Put an End to Plagiarism in Your Classroom

I remember reading and hearing about the Piper case. I remember being outrage for the teacher. I don't know if I would have resigned, but I would not have changed the kids grades. I have flunked a student for plagiarizing a project. I talked to them about plagiarizing before the assignment and I remember the student asking me in the middle of the project if it was okay to copy and paste information and I told him no. He ended up copying his entire report down to the graphic that was on the website. The only original things he had on his report was the title (he spelled it wrong), and his name at the end of the report. He did not deny it when I confronted him about it. He didn't even care. He was too lazy to do the work and felt that the assignment was not a priority for him. I liked the fact that the article gave ideas on how to prevent plagiarism, but I fear that in the fast pace, quick answer world we live in, we are going to more and more students who plagiarize and find tricky ways of doing it.

Author Says Technology Brings False Promises to Schools.

I think I am in love with Todd Oppenheimer. I mean I want him, but only for his mind. This man is a genius and a great thinker. He makes absolutely perfect sense when he that that "current emphasis on technology use in schools drains resources from other subjects and prevents students from developing critical and creative thinking skills." I don't mind using technology in the classroom, but the amount of it is overwhelming. This past year I had three equipment magically appear in my room. No instruction was given, no directions, just here you go use them! I ended putting them back in their packaging because they were taking up too much space on my desk. This summer I signed up for four technology courses beside the classes for my field. I feel like if the district is spending all of this money on technology, then I have an obligation to use it. I know that next year it is going to be mandatory that all the educators have a blackboard. It doesn't matter what level they teach or what they teach. I used blackboard a little this past school year, but I have to get more training on it because the training the district gave us was not enough. And when they train you all the information is overwhelming because they throw all this information at you all at once and you are to take it and apply it immediately in the classroom.

I am curious to see how much money my district spends on technology each year. It seems that each year we get a new "toy" that we get three hours of training and then expected to use it proficiently in the classroom. Oppenheimer was right when he said that school-wide investments should not be made before they are absolutely certain that results will match the salesman's hype. A good example when my husband's school decided that it would be a great idea to get all the students a palm pilot to help them remember their homework and keep them on track. Lets just say with the amount of broken and lost palm pilots, they could have used the money and invested in their reading programs. Needless to the say, the palm pilots were not back the next year.

Another genius thing Oppenheimer said was that students can also become victims of "commercial novelties...whose ability to reason, to listen, to feel empathy, among other things, quite literally is flickering." I notice more and more that I have to entertain my students or I loose them. Getting them to come up with their own answers and solutions is getting more and more difficult. My biggest complain about my students is that they don't think, or won't think for themselves. They want the answers given to them. Thinking on their own is way too hard for them, because the are use to googling everything and getting instant answers.

Virtual High Schools: The High Schools of the Future?

I know that this article list a whole bunch of advantages of having virtual high schools, and talks about successful programs, but the idea of virtual schools doesn't sit well with me. Maybe it is because I feel that real teachers are going to be useless and students will just be taught by computers and computers only. I truly believe that you cannot replace learning from a real life human and the best way to do that is face to face. I think about the the numerous class discussions I have had with my students and how they fed off each other. Yes you can have discussions online, but it is not the same. You can't easily feed off a comment someone made. Also written words are sometimes misunderstood. You can't tell the tone of a person from what they have written, and sometimes tones of voice carry the conversation.

I do understand that virtual classrooms offer opportunities that some students might not have had. They have the ability to take courses that might not be offered at a regular high school. But you have to remember that school is not all about content learning, but also the social education. If everyone stayed at home, when and how will they learn to social interaction.

Blue Nowwhwere #2

One of the things that scares me about the Blue Nowhere is that it can be a true story. The author acknowledges at the end of the book that this might be our new reality. It is scary for me to think that some people have the power to enter other's lives and assimilate themselves quiet seamlessly. It is scary how Phate and Wyatt could make up their pasts, create new records of themselves, be whoever they want to be and no one would be the wiser. I was so surprised to find out that Wyatt made up the letters from his father and that he did not have a brother. I thought it was all real. What would have happened if he did not have the records from his youth to prove that he made up his past. I think about it and I don't fault him for making up the type of family that he did. There are so many kids out there that would love to the opportunity to change their lives, remake their parents into better people.

Phate was scary the way he worked his way into the lives of his victims. How he would make himself look like almost anyone and gather the information he needed to worm in his into their lives and then kill them. Even the little girl did not realize that the man that was picking her up was not her uncle. I hope that I would not be so easily fooled. But I guess if you haven't seen someone in a long time, or just met someone briefly you don't want to seem rude and not act like you don't know them. I know that I am guilty of carry on a conversation with someone I barely remember, but they remembered me and I felt bad that I did not even know their name.

I don't want to have my guard up all the time, but I don't know... I have to say that I have acquired more knowledge about the computer world from this book than anything else. I just never thought much about that side of things. I never thought about hacking, or using computers to hurt each other.

The Blue Nowhere

Okay I have to admit, I am an avid reader and I easily get into books. I finished reading the Blue Nowhere last Wednesday. I could not put the book down, and was usually up later than I needed to be so that I could finish the book and find out what happened. I LOVED this book. Even though there were a lot of technical Jargon, it did not take away from the plot to the book. There were so many twist and turns, they kept me captivated. In the beginning, I was afraid to read one because I thought a character that I was getting to know would get killed. I was somewhat suprised when Lara Gibson was killed, but I was totally not expecting Andy Anderson the cop to die. I thought he was going to be the hero of the book. Another part that surprised me was when Wyatt escaped to find his wife. I thought he really was Shawn and he had escaped, but I was relieved when he all he wanted to do was see his ex-wife. Speaking of the the ex-wife I almost cried when I found out who Ed really was. More on this great book later.

Online Activity

The phone thing did not work for me because my sister had alerted me to the information that was given out when the phone number was typed and I had them remove me from it. It was interesting to google my name. I have done it before and usually there aren't anything about me except for my track records and results from my college years. There are other information about other people with my name which is very interesting since my name is not a common name in the US.

Growing up online

I just finished watching the PBS special growing up online, I just didn't think that social networking and being online was as big as it is. I guess I am just an old fashion person. I guess that I am naive to think that families spend time together, so there would not be a chance for kids to spend so much time online. It was scary to listen to some of the comments the kids were making about being online. They said that there was no one watching, you could reinvent yourself. The scariest comment to me was when the young man said that he had never read books, or he couldn't remember the last time he read a book. I cannot imagine not reading books, or not having my son read books. The internet is a great and wonderful place, but like everything else good, it must be used in moderation. I like human to human interaction, and get stand spending too much time online; there is just too much life to live, live enjoying the great outdoors. The internet scares me because you don't know who is out there and who is watching.