#10 - Classroom Website

To go to my website please click the following link.
Ms. Fuller's Classroom

#9 - Cyberbullying - How to Prevent it in the Classroom

Cyber-bullying is very serious, especially in this day and time. Technology is everywhere, you can't escape it, so it's important that adults in all situations know how you could prevent cyberbullying from happening. I looked at two separate articles for my research. The first being Cyberbullying Ramps Up in Middle School and the second was an article by Scholastic, Cyberbullying: How to Make it Stop, on ways to prevent it from happening.
In the first article, it discusses ways that when children transition from Elementary School to Middle School, they're opened up to a whole new cybernetic world. Verbal and Physical bullying declines, but cyber-bullying goes up.

They also divided up students who were bullied into four groups (based on research done on 1,180 students):

11% were frequent victims.

29% were occasional victims of traditional bullying

10% were occasional victims of traditional and cyber-bullying. 

Half were infrequent victims of bullies. 

The bullies were divided up into categories too:

5% bullied frequently

26% occasional traditional bullies

69% bullied infrequently

They found that girls were more often the targets of cyber-bullying, verbal, and relational bullying. Boys were more often the targets of physical bullying. 

The first article mentioned a few ways one might prevent bullying. They suggested implementing anti-bullying programs in the school, ways to use social media responsibly, and the parents should  talk to their children about cyber safety. They also suggest supervising children while they are online and using mobile devices. 

The second article goes more in depth about ways to prevent cyber-bullying specifically. Scholastic's first major point is recognizing it as soon as possible. They use the example of Facebook teasing. You should take that teasing seriously when someone "repeatedly harasses, mistreats, or makes fun of another person". 

They stress the idea that school is the center of a child's life. If children are so worried about being bullied/cyber-bullied, they can't focus on their school work and their grades/social life suffer. "If schools are using technology to deliver education and instruction, they have a responsibility to educate students so they use it correctly" 

Scholastic recommends stressing the importance of children/students reporting any type of bullying. They suggest telling the child to screenshot the evidence and sharing it with an adult, otherwise the insult or comments could be deleted before action can take place. They want you to break the myth that the bully is the cool one and it's all the victim's fault. 

#8 - Common Sense Media, Why is it useful in the classroom?

The first thing I noticed when I went to Common Sense Media was how many resources there were for educators. On the homepage for Common Sense Education, there are three main points/links they have at your disposal.
- The first is called "Common Sense Graphite". Common Sense Graphite, finds the best websites, apps, and games rated for learning and has them mapped to common core standards.
- The second is called "Digital Citizenship" and it's whole purpose is to allow you to download the entire K-12 curriculum from iTunes as iBook textbooks for FREE.
- The final link is called "Digital Passport". The Digital Passport allows you to join an "exemplary group" of educators that have learned to integrate technology effectively in their own classrooms.

There is also a section on the homepage dedicated to The Common Sense Education Blog. When I viewed the homepage there were four blog entries to lure me in. Act Fast: How to Make an Awesome Digital Life, Build Community: Teach Digital Citzenship in Edmodo, How Can Parents Help Their Kids Make Great Choices in Their Digital Lives?, and Teach and Learn the Web with Maker Party. 

After playing around on Common Sense Media, I feel as though this website is a great resource for any educator or education student to have at their disposal. There are so many different links that could help make teaching easier, or inspire many different ideas to make the learning and teaching process that much more enjoyable.