Ms.

Shipleys Newsletter
SEASIDE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL

Sailing the high seas of education

Volume 1, Issue 1 October 2013

Import ant Cl as sroom Info rm a tion

Important Dates
November 5th: Assignments Due November 6th: Presentation November 7th: Final Exam November 11th: Veterans Day November 28th: Thanksgiving Day

Parents! My class website

is carolynshipley.weebly.com. The website is another great resource for information about what is happening in our classroom. Email is the best way for is to stay in touch. Please feel free to email me anytime about anything you have questions or concerns about. Reading - It is vitally im-

portant that your child read independently very day, either to you or to him/herself. Ask your child questions about what he/she is reading and support his/her efforts, regardless of reading level. And remember, your child is never too old to be read to. Reading to your child promotes good reading habits and strengthens your parent/ child bond.

Instructional Design
Educational technology applied to classroom instruction grades K -12 and in exceptional student education. Artifacts are to include: The artifact for this class will include the combination of the following: class webpage, lessons using Prezi and Animoto, class newsletter, Popplet concept map, and a wikispace site.

Inside this issue:

Important Classroom Information Instructional Design Great Resources for Teachers Cloud Drives Cyber Bullying Newsletters PowerPoint or Prezi

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Ms. Shipleys Newsletter

Great Resources for Teachers

Edmodo is a free and safe way for students and teachers to connect and collaborate, states the website at www.edmodo.com. It is very similar to Facebook but it is specifically designed for teacher/student interaction. It is set up by the teacher. The teacher gives the students the log in information and parents can also view whats being posted. The teacher can post assignments, surveys (www.surveymonkey.com is a great site), and websites that the teacher wants students to specifically view. A safe way for students to view specific websites is through www.jogtheweb.com. The teacher picks the websites for the students to view. School computers dont always filter inappropriate websites when a student is searching the web and this is a great way to make sure that students arent viewing inappropriate websites. With jogtheweb, the websites appear within the jogtheweb window. They may have ads on the website but they have already been previewed by the teacher before the student sees them.

Edmodo also has great features such as virtual badges that can be given to students for accomplishments.

CLOUD DRIVES
A lot of people have heard the term iCloud but might not understand what the cloud is. Cloud drives are surprisingly quite common. Examples of cloud drives are Google, Dropbox, Skydrive Microsoft 365) and Amazon. But what are they and are they safe? One advantage of using the cloud is that your data (songs, photos and documents) are not store on a device but stored on the cloud and so your device has a lot more free space. Also, your data is accessible from several different devices by using user names and passwords. Another advantage is that the cloud uses separate servers so that your own computer is not having to use as much bandwidth to read email and to pull up photos. A disadvantage to using the cloud is that your data is stored in the cloud and not on your own device, so you can only retrieve your data with you are connected to the internet. Another disadvantage to using the cloud is that playing games and streaming movies can use up a lot of your bandwidth. Two great articles on the subject can be found at: www.theverge.com/ and abcnews.go.com/

Cyber Bull ying

Cyber bullying has been around since the internet began and texting became mainstream. Cyber bullying is bullying that happens through email, texting, Facebook, Twitter, online chatting, or any other digital form. It can happen to anyone at any age but the hardest hit are those younger than 18, as children are developing their self esteem and learning about proper boundaries. Just recently (September 10, 2013), a 12 year old girl in Florida committed suicide as a result of cyber bullying. The bullying started at school in person to person confrontations but even after the girl switched to another school, she was as-

saulted via Facebook. The assailants repeatedly harassed the girl by name calling, intimidation and threats. This is another sad example of what cyber bullying can lead to. Some helpful information can be found at http:// www.netsmartz.org/cyberbullying. Its important for parents and teachers to stay educated about ways to reduce cyber bullying and to educate children about this very harmful reality.

Volume 1, Issue 1

Page 3

Fall is Here

October 18 - 24, 2013

Newsletters: Publisher vs Word

There are may ways to create a newsletter but the two more popular ones are Microsoft Publisher and Word. Publisher gives you a lot more options but itll cost you extra to buy the program. Its included in Microsoft Office Standard and Office Professional but its not included in Office Home and Student/Business, which is more commonly purchased and is about $230-360 cheaper. Word is definitely not as user friendly as Publisher, though. With Publisher you can type in the date and issue number and itll show up on every page. With Word, I couldnt figure out how to get it to do that. It was extremely confusing and time consuming. Publisher is by far the best program but be prepared to pay a lot more for it. So weight out the cost by how much youll actually use it. Or go to your local college.

PowerPoint or Prezi
PowerPoint has been around a long time and is still the most commonly used presentation software. It is part of the Microsoft Office package and is simple to use. It offers a lot of options. But a new presentation option is Prezi. It is a completely online so that it is saved on the cloud and you can access your presentation anywhere that you have a device and internet access. It has several templates to choose from and is animated and more dynamic than PowerPoint. Both have a lot to offer. Which do you like better?

Check out the class website at carolynshipley.weebly.com

NOVEMBER 2013
Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri 1 Sat 2

5
Assignments Due

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Presentation

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321 - Final Exam

10

11 Veterans Day 12
Website and Newsletter Due

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354 - Final Exam

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28 Thanksgiving 29
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