Two more for the blog roll

No Time for Flash Cards is a blog that interests me because I love crafting. Being in a fraternity, I have done many crafts such as making pillows and small trinkets for sorotities just to name a few. Creating something with my bare hands is something that I absolutely love to do and it gives me pleasure to be able to produce a product and people complimenting me about it. Because I like to be crafty, the possibilities are endless meaning when I become a teacher a lot of items used within the classroom can be created at a low cost. This blog posts many ideas of different projects that can be educational and fun for the children; not to mention it would be fun for me as well!

Another thing that I find iteresting is learning about history. I love the idea of where we came from, and learning the certain events that has happened to create the world we live in now. During my high school career, I decided to take my first AP history course (which turned out to be the hardest AP history class in the school.) The course I took was European History and it was interesting to learn the things I did and to follow some of the monarchies. One of the things I found most intriguing were the views on women. Here is a blog about the women during the renaissance. History Harlequin: Bite-sized Pieces of History talked a little bit about women and their standing within society and analyzed how dowries worked. To me, this is utterly insane how life used to be during the renaisance and how poorly women were concieved. I believe that the study of European history is a good way to understand how the alliances and natural born enemies between countries developed and understand why our lives are the way they are now. This blog is just a glimpse in the history of Europe, but it is a good start to look into it even more.



My beliefs about technology and learning

The use of technology is a wonderful thing, but there are also many issues that comes along with it. Having technology is a useful tool, but should not be taken advantage of it. By this, I believe that it should be used as a tool and a tool only. I have had classes before that have been strictly technology based and I personally did not like it. I would still prefer the teacher being the one to present the information, lecture/teach it, and help students through the work that has been assigned. I do, however, believe that technology can help refine skills and make things easier on the student. When I stated that it shouldn't be taken advantage of, the class should be able to still learn from the teacher,  not the computer. Using technology also comes with it's issues. One being losing information, certain videos or pictures not loading, documents, and powerpoints not loading just to name a few. I have dealt with these issues personally and also in the classroom and sometimes the technology just does not work, hindering the learning process. I do think technology is a good idea but the teacher must be prepared before hand and also have a back up plan if things do not work out accordingly.

What's important to me

One thing that I consider the most important to myself is the well being of the children. I am a firm believer that through a child's education, they are learning the academics to become a functioning citizen when they become adults and learning personal skills like responsibility, humility, and respect just to name a few. When being in the classroom the teacher is the parent for that child for the day. There are many things throughout the school day that children deal with that shouldn't happen. For a prime example, bullying. Bullying is a terrible thing that a peer does to another to show their dominance. Being so young, these children do not understand why they are being bullied, they just understand that they are being "tortured." It is very important to me that, if/when I become a teacher, I pay attention to all my students to ensure their safety. There are many stories about students harassing others with actions going further than what they should have. Another example that I would want to pay attention to my students is if something is going on in their personal lives. In the present time, there are many students who are latchkey childrenwith no guidance. Despite the no child left behind act, there should also be an equal focus on the child's well being because without a child, it is hard to have an education system and if these children begin to feel they are not welcomed, they will not perform academically causing the school to focus more on the academics of their school rather than the child's well being. Through this little snippet of examples about how a child's well being should be focused on rather than just academics, I believe that how a child feels mentally, physically, and socially is the most important thing to me because if a child feels well, they're going to and will want to perform well.

In this video there are children talking about what bullying is and how to prevent it or take steps to ease it. I feel that this video is a perfect fit because I talked a little bit about it in my post of "what is important to me."