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National Archives

I looked at the eyewitness section of the National Archives that contains eyewitness accounts about dramatic moments in U.S. history. These eyewitness accounts are in the form(s) of letters, diaries, audio and film recordings. The eyewitness account that I explored was about a navy officer, Jeremiah A. Denton Jr, who was shot down and captured by the North Vietnamese during the Vietnam war on July 18, 1965. He was held captive as a prisoner of war by the North Vietnamese for seven years and seven months, experiencing solitary confinement and brutal mistreatment.

The North Vietnamese arranged for Navy Commander Denton to be interviewed by a Japanese reporter as part of a propaganda campaign. During the interview as he was affirming the United State’s position on the Vietnam war, he blinked the word torture in Morse code. This video footage was the first confirmation that United States P.O.W.s were being tortured.

The value of using primary sources in the classroom is that the sources themselves are the most effective way of conveying the event(s) that took place. Although a student can read about how Commander Denton blinked Torture in Morse code, it is much more powerful and impactful for a student to see the video footage of the actual interview.


National Education Association

The students groups at risk for achievement gaps are - Racial and ethnic minorities (American Indians & Alaska Natives, Asian Americans & Pacific Islanders, Blacks and Hispanics), English language learners, students with disabilities, boys/girls, students from low-income families and Gay, Lesbian, Bi-sexual and Transgender students.

Three areas that fit my teaching style:

1) Engage school staff in discussions and activities that offer an opportunity to explore attitudes, beliefs, and values related to cultural diversity and cultural competence. I feel as if it is important to know “where my peers are coming from” in terms of cultural diversity and cultural knowledge. This is a great way to learn from other teachers.
2) Build and use a network of "natural helpers" at school and in the community as well as "experts" who have knowledge of the culturally, linguistically, racially, and ethnically diverse groups served by your school. This is a great way to lean on people who have more experience with dealing with a culture(s) you are not very familiar with. By utilizing natural helpers you have a support group that will help you learn a lot about the community.
3) Network with parent, family, minority community, and faith-based organizations concerned with the needs of diverse students. Solicit their involvement and input in the design and implementation of initiatives for culturally, linguistically, racially, and ethnically diverse groups. This fits my teaching style because I believe that gathering input from several groups – ie parents, families, minority communities and faith based organizations is important because I can utilize their expertise and ideas to create a well-rounded and thorough approach to address and teach diverse groups in my classroom.


Cyberbullying

I received a score of 7 on this quiz, which puts me in the cyber risky area. The areas that I participated in and gave me this score were forwarding a private IM/email, posting pictures or information of/on someone else on a website without their consent and I’ve used information I found online to follow, tease or embarrass someone in person. I feel there is a grey area that isn’t addressed correctly on this quiz in regards to posting pictures or information on someone else without their permission. I post pictures of my friends and I all the time on Facebook and I wouldn’t consider that cyberbullying. I have mostly forwarded a private IM or email to someone else to “tell the story” instead of me having to tell them what happened or what was said verbally. I did tease a friend about a posting that was on their facebook before, but I felt as if it was in good fun. As the description for my score states…I should try not to repeat my behaviors because they may be causing pain for someone else.

An important thing that I learned on this site that can help me in my classroom would be to explain to students what is considered online bullying, how online bullying can affect students and what has happened to students who were found guilty of online bullying in the past. I would explain that bullying online is not tolerated and that if they do so, they can legally be tracked down through online services or internet service providers and they can be found and held responsible for what they say and do online.


Kathy Schrock’s Guide for Educators

The area that I chose under Subject Access was Special Education and the area under that category that is of interest to me is the link to the Speech Language Pathology Web Sites. That link to the Speech Language Pathology web sites is great because it directs me to so many speech and language resources, i.e. the speech and language milestone chart that I can use to measure children’s baselines and progress, games and activities that I can do with speech delayed children as well as information that I can pass along to parents to help their speech delayed children at home.
The area that I thought would be very useful under Teacher Helpers was the Bulletin Board section. I am not very creative and I know that creating a welcoming classroom as space is very important so using this as a resource to help me do so will be wonderful.


Multiple Intelligences

The multiple intelligence quiz that I took showed that my top three intelligences as:

intrapersonal (88)
musical (81)
interpersonal (75)

The video I watched entitled Big Thinkers made me realize that technology is such an important way for educators to create a student centered classroom instead of a teacher centered classroom. It was enlightening to hear how technology could be used to help each student learn based off of what intelligence(s) they are highest in and that takes the task off of the teacher of having to teach the same thing eight different ways to account for the eight different intelligences their students may have.


Teaching Tolerance

Grade – Early Education
Subject – Social Studies
Topic – Social Activism & Change

The lesson I chose is That’s Not Fair. In this lesson, students experience the effects of unequal resources on student achievement, share their thoughts on educational differences and take action to bring about change. The way that I would use this lesson in a classroom is by incorporating it into a lesson plan about equality. I would start by explaining the Civil Rights Movement and then have the students complete the art exercise.


Multicultural Education

The question that I thought was most interesting was in the equity and diversity quiz. The questions asks how many grams of cocaine or crack results in a mandatory sentence of five years in prison. The answer to this question clearly shows that the laws are more favorable towards the wealthy versus the disadvantaged. A person possessing 500 grams of cocaine (largely used by wealthy people) and person possessing only 5 grams of crack (largely used by economically disadvantaged people) would receive the same sentence. Five hundred grams of cocaine and five grams of crack have roughly the same amount of drug per gram.

The other question that I found very interesting was in The Who Said It – A Re-perception Quiz. In this quiz, for each question you are supposed to select what person out of the four choices you are given said the quote in that question. I was shocked that Abraham Lincoln said the following quote given that he was the president who signed the Emancipation Proclamation that freed so many slaves. “ I am not now, nor have ever been in favor of bringing about in any way the social or political equality of the white and black races. I am not now nor have ever been in favor of making voters or jurors of Negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor of intermarriages with white people. There is a physical difference between the white and black races which will forever forbid the two races living together on social or political equality. There must be a position between superior and inferior, and I am in favor of assigning the superior position to the white man.”

Netiquette

I scored 100% =^D It is important to let students know about netiquette because knowing the rules of cyberspace and remembering the human will help prevent students from hurting other students and making them (:-\ and it will help students have a positive online image.