[Task #3] Media Response

VIDEO: Ann Cooper talks school lunches!

This is a very inspiration video about Ann Cooper and her passion to serve healthy foods in school cafeterias. Ann states that as parents and educators we need to teach students the tools in how to choose healthy foods. Children don’t have the choice of what they want to eat so as adults we have the responsibility to feed them healthy foods. Ann’s motto is, “healthy planet, healthy food, healthy kid!
              I feel Ann makes a great point and has the facts to go with her very powerful statements. Ann states that the government is not funding school enough money for healthy nutritional lunches with less than $1/day. To be able to serve regional, organic foods for lunch, schools are looking for double the amount of money given, totaling an extra 8 billion dollars a year. At first glance this appears to be a huge amount, but she then goes on to state other tidbits such as advertising for fast food spends 110 billion dollars, and 100 billion dollars is spent on dieting advertisements every year. Doesn’t 8 billion dollars sound very reasonable when it is for the health and well being of our children?
            Another point in which I’ve over looked myself is that nowadays we have more prisoners then we do farmers (2.1 million Prisoners vs. 1.9 million farmers). However, we spend $35,000 to feed prisoners and yet the government only spends $5,000 on feeding children in schools every year. Mind boggling isn’t it? It appears we feed our prisoners better than our own deserving students.
            We are what we eat! How can students learn when all they are consuming is chemicals, bi-products and preservatives? We need to educate our children about the importance of eating healthy and exercising or as they have predicted, children born in the 21^st century will be the first generation that will not outlive their parents. Scary thought isn’t it? We are the ones who can make the change, we are the difference.

[Task #2] Facebook Controversy

Facebook is a social networking website used for entertainment raises a controversial issue: Should teachers accept friendship requests from students on Facebook? Facebook gives users the opportunity to access profiles created by other users. From my own personal experience I question myself if it is appropriate to accept friend requests from fellow students. Is there a time and place? Is there a place for Facebook in the classroom? Is adding student’s conducive to a productive learning environment?
              Facebook can be an effective way to interact with students simply because technology is such a big part of their lives today. As teachers we need to submerse ourselves into their way of thinking. Ten years ago adding friends to Facebook was never an issue because it wasn’t an option. Today teachers are forced to face such issues because the generations are changing and technology allows people to be more easily accessible to one another. As I searched for answers I came to see there’s no right answer. There are many pros and cons of using Facebook with students in the classroom.

Pros :
– They can be powerful learning tools. *Collaboration*
– Social media gives students access to information and people from around the world.
– Promotes social skills to give all students (shy or outgoing) an equal voice and opinion.
– Prepares students of how the world is moving towards technology.
– Deeps the relationship of the teacher/student.*Humanizes*

Cons:
– Time consuming and distracting from the task at hand.
– Abusing the function/purpose. *Cyber bullying*
– Decreases the development of people skills. *Restricts face-to-face interactions*
– Limited ability to monitor comments and online users.
– Invading one’s personal life.  

I have gathered that as teachers we can create a place on Facebook to engage students in a way that is conducive to their learning. If teachers establish ground rules and set the standards of using Facebook in the classroom it can be a very effective teaching tool! I then wondered if there was a way to be friends with students without crossing any privacy boundaries. One tip that I found to be useful is creating a separate Facebook account to just add students to or to create a limited profile for students to view. For a tutorial of ‘How to’ make a Limited Profile Click Here.

Do you feel the pros outweigh the cons? Would you be hesitant to accept a friend request from your student or vice-versa? What’s your thought process… your input is welcome.

[Task #1] Little about me…

My dog Bella & I

Hello!

       My name is Brittney and I am currently finishing up my fourth year of Elementary Education. I was born and raised in Regina, Saskatchewan, in which I attended Glady’s McDonald Elementary School and Thom Collegiate High School. I am the middle child of three. I have a younger brother named Chance and an older sister named Amber. I have a beautiful niece named Haylea and a cute little dog named Bella. In my spare time I like to listen to music, watch movies, workout, travel and hang out with friends and family. In the summer of 2010 I backpacked Europe in which I visited 5 countries, 13 cities in 6 weeks. When I graduate in April I plan to teach English overseas while traveling before establishing a permanent teaching job, but only time will tell!

I pre-interned at Pilot Butte Elementary School in a grade 3/4 split. I recently finished my internship in December 2010 at Judge Bryant Elementary School in a grade 1 classroom in which I was nominated for the Myrtle McGee Award. During my Pre-internship, my partner and I created a blog in which we posted are journey teaching our individual units, in which we communicated back and forth with our students. In my grade one classroom during internship I found technology to be a bit of a struggle to be integrated into the classroom due to their age and lack of knowledge, but did manage to incorporate Language Arts and Math on the computers playing math games and listening to reading on RAZ KIDS.

I work with computer programs like Microsoft word, Excel and QuickBooks at my job but other than that I lack knowledge when it comes to new and upcoming computer programs. I feel computers are an important aspect to be integrated into the classroom especially because computers and technology are such a big part of children’s lives today. I feel as teachers we need to become familiar with them as well to teach at the student’s level and tap into their own interests. New technologies such as YouTube, Facebook, MySpace, mobile phones I believe have their place in the classroom and can be beneficial to students however I feel they can be easily misused and abused outside of class time. Technology such as computers are used all around the world, and is one of the only things that can instantly connect one another no matter where one may be in the world – I find this fascinating!

In my ECMP 355 class I hope to become computer literate, in which I will be introduced to a variety of computer programs and know how to use and adapt them into my everyday life as well as my future classrooms. I have high expectation for this class, in which I am eager to learn about the technologies offered! I am a fast learner so I have high expectations for myself as well!

That’s all for now!
-B