For Daniel

In memory of my beautiful son Daniel. If you could only know what a miracle that boy
was...I have been asked to speak to you today about my son, Daniel; about his life and
what he meant to me; about his death and what that has done to me and my family. I
apologize, for I cannot. The pain I feel by just by writing this is indescribable. I fear the
only sound you would hear is the agonized moan that my soul has cried with every beat of
my heart since Daniel died.
My son was a joy. He had huge brown eyes, an innocent smile, and soft brown curls you
couldn't help but touch. Before he died Daniel got a big boy hair cut. I miss his curls. I miss HIM so much. What happened to our son is not merely about us. It is about working mothers and fathers who entrust their children to the care of responsible professionals.
Decisions about who we would trust with Daniel were not made lightly. We looked for
someone to care for him with sincere and careful attendance.
I have to say I am very disappointed in Rimma. I truly believed that she was responsible,
sincere, and professional. As it turned out she took the role of a child driver and caregiver very casually. AS WE ALL KNOW, Rimma took her neice to camp the morning Daniel died.
She felt well enough to go to shopping during her work hours. I am certain she felt well
enough to call and chat with her husband and daughter that day. Rimma would like you to
feel sorry for her and be respectful and understanding of her pain. I tried, but I cannot. You see the only thing Rimma seems to have forgotten that hot summer day was my son; my
beautiful two and a half year old angel. I trusted you Rimma with my child. It IS your job to
take care of children. How could you forget my son? You never once thought about Daniel as
he cried in your van. So desperate was he to get out that he unbuckled himself and tried to
open the van door. Do you have any idea what it is like for me to know how he fought for his
life, suffered enormously and was baked alive in your van? How could you forget my son?
I lost my mother to cancer when I was 3 years old. As a nurse I worked with terminally ill
patients for almost 11 years, helping people and their families face death with comfort and
dignity. No one comforted Daniel. You took that from me and so much more. Every night
before I fall asleep I see the same scene in front of my eyes...my innocent, helpless,
beautiful child....confused and crying in your van. "Where is Rimma? Why did she leave me
here? What did I do? Mommy? Daddy? I want to get out!" The nightmare is endless. I
couldn't help my son when he needed me most! I couldn't hold his hand when he needed me
most! No I was left to hold his beautiful, cold, dead hand in the emergency room of St.
Mary's Hospital in Langhorne; in the same hospital where he was born two and a half years
earlier.I was begging God that this was not true. Please wake up! I don't know how long my
Daniel suffered, and believe me, I can't bear to know. I feel like a walking dead person.
Rimma, you forgot Daniel. You killed him. Your carelessness, thoughtlessness cost Daniel
his life. I will never see my son grow up, never again kiss his sweet face, hold his hand, hug
him close. I'll never see him blow out his birthday candles, teach him to ride a bike, help
him with his homework. I will never be the same person again; my life will never be the
same. Never, never, never......
After Daniel died it became very clear to my husband and I how very cold and two faced
you are, Rimma. Your cruelty and inhuman attitude towards us was unbearable. Rimma
wants people to feel sorry for her. However, she has no idea how brutal and unkind her
behavior was during the awful time of being neighbors right after our tragedy. How could you
bring that van back to your home when we lived two doors away? How could you subject us
to look at the death trap where our son took his last breath? That was heartless and
unforgivable.
The terrible reality is that nothing can bring our beautiful son back no matter how much
we wish it, but the person responsible should be punished. My family is devastated and
destroyed because Rimma forgot. Because Rimma didn't care. Our lives are ruined forever.
Instead of playing with Daniel, we visit the cemetery often. We cry all the time, pray all the
time. So many parents trust their children to professional caregivers everyday. These
caregivers accept the highest degree of responsibilty. Tragic accidents leading to death or
permanent mental or physical disability are not acceptable. Negligence can not be forgiven.
To me, Rimma is a murderer. She caused the death of my son just as surely as she
suffocated him herself. You may call her differently in this court room, of course, but if what
she did is not murder, then what is?
We will never forget our Daniel. When our time comes to join him, we will hug and hug
him, hug him a million times. We will never forget him. And we will never forgive Rimma.
Thank you for listening. Please hug and kiss your children and grandchildren.
Sincerely, Emily..................bereaved mother of Daniel Slutsky

Class Reflection

Looking back on this class, I can say it was a good review of everything I either taught myself or learned through my education career. I eagerly anticipated taking this course, but in the end I was left wanting. I found myself completing my assignments in a relatively short amount of time, then went on to experiment on my own. I know that the class consisted of Netgeners and Net immigrants, but I think that as the population of Netgeners in teacher training increases, Albright should consider offering two sections based on the students' abilities. Overall I did find some good ways to integrate technology into the classroom, but I would have like to have learned about these invaluable tools in addition to how to use them.

Portfolio Project

http://mrstevens05.webnode.com/

Make this digital portfolio was incredibly easy. With the exception of the Technology Article Reviews which I intended to continually update, I placed everything until the portfolio section. I designed the rest of the website to be easily updated when I actually become a teacher. Having so easily made a website I hope to play around to make websites for students to use in lessons.

Interactive Whiteboard Reflection

I had a lot of fun with this project. All during high school, as long as teacher was in the room we were allowed to play with the Smartboards in the classrooms. We started by doing silly things like simply drawing pictures or playing solitaire. We moved on to free flash games on the internet and so on. During the last semester of my senior year, my friends in a tech class began showing me some more of the features of the Smartboard, such as creating your own activities. I learned a few of the basics. Our Edu Tech class picked up right where my friends left off. I really liked the built in templates, in particular hot spots, and quizzes. I could go on for pages of all the ideas I have for these templates. I really see no reason why I wouldn't use some of these interactive activities. They are so innovative and hit so many different senses which students use to learn, I think the class will be much more engaged and participative.

Do schools stifle creativity?

http://www.cnn.com/2009/OPINION/11/03/robinson.schools.stifle.creativity/index.html

The speaker poses an interesting argument. I'm still wrestling with it, so I thought everyone might like to share in my struggle.

Video Project Reflection

Overall, I was happy with the outcome of our video project. All the scenes were relatively easy to film. We had a issue with one scene with the time lag between Jessica sending me a text message, and my phone receiving it, but that was simply a minor inconvenience. The greatest difficulty we faced was the failure of the microphone to record any audio. This added another hour to project because we needed to use audacity to dub our video. We had to record many takes to match our lips in the video, while also trying to minimize the amount of background noise produced by other groups working in lab. Once we had the audio complete, we then had to tediously sync it with the video. I have shared the movie with friends and everyone has liked it so far. It was an incredibly easy project to complete, taking only 3 hours. It would have taken less than 2 if we did not have the audio issue. I definitely could use something like this as a project for my students in the future.

P.S. You can view my project at www.tinyurl.com/jjsproject

Videos and Education

Videos have always been an incredibly useful tool to me in education. For projects, usually for a social studies or science class, I began using videos around 7th grade. The first time I used a movie was ten minute clip about the stages of volcano eruption. At first I used them as an introduction to my topic to help my audience focus and create a common picture for them to visualize. As I progressed into high school and DVDs became the norm, I began integrating the videos into the middle of presentations. I liked this approach more because it allowed me to highlight necessary details, such as the significance of geography in the Vietnam War, while also working a short break into my presentation. While the class watched the clips, I could grab a drink of water, catch my breath, go over my notes to make sure I had not skipped any vital details, etc.

With the advent of streaming video and the accessibility of movies on the internet, I will definitely be using movies in my lessons. As a social studies teacher, I would love to have a field trip every week so my students could actually experience the regions and cultures we study. Since there is little chance of this happening, I believe videos will be an adequate substitution. I also like the idea of doing adjusting the three stages of reading to the video, doing pre-, during, and post- exercises. I would also likely distribute a work sheet with the movie to better focus my students.

Another aspect I like is that many social studies authors are affiliated with major organizations such as National Geographic or NCSS. Because of this, these organizations like to incorporate them into the movies they produce. As a student, seeing the author of my history of Egypt textbook actually handling artifacts gave the book further credibility and gave me a better appreciation for his work. With luck, I will be able to incorporate books by authors who also appear in movies into my curriculum.