Read, Teach, Bake

  Cyberbullying – the crime of the 21 st century The prevalence of cyberbullying is astounding. In this week’s readings, I was surprised that cyberbullying isn’t just an issue with teens and middle schoolers.   Elementary students are also victims. And unbelievably, so are adults! The fact that adults, in the workforce, choose to cyberbully other adults is incomprehensible. Where did the “Golden Rule” go? What happened to respect? How do we expect our children to learn how to act when the adults are not role models? In the school system, staff are expected to take all reports of bullying, in-person or cyber, very seriously. We have a zero-tolerance policy. Parents alert the media at the slightest hint of error on the staff’s part yet are indignant when asked to follow the same expectations at home. As a current middle school teacher, 50 minutes a day, 5 days a week, is not enough time for me to teach your child respect, how to treat others, and cover the science content I’m...

      For my school library social media account, I chose to use Instagram and a Google site. I am currently a classroom teacher, not a media specialist, and my school does not have a social media account specific for the media center. I offered to create one, but the request was not approved by our district office yet. So, welcome to New Hope Middle School - home of the Warriors! Of course, both the Instagram and webpage note that this is a fake school created for a graduate assignment and all posts are for educational coursework only. I used Canva to design the school logo and mascot and to create the media center logo. I chose the book/laptop logo because I want my students to be technically savvy, information literate, and still read books for pleasure. This image seamlessly blended my ideas. For my posts, I am going to use the hashtag, #readerleaders, on every post to remind students of our media center message: Today's readers are tomorrow's leaders.    ...

       Ensuring accessibility for everyone is necessary as a school media specialist and classroom teacher. This week's readings reinforced my passion for supporting all students as much as possible. In my last post, I discussed the use of Chromebooks as a technology tool in the classroom to support instruction. I was not aware at the time just how adaptable a Chromebook is as an accessibility tool for students that need additional adaptations. Research for tools I have access to in my current classroom showed me just how much I can use the Chromebooks we already have to support differently-abled students.       Chromebooks come "preloaded" with many accessibility tools. To turn on the built-in features, go to "settings," choose "Advanced" from the bottom of the menu, and choose "accessibility." You can then select "manage accessibility features" to turn on/turn off the features that you want. This even works for devices where dis...