To Tweet or Not To Tweet?

Personally, I dislike Twitter. I don't see a reason for people to be constantly updating the world about every little thing that goes on in their life that they feel is interesting. From an educational standpoint, I agree that Twitter can be informational. It can be used to remain in the loop of updates from organizations such as the Department of Education and NAEYC. Educators can also use Twitter to acquire new ideas from fellow educators world wide. As an early childhood and special education major, I can't really see myself using Twitter in a classroom because the students would be too young to benefit from its services. I would potentially use Twitter to gain fresh ideas to apply in my classroom.

Power Point Reflection

For my SEDU 183, we were asked to create part of a lesson plan using a power point. We used the Pennsylvania state standards to base our lessons off of. Since I am an early childhood and special education major, I chose to do a pre-school math lesson where students would learn how to match numbers 1-10 with concrete objects. Although the feature doesn't work here, this slideshow is interactive. When the students' click on a link to answer a question, it proceeds to a corresponding slide. If they answered the question wrong, the next slide would be a sad face with a go bsck button. When answering correctly, the next slide will be a smiley face followed by the next question.

Learning to Count!

View more presentations from Katie Fasano.

 At first, thinking of an idea of how to teach this lesson was hard. It took me a day or two to decide how I wanted to teach it. After I figured out my idea, which was a multiple choice matching game, this project was fun. I enjoyed getting to know power point as an interactive tool rather than something used as an excuse for teachers to be lazy. I learned how to link to a video from YouTube which I feel could be productive to change the pace in a classroom. The one main aspect of this project that I struggled with was embedding hyperlinks to slides within the power point. Because my lesson is set up as a multiple choice game, I needed “Good Job” and “Try Again” slides that would either push the game forward or lead it back to the previous question. Once I learned how to do this, it didn’t seem so hard.  My favorite of this project was thinking of and creating the lesson and game. It gave me real experience with something I’ll be doing everyday in the future as a teacher. Unfortunately, I was sick on the day of presentations so please take a look at my power point and let me know what you think! 

Blog on Chaper 1 of PLN

Chapter one talks about the changing pace of technology in our schools. It addresses the noteworthy changes that are taking place to make our school system a worldwide and paperless community. Two major points that the authors address which I would like to discuss are the impacts of a global and mobile source of constant information and communication.

                The idea of a global network is so contrast to our currently isolated education system. The authors’ state that this emerging global network is positive because it increases everyone’s learning networks. They also claim that this global network will make kids safer. Although I agree with the earlier statement, I highly disagree with the latter. When children and adults have full access to each other through the internet, the potential for danger rises. Adults can pose as anybody they want to be to children on the internet as they hide behind their computer screens. These predators are good at what they do, which is tricking others to believe something that isn’t true, and its hard to educate our students to avoid something that they may not even realize is happening. Take for instance the craig’s list killer in New York. He persuaded adult women to believe he was an innocent person selling things on the web. After he lured the women in, he killed them. So my point is, if grown adults can’t fully protect themselves then how can we trust and expect our children to if they are unsupervised? This leads me to my next point of mobile technology.

                Mobile technology is on the rise everywhere. This rise in mobile technology subsequently leads to a rise in access to online information. Students can learn virtually anything and everything without setting foot into a classroom. Many people, including Richardson and Mancabelli, that this is positive because it increases learning networks. I agree and disagree with this viewpoint. The part of me that agrees recognizes the immense possibilities that come along with having the knowledge of the world constantly at your fingertips. This is a great accomplishment that deserves noting. On the hand, I believe that mobile technology in the hands of children can be very dangerous. Children nowadays spend so much time away from supervising adults that they can potentially access whatever they want. I feel like this is a danger for younger and naïve children.

                In conclusion, the common trend that I see here is the recognition of how positive a global network can be without any real analysis of the dangers we may be facing.

All About Dance!

Today in SEDU 183, we learned how to embedd links, emails, pictures, and videos into our blogs. For practice, we embedded material about an interest that we are passionate about. I chose to do my blog on dance and dancing!

Here is a magazine that is all about dance:
Dance Like Noone is Watching


Here is a picture that describes how dancing makes me feel!

Scenes from my favorite dance move: Save The Last Dance!

And here is my email address:

Katie Fasano

A Little Bit About Myself!!

Hey everyone! My name is Katie and I am 20 years old. I was born and raised in Ronkonkoma which is on Long Island. Last semester, I started college at Edinboro University of Pennsylvania. Edinboro is a long way from home but I love here. I am an early childhood and special education major. When I finish my degree I would like to teach in either a preschool or kindergarten autistic learning support classroom. My dreams are way bigger than that though. My long term goal is to be able to open a year round facility for autistic children. During the year, the facility would be utilized as a school for mentally challenged students. In the summer, the facility would be used as a summer camp for my students who may struggle finding accessible leisure activities elsewhere. Through this blog, I hope to share my thoughts and ideas on the kind of teacher I will be. More importantly, I hope to learn from other blogs how I can better my teaching skills in the future!