We can help!

Help the homeless in Utah County

Homeless families in America -Snapshot of a culture we often forget

1 in 50 children in the United States of America experience homelessness each year. These children are not only deprived the comforts of home, but their living conditions, health, development and educations suffer as well.

Homeless children

• Are sick 4 times more often than other children
• Go hungry and experience increased rates of obesity because of poor nutrition.
• Have three times the rate of emotional and behavioral problems as other children
• Are exposed to serious violence frequently and early.
• Are four times more likely to show delayed development
• Twice as likely to have learning disabilities as other children

Source: National Center on Family Homelessness

Homeless Children Fact Sheet

Looking at this evidence it is easy to see how homelessness, even temporarily can affect schoolchildren. Sickness, hunger, and fatigue hinder learning, as do emotional/behavioral problems and learning disabilities.

"Homeless children find stability in school" here is the link to the news video

The culture of this subgroup, the context of these students lives is important to consider as a teacher.

Some questions to consider as a future teacher:

How can I help homeless/disadvantaged students overcome learning barriers (macrofactors-factors they cannot control)?

How can I help them in academia when they are struggling to survive?

How can I assist homeless students and families? How far should I go in my humanitarian efforts? I

Homeless children stats

Numbers of Homeless Students Rising News Article 2008

Wet homework story

“A hundred years from now it will not matter what my bank account was, the sort of house I lived in, or the kind of clothes I wore but the world may be much different because I was important in the life of a child.”
Author Unknown

Using social networking sites.... for important stuff

I have recently started using Facebook for school and pre-professional stuff. Professors have suggested I "add" them so we can stay connected. I have also been compiling e-mails of people I will maybe want to contact once I am working in schools. Such social networking is relatively easy and very powerful. Advice is just one click away.

I have also recently (since August) started using google groups. It is SO cool to be able to be connected with a whole group of people at once rather than looking up individuals or sending massive e-mails. I first used this with my study abroad group, we still use it for our writing class. And recently I have used google groups for my technology class (the one that got me to do this blog :).

I think google groups (and google reader and google docs and google calendar) is genius. I could see myself using it in the future to stay connected to a specific group of professional or a group of Health Education teachers. We could collaborate, share ideas, complain and feel connected to others doing the same thing.

Way neat.

Technology while very beneficial and helpful is daunting if you don't know how to use it. So get out there and start using it.

Mom that means you, get a gmail account. Now.

Useful links for a future Health Educator

So here are some useful links to help me and anyone else stay informed and connected in the health and health education field.

USDA's MyPyramid

Health teacher resource site (my favorite)

Journal of the American Medical Association

Active Learning

Food Science (because I like that stuff)

Link to a Health Teacher's Website with lots of useful links

Web med

And for teaching ESL

Aww, cute, my "Personal Learning Network" is growing!

WHOA technology!

Technology learning OVERLOAD!! If it isn't weird enough making a blog, posting videos of myself and creating a website for my education technology class, I also get to have "electronic lessons" every other class (for TELL 400) am required to facebook, text and twitter throughout the lesson.

What at strange new world we live in. Oh the technological age!

It seems like a couple of weeks ago we were dipping candles, hand sewing and gardening. Oh wait ha ha, I was...and in a pioneer dress too!

Right Back at you Wendy! Response to copyright comments

Video Proving my Copyright law educational experience. Hooray!

Success! My very own "Copyright Tutorial Certificate"

Wow, suffering through a long BYU online tutorial on copyright laws was actually kind of good. Being educated is always good :) and now I have a "Copyright Tutorial Certificate". I am pretty cool.

Here are some of the most interesting things I learned:

• Anything I make or produce is eligible and protected by copyright the moment it is produced IF: it is preserved in a medium, an original, exhibits creativity (not common fact)
• I can apply for copyright protection pretty easily.
• Fair Use Law provides for well, fair use of nearly ANYTHING...under certain conditions of course. This is good to know as a future teacher because educational purposes are nearly always protected under Fair Use.
• Factors considered under fair use include the amount of the material used, the nature of the work, purpose in using it, and effect on the market for using it freely.
• Taking music off of the internet is ILLEGAL. Yes ILLEGAL no matter how easy or common it is. This relates to the fact that by getting it for free someone else is not getting paid for their work.
• Anything dating before 1923 is NOT protected by copyright (...no wonder they have corrupted Jane Austen's work and made it "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies... which is hilarious by the way).

Now I kind of get why I had so many british museum employees yell at me when I tried to take pictures....well kind of. Isn't a photo of Shakespeare's birthplace kind of public domain, come on people. At the Louve they let me take a photo of anything I wanted.... While I have learned a lot about copyright laws there is still a lot to take in.

It is good to be educated and responsible and legal in the world. I encourage anyone to learn more about copyright laws. Why not? This is something we run into everyday!

My video

New!

Welcome to my first ever blog! Making a blog is a lot easier than I thought! No wonder everyone is doing it! I just hope that maintaining and sharing things on this blog don't turn out much more complicated than making this!

My first mission: to embed a video I have made into the blog. I made the video, I made the blog, now let's see if I can make them be friends!