Bullying -- a BIG Problem

   Bullying is a bigger problem than many college students may not realize. This problem will continue to escalade if students in this age are not educated about how to take action on this particular issue. This class is about how we can use technology in our classroom to enhance education but as technology advances, there are more ways that bullying and harassment can be done. Therefore, if we are to use networking and technology in our classrooms it is important for us as educators to not only learn the technology but also teach our students the proper and improper ways that this technology can be used.
  
   Now that students are begining to own things such as cell phones and have facebook accounts at young ages, schools should be educating students at a young age about bullying and bullying with technology. I believe that if we educate children at a younger age about bullying and the aftermath that it can cause, then it will put a big dent in the bullying problem that is in our school systems. I am not saying this will erase the problem, but it will help the students with realizing the consequenses of bullying and knowing the signs of these acts so they know what to do to handle these situations.

Here is a great video on the bullying problem in our schools

   The reason I chose this topic is because when i was young I was bullied often in my elementary years and as i got older i became a bully in high school. I have experianced both sides of the spectrum in my childhood and neither i feel good about. When I was bullied i felt like i had to do the same to other people to gain a good social status with my peers. By educating students at a young age, such as kindergarten, i believe that students will have a better understanding of what problems can arrise from bullying. As an early childhood educator, i know that the most important years of education for a student are the first 5-6 years so if we attack the bullying problem then, it will hopefully reduce the bullying.

Here is a site which covers the different age groups of bullying

In Class Talk Review

I liked the discussion the class today. Its was very interesting listening to the different points of view other students had about how technology is changing us socialy. I honestly am with most of the class because i do believe that online sites like facebook are causing our society to slowly creep into different social interactions. I do beleive that it would be good for teachers to keep up with the recent technology but im not a fan of it becoming a part of the education system.

Readers Response

      I have recently read the first chapter in our PERSONAL LEARNING NETORKS book and the chapter brought up the fact that it would be better for education if schools changed to personal learning networks which are "rich sets of connections each of us can make to people in both our online and offline worlds who can help us with our learning pursuits". In other words the author is suggesting that schools change to online networking to access an infanant amount of knowledge from the online networks. My view on these ideas are mixed. Sure the idea of students having unlimited access to the networks sounds like great idea, but the book does not state the downfalls of this idea.
     The first problem that popped into my head was; how will schools afford to make these changes? Some schools now are struggling with funds and trying to keep their head above water to keep the education pool going. And if the schools decide to change to this kind of system it will more than likely be expensive and with that kind of expense to change the system, it might cost families extra money just to have their child go to school. The second problem that came to me is that i believe that if we were to change to this kind of system, the schools will be to dependant on networks and technology. Back when i was in high school, sometimes when i had computer classes, the computers in the computer labs would not work or the schools network would be down for sometime. So what if we do switch to this system then something happens such as a power outage or the networks are down for the day; then there would be a sugnificant amount of time wasted in that school day. I believe that schools need to stay the same but the idea of online networking is a good idea in some cases.
     If we were to mildly change our system to the point where we use networking/computers for a portion of the day while still maintaining the way we teach now, then i believe that system would work fine. I just dont believe that we should completely rely on networking to educate our youth in this country. Schools need to go with the flow with technology like today, smartbaords are filling classrooms around our country because its the new way of teaching.
    In concusion I do think that Personal Learning Networks does sound like a good idea but it is not worth toying or changing the system we have now. I believe that using networking should be limited in schools and should not be used as a whole learning system because of the expenses and risks of changing the system.