Group items tagged

Brown's class was discussing some of the whaling calculations in Moby Dick. When one student asked a question involving a complex computation, three students quickly pulled out their cell phones and did the math. Brown was surprised to learn that most cell phones have a built-in calculator. She was even more surprised at how literate her students were with the many functions included in their phones. She took a quick poll and found that all her students either had a cell phone or easy access to one. In fact, students became genuinely engaged in a class discussion about phone features. This got Brown thinking about how she might incorporate this technology into learning activities.

Brown noticed that many students used text messaging to communicate, and considered how she might use cell phones in summarizing and analyzing text to help her students better understand Richard III.

• Effective summarizing is one of the most powerful skills students can cultivate. It provides students with tools for identifying the most important aspects of what they are learning, especially when teachers use a frame of reference (Marzano, Pickering, & Pollock, 2001).
• Summarizing helps students identify critical information. Research shows gains in reading comprehension when students learn how to incorporate isummary framesi (series of questions designed to highlight critical passages) as a tool for summarizing (Meyer & Freedle, 1984).
• When students use this strategy, they are better able to understand what they are reading, identify key information, and provide a summary that helps them retain the information (Armbruster, Anderson, & Ostertag, 1987).

Text messaging is a real-world example of summarizing—to communicate information in a few words the user must identify key ideas. Brown saw that she could use a technique students had already mastered, within the context of literature study.

The older sister, a student at a local Clay County junior high school, approached the CyberCrime investigator after attending the Attorney General’s CyberSafety presentation. She reported to the investigator that she and her younger sister had been communicating with Caldara, 21, via cell phone and text messaging and Caldara had sent the children pornography. The two children eventually met Caldara in real life and a subsequent investigation revealed Caldara sexually abused the younger sister.

THE mother of a former student at the prestigious Sydney girls'
school embroiled in a cyber-bullying
scandal has spoken out about the claimed culture of
intimidation at Ascham.

The woman said yesterday, on condition of anonymity, that her
daughter had been forced to leave the school after becoming the
target of bullies.

About 20 percent of teenagers have posted or sent nude cellphone pictures of themselves, according to the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, a nonprofit group.

digital dating violence.

The behaviors can be a warning sign that a teenager may become a perpetrator or a victim of domestic violence, according to the group.