Let's Use Technology For Good!-Not for embarrassing photos and videos of teachers...

This week, I received several articles from Google Alerts about students bullying and harassing teachers online. Most of the cases were from the U.K.. The stories ranged from a student creating a fake facebook account posing as a colleague and inviting other teachers to be their friend, to a student posing as a potential date online and standing up the teacher in order to take embarrassing photos of them alone. Talk about harsh, but I kind of hope that that student gets stood up for prom.

These articles reminded me of something that happened to me earlier this past week in school. I took my high schoolers outside on the last day of school so that they could play football or hang out. Another class was outside and they were having a hula hoop competition. This class asked me to try the hula hoop. Now, just so you know, I am very good at hula hooping, contest-winning good. So I agreed and I started hula hooping. The students were impressed with how long I was hooping and they were cheering me on. Eventually I had to stop because if not I would be there all day, not to toot my own horn or anything. Several class periods later, a student was on their phone and said, “Hey look! Sra. Fulmer was hula hooping today!” Apparently a student had filmed it on their phone and posted it to SnapChat. There was nothing inappropriate on this video, but it got me thinking about how students can so easily be filming or taking photographs of teachers at any time without them realizing it. Students can also instantly post and/or send these videos or pictures to virtually the entire student body. This thought then led me to think about how we can utilize technology in the classroom so that students are too busy using technology for good than for bad.

Another article that I received discussed the use of poetry in a language arts classroom and using iMovie to bring it to life. The teacher in the article assigned a group of students a poem and tasked them with creating a movie about the poem. Students watched a tutorial on how to use iMovie, then they used ipads from the school to create their movies. The teacher held a premiere of the movies after school and invited family, friends, and students, and served popcorn.

I believe that this same project would be very successful in an ESL classroom. I love the idea of inviting family and friends to share in the experience of watching the movies. In too many cases, the family of ESL students feel left out of the education process due to language and cultural barriers. Events like this premiere would help families to feel more comfortable with the school. I’m sure the project would need to be modified to fit the needs of the ESL students. The choice of poem would need to fit the students’ proficiency levels, the grouping of students would need to be addressed (do you want students of all the same proficiency level or students with varying levels in the same group?), and even the technology proficiency may require a more in depth tutorial than just a video one. Despite that, I believe this project would be very beneficial for ESL students and their families. Let’s use that technology for educational good!

Resources:

Elton, K. (2017, May). Poetry in motion. Retrieved from:
http://www.marshallindependent.com/news/local-news/2017/05/poetry-in-motion/

Harding, E. (2017, June). Now pupils abuse teachers on social media: Charity says one
third of bullying complaints come from school staff. Retrieved from:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4567840/Now-pupils-abuse-TEACHERS-social-
media.html

Pupils 'increasingly playing social media tricks'. (2017, June). Retrieved from:
http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/15325402.Pupils__increasingly_playing_social_media_tricks_to_humiliate_teachers_/