8th Grade, at Liceo Taller San Miguel

Over my vacations I went with my family to a small village called Juanchaco, in order to see whales. Juanchaco is located almost one hour off Buenaventura’s coast. My dad, my mom and me, we took a small boat and went from Juanchaco to the ocean where we saw some ten whales. I remember that I saw a whale-mother swimming together with its baby during a couple of minutes very close to our boat. I think if I would have stretched my hands, I could have even touched the two whales. It was very exciting to be so close to these wonderful animals which come to Colombia’s Pacific Coast just once a year, between July and October.
Sarah Schmieg 7th Grade, at Liceo Taller San Miguel

Empowering Students in the Classroom

Students becoming the Teachers.

Our current class project involves a change in roles. The students must become the teacher.

The assignment is as follows:

• They have an assigned topic relative to English.
• They have 1 hour.
• They must have a presentation of the topic that allows students to learn the subject.
• They must be prepared to answer any questions the students have.
• They must have an activity that measures how well the students understood the topic.
• They are in charge of classroom management and effectively handling disruptions.

It is amazing to watch. They have spent a lot of time and thought in how they will manage their peers' behaviors. Some of the solutions have been:

1. Sending them out of the room to write an apology.

2. Giving stickers and points to students with good behaviors.

3. Moving certain people to the front.

4. Giving more responsibility to overactive students

 The really cool part is how much more the overall class participates when their peers are leading the activities and discussions.  They have been respectful to each other, managed time effectively, and created some awesome activities that I plan on using myself!  

They're teaching me too!

In the picture on the right the group above created a grammatical scavenger hunt. Below is a student answering questions about synonyms.

Great Participation!

I have learned so many things this year about myself, teaching, and how important it is to empower my students. Part of the reason I love this project so much is seeing how they flourish when given the freedom and responsibility in the classroom.

Creativity in the Classroom

What I learned from our class Biography Project...

Recently my students completed a biography project.  One thing I have had trouble with is getting the students to read a book in completion.  They will read a chapter in the beginning, one in the middle, and of course the final few pages. They assume they have highlighted the main points.

I decided from the beginning that every book my students read, I would read too. (I must say it was rather enjoyable watching them squirm when I asked them specific questions).

Students enjoying new books!

At the school I teach at, we are required to do book reports with the students every term. I didn't want to do a typical written or spoken presentation of basic facts.  I think its boring. So I decided to spice things up a bit.

Dictionaries are crucial for language learning activities.

For our biography books I used the Who Was Series. I love the design of these books. They have highlighted amazing facts, added comics, maps, and in a way that makes a fast read seem even faster.

Instead of the traditional book report. I decided to make it a public event, inviting parents and colleagues.  I believe it is important to let kids see their efforts are appreciated. I also designed the assignment as follows:

• 3 newspapers articles had to be written as informative, opinion, and entertainment about their biography
• a cartoon depicting something that happened to the character
• 3-5 advertisements based on the same time period their person was from
• 2 minute presentation of their newspaper design
• dramatization with the 3-4 other biography characters from around the same time period
• a dinner party where they had to answer as the character with questions given to the parents, to ask during the dinner

Here are a few of our Biography Characters...

The children had a chance to eat and talk in character.

I learned about some amazing people in this project. The lives of Amelia, Twain, DaVinci, Monet, Tubman, Lincoln, Dr. Suess, and so many more.  One thing they all had in common:

Their passions mixed with their cultural-moment in time, produced movements.

Sure, it might have been more efficient and easier if I had done a traditional report, but I believe in meaning in education and I think that this project brought meaning, fun, and creativity to our English class.

Lessons from Colombian Kids

Ganar v. To Earn

I teach 6th and 7th grade English at a private school in Colombia.  There are many differences in our interpretations of what something means and how to translate it.  One of those, is the verb; Ganar. Which, in English translates as to win, earn.  They use one verb for our two. Now, with my Hoosier (Indiana born), culture the verbs, to win and to earn have two completely different meanings.

When I think of winning something, I don't associate any work going into it.  I think, WOW!, I won something. I feel so lucky and ecstatic that the "Odds Were Ever in My Favor," like the announcer's blessing in The Hunger Games. This feeling associated with winning something is like saying, God and the heavens have noticed my plight and decided to give me my own personal Passover. 

Best Seller and Awesome Movie!

I was active in the winning, because I either filled out some sort of form or participated in someway to be involved in the win, but I didn't toil and sweat to "earn it." 

On the other hand, when I earn something there is the feeling of my blood, sweat, and tears going into the achievement. I know the hours of studying, training, and passion I put into it and because I did my very best, I earned what I achieved.  It wasn't luck or chance that made the achievement, it was pure effort and passion.

When I think of how hard I have worked on a project or studied for an exam, I never consider winning as part of it.  My children on the other hand see the two as one. There is no difference. This doesn't just affect the mixed up translation, like when they say, "Teacher! I am winning the class because I won my note!"  It affects their ability to separate their effort from the "gift" or "win," that I supposedly helped give them.  Then when they ask me, "Teacher, why am I losing the class?" I try to explain to them it has nothing to do with me being fair or unfair, it's how much effort you have put into the class.

Translations and attempting to equivocate meaning and significance can cause complicated communication misunderstandings, arising from diverse cultural perspectives. 

My American perspective has taught me, homework, grades, and my future are a result of what I've earned. My rewards are better and brighter future, but is it really this simple?  I don't believe it is. By being born where I was, I had certain advantages and disadvantages in the journey of what I earned.  So, every time I had an unlimited choice of reading material, was that a part of what I'd earned? Or, by divine placement did I win a spot in the lottery of life, giving me extra help?

So, perhaps the Spanish language allows the speaker to pay diligent respect to the balance of winning and earning. Maybe my students have realized something I haven't, maybe they know that in life it takes a little bit of winning and earning to make the goal.

I guess the way I can best sum it up is through the lives of amazing people who have come before us.  In almost every biography I have read, the person accounts their success to passion and a wee bit of luck.  They usually describe it as, "that one breakthrough," or "the break I needed."  A bit of the "right time and right place," magic to make the struggle cease and the destiny begin.

So, with lots of sweat and a little bit of luck, I wish you success!