Safety and the Internet

Teaching Internet safety should be one of the first, if not the very first thing that you teach students to do, especially if they're using the Internet a lot. The resources about Internet safety are both very good; Fact of Folly being a teaching resource with many wonderful tips and tools for teaching Internet safety, and the other, the space pigs game, being a fantastic tool for students who need to have a fun down of basic safety. Both resources were awesome, and both were useful. There are many steps that you could teach about keeping your privacy and your safety going to "Who is" or making rules about what information to offer when and to whom, or even learning how to break down different types of web addresses, and I believe that the students need to know and apply all of them.

Of course, application of these rules and practices need to come from the teacher first. This is imperative. Practice what you preach, be a good example. It'll pay off in the end. The first few assignments you should choose the sites and let the students know your process for finding the "safe" site. And then when they're education becomes more developed and their understanding of Internet usage and safety becomes more concrete, let them do research projects on their own, but make one component, "finding safe sites" and explanations of them. I believe that the Internet can be a very useful tool, but can be very dangerous if used improperly, however, I'm a fan of teaching concepts, and this is one I know they can learn.

In my practicum, technology...

Technology was not a Major part of my practicum. Unless you count PA's or VCR/DVD players. I did use those, and I was well versed in Overhead from my first practicum as well.

In a Kindergarten class most things are hands on, and we didn't have very much computer access at all. And in my first, the only computer I was in charge of was finding educational websites for my class for one block per week.

Good news though, I'm not completely hopeless. I did work for an engineering company doing both AutoCAD and MicroStation work, and data entry...where boredom almost took my life, but I did learn a lot about design, and worked with Excel, Visio, and Visual Basic as well. I'm not going to say that today I could sit down and use all of these programs perfectly, but I can say that I'm capable of learning technology.

Because I grew up in theatre and arts, I'm very skilled with microphone and instrumental set ups, and I can edit a movie with ease...using several programs. Unfortunately for me, I just bought my first digital camera and am not well versed on uploading pictures into various files and editing suites, but I'm sure that will come.

Anyway, long story short, I haven't done it in teaching yet, but I'm sure I would be just fine if given the chance to figure things out.