The History Teacher


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TalkingPoints

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Talking Points is a free communication tool allowing teachers to quickly message students' families throughout the day. The free application can be downloaded onto iPhone or Android phones (and managed through a computer). If someone does not have a smartphone, fear not! The teacher's communication is sent as a standard text message as well.  Its primary purpose is to give teachers a quick and direct way to connect with their students' family (assuming you have their mobile number). How is this any different than texting or emailing, you ask? This is where Talking Points stands apart from other apps I've used for family-school communication:  IT AUTOMATICALLY TRANSLATES THE TEACHER'S MESSAGE INTO THE FAMILY'S HOME LANGUAGE.  The individual who receives the message can then respond in the native language , send the message, and it will appear in the teacher's language of choice. As the education field continues to change, I feel tha...
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Diving into Disney: Perceptions of the Perfect, Pretty Princess

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Growing up in the 1990s, it was inevitable that I watched the Disney movies and related Disney shows. There were even the biweekly trips to the Disney Store in the local mall, a quick fifteen minute drive from my childhood home (though, I must admit, we went mainly because my younger sister insisted on it). While I did enjoy the trips to the store and the movies, I constantly remember my aggravation that they never had "the right Belle costume" (her blue one, basket in tow  with a book in her other hand) or that they "only had Sleeping Beauty's costume--who wants to be the sleeping princess? That's boring ." As I continued to watch the Disney movies, I remember being happy when the princess wound up with the prince, but I also remember asking my mother, "What else does she get? Is that really it ? Where are her books? Her friends? Who cares about the prince--he didn't even say anything smart!" (In case you couldn't tell, Beauty and the ...
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Are Today's Youth Really Digital Natives?

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What do you make of the (divergent) positions of Boyd and Prensky (per our discussion in class and/or per the article above?)  Where do you stand on the “digital native” terminology? Prensky and Boyd each make valid points in their respective articles regarding the youth and their use of digital media and technology, and I believe that the two complement each other with the notion that, as Boyd said, there needs to be more time invested in developing everyone's media literacy, especially the literacy of the youth. It is not simply the disparity between the "digital immigrants" and the "digital natives" anymore.  During our class discussion about Prensky's argument, we focused mainly on the differences between the "digital immigrant" and the "digital native," and while these differences are important to note, it cannot detract from the Boyd's argument that everybody  should be analyzing and verifying the images, texts...
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