Pecha Kucha

In one of my previous blogs, I talked about the idea of bullying and how it has gotten even worse in the short few years that I have been out of high school. One of the aspects of bullying that I failed to mention in my previous blog is the idea of cyberbullying. Although I have always viewed cyberbullying as a form of bullying, I did not realize the intensity of it until my fellow “future teachers of America” members and myself decided to create a Pecha Kucha on the subject.

This picture is taken from my Instagram

Each member in the group chose a different social media site to discuss (Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Instagram, and Youtube). We all did our own research and took screen shots of different forms of bullying on each of the sites as well as some policies that sites post but fail to enforce. As I stated, I always knew that cyberbullying is a form of bullying, and I never discredited it as being one, but I was utterly shocked at some of the cruel words people say to others. I feel like this project really opened my eyes to comments being made through social media.

As an avid social media user, I feel like in some respects I was immune to cyberbullying on different sites. Sure, there are your typical spats and disagreements, but I never really took the time to investigate how or why they were happening. It wasn’t until I researched that I realized the intensity of these arguments not only constitutes as bullying, but also threatening. I feel that even though social media can pose as a good thing (which I full heartedly admitted in another blog) it can also lead to serious issues. The people who are on social media sites need to remember that behind their screen (whether it be a computer, tablet, phone, or other device) is a living, breathing person or people with emotions just like them. I feel that in some way, people use a screen as an excuse to say whatever to whomever and it’s just okay. Think about it. Most people wouldn’t just go up to a random girl on the street and call her a “bitch” or a “slut”, so why do it on social media?

As a future educator, I feel that it’s important to address these issues with children. I believe that technology can be a wonderful tool, but only when used correctly. Social media sites will most likely be around for a very long time so children (as well as some adults) must be educated properly when using social media.

Pecha Kucha- Lisa Kilroy

A Walk Through A Slide: I chose this picture from our Pecha Kucha Presentation because it is so relevant to the topic. For the presentation I didn’t talk too much about the actual picture, but I talked about the ability to share, or ‘retweet’ something with a simple click. In the article ‘The Viral-Media Prof Whose Kid Got 1 Million Facebook Likes (and a Puppy)’ from ‘The Atlantic’, the author explained how a group of 4 siblings created a poster saying ‘Hi World! We want a puppy! Our dad said we could get one if we got 1 million likes! So like this! (He doesn’t think we can do it!)’. Within 7 hours, the kids had over 1 million likes! Talk about spreading the word!

“”You don’t even need to reproduce anything anymore, you merely share with a click”, said Cordell for an article in the Atlantic. Sharing something online couldn’t possibly be any more elementary; it’s literally a click away. A post written to bully someone could be shared and become viral very easily.”- this was my narrative part that went with the picture. This picture went well with my narrative, because this picture was a kid who was actually bullying another kid. The father, in the picture, chose to punish his child by posting this on his Facebook. In a caption on the picture, the father said

“This is what happens when dad finds out you are being a bully at school. My golden rule is you don’t start fights or touch anyone unless they lay hands on you first. Feel free to tell Kayden how wrong it is to be a bully or share stories to help him understand the effects of these actions on the victims. DO NOT ATTACK MY SON THIS IS TO BE A POSITIVE ACTION NOT NEGATIVE. *******PLEASE FEEL FREE TO SHARE THIS AS WELL TO HELP STOP THIS FROM HAPPENING OTHER PLACES AS WELL! THANK YOU!”

You can find the article here. 

This post was an effort to stop bullying, but some claim that the father was actually bullying his son. I just thought that it went well with my post about sharing something to bully someone, because this post got shared millions of times and it got news coverage. I also thought this was a good picture because it shows the true power of the internet. My first slide was about stealing identity, second was how much time children spend on social media, third was the power of social media, fourth was the negative impacts of bullying, and fifth was how to report someone on twitter.

If I were to change one thing about this slide, I would try to talk a little about the background of the picture. I’m  sure that everyone understood the concept, but I think a background would have been interesting. We only had 20 seconds per slide, and I had to cite the source in there too. I was talking really fast and somehow still running out of time! Maybe a 30 second per slide presentation would have allotted time for me to go in detail. Also, after we had already chosen a topic, I came up with one that would have been much better. I thought that technology in the classroom would have been more relevant because we could have used every single reading as a reference. We were struggling to find things to reference for this topic, well I know most of us were.

What I Learned About My Blog Topic: My blog topic was about future elementary education teachers. This topic was very relevant for me because this is what I want to do with my life. The readings and the assignments were very relevant to teaching in a classroom. The articles were all about technology and the internet. As more and more technology is introduced, more and more is being used in the classroom.

Well first, I didn’t know what Twitter was. In this class I was able to use twitter, and learn from it. I was able to ‘follow’ professionals in my community and read articles about teaching and the classroom! Twitter opened my eyes to a whole new network of professionals. I did see some unprofessional stuff on Twitter, but it’s all based on who you follow. In class, we had to tweet out about class, and this gave me an idea of what my students might tweet about when they are in class.

In the chapter by Jay Bolter, “Writing as Technology”, the author opened my eyes about how writing is in fact a technology. When I thought about technology, I always thought about computers and the latest gadgets. Now when I think about technology, I see that anything new and relevant is technology. I can now teach my students about technology and explain to them that technology isn’t JUST electronics, it can be anything.

In Deb Roy’s presentation, “The Birth of a Word“, Deb Roy showed how his child developed. He put cameras in every room of the house and he watched his son learn and grow. He was able to pinpoint which words developed when, and what they developed from. He talked about language and how children develop language. I have a daughter of my own, and I was never really too clear about how children develop language. I am able to use this information in my own life when I am teaching my daughter to talk.

Overall the readings helped me with life in general. All of the readings gave me a better understanding of the various topics. I can now use this information in my own classroom when I become a teacher.

Pecha Kucha – Nicole Gross

A Walk Through A Slide: I decided to choose this picture because it shows the reality of anonymous online bullying. This image is from a website called Formspring. I, like most people, have had accounts with Formspring and many other social media websites such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. They are just addicting to be on.

This picture fit in perfectly with my narrative because throughout the whole narrative, bullying and cyberbullying were the main topics. In this particular picture, cyberbullying is occurring because people are saying mean things such as “you are fat”, “do you try to look ugly or do you always look like that?” and “they would never like you”, which are all hurtful comments. For this slide in my pecha kucha presentation, Kevin Kelly acknowledged how social media would expand beyond what they originally thought. Formspring really took over in 2006-2010. This was not like any other social media website like Facebook or Twitter. This was just anonymous comments from people. I chose Kevin Kelly’s article, We Are the Web because it made me think of the various amounts of social media websites there actually are. When I think social media, I think Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. The more social media, the more cyberbullying occurs.

I felt as if this picture fit in perfectly with my slides because it shows a real life example of cyberbullying. I think this picture stood out to most people because of the hurtful comments that people do make and can relate to it, even if it hasn’t happened to them. This picture builds on my argument by giving proof. Anyone can say things like “I hate you” or “go away” but those are different. Cyberbullying has to go a little deeper and has to impact a person. For example, in the picture the second response says, “I try to look pretty but…” which shows it has impacted this person’s confidence. Overall, I’m very glad I found this picture because I think it helped describe and prove our point about how bullying and cyberbullying affect people.

If I were to change one thing, I would have changed the order in which we discussed things. For example, I think Facebook should have been included and the first topic of discussion since it is one of the biggest social media cites with a lot of bullying.

What I learned about my blog topic: My blog topic was future teachers of America. I thought this was a very fitting topic for my group since we are all aspiring to become teachers. I have been learning all about the teaching process throughout my years in college, whether at Rowan or another school. I felt as if this was an easy topic to relate anything to because we are always learning new things.

Each article in the readings, I was able to relate to the topic of teaching. For example, Bolter’s article and the Memex article. Bolter’s article was about the technology in writing so I related it to teaching writing in the classroom multiple ways. For the memex article, I was able to compare how technology helps our writing today and how the memex was used back then. These articles gave me a new perspective on writing and ideas that I didn’t even know were possible. It showed me how we can still get by even with the use of little technology or tons of technology.

For my outside readings, I found it very interesting because there were so many topics I could choose from. My favorite, however, was the Ellen Degeneres blog post. I have been watching The Ellen Show for many years, it is my favorite daytime talk show. Constantly, Ellen and her team have been helping teachers because they understand how difficult it can be. Just the little things can go such a long way. I felt as if this was a great opportunity to give credit to Ellen because some day I hope I get recognized as an outstanding teacher.

Overall, my blog topic was perfect for me. I enjoyed reading these articles whether required or not because they were pertaining to my future. It impacted me in a way that many people won’t understand because of their choice of career. Education is such an important thing that people should not take for granted. Also, I hope as a future educator that people start to see what a different we truly make in student’s lives.