Meet Miss Carobine

     Hello everyone! My name is Maria and I am a teacher... a teacher of all sorts of things! I graduated from Ashland Universtiy with a degree in early childhood education.  While I was at Ashland, I taught fitness classes to my peers as well as faculty members.  I spent two years after I graduated teaching preschool at a Head Start Preschool in Mansfield.  I left that position so that I could move back to the Northeast Ohio area to be closer with my family and begin working towards my reading endorsement at The University of Akron.  This year I started working as a Title I reading teacher in Streetsboro City Schools.  I am working with students in fourth, fifth, and sixth grade that struggle with reading. 
     When I am not teaching, I enjoy music and going to concerts.  I would be lost without my satellite radio! I also spend a lot of time exercising. I run when I have to but I would rather spend time lifting, hiking, and working out in fun ways.  I enjoy going out and trying new things.  I will taste any food at least once! Luckily, I really enjoy being a teacher and do not mind going to work and also taking work home with me sometimes...

     As far as social media, I would consider myself sometimes a bit addicted to my phone as most people are these days.  I enjoy my facebook, twitter, and instagram updates as well as the pinterest inspirations.  The list grows from there as I also use snapchat, linked in, and groupme.  While reading the article, "A Teenager's View on Social Media" on Backchannel, I agree found myself agreeing with the author's take on each mode of social media explained.  Facebook is the all encompassing piece of social media that includes pictures, updates and messages to friends.  The main focus of my facebook page is that it keeps me connected to more people than other forms of social media.  My instagram is the best place for my pictures and then those pictures also are shared on my facbook via the instagram app.  My twitter page is mostly little blurbs and links that are about a focused sort of topics such as sports and music.  The different thing about twitter and pinterest is that those posts are meant to be seen by a larger audience that may not even be personal friends or acquaintances.  
    Now it is easy to see that I am no stranger to social media and as someone that uses it a great deal, I am all for the use of social media whenever appropriate.  Is the classroom an area that would be "appropriate" for social media? I say yes.  I feel that there are many ways to integrate social media in today's classroom that can make communication much more efficient and sharing projects, assignments, and comments easier as well.  Teachers can communicate with parents via teacher or classroom facebook pages and stay updated with twitter updates.  Students can share projects and papers with other classmates through a group page.  Social media is an aspect of our society that is not likely to slow down and become extinct any time soon.  If the use of social media can help students that are tired with class spark some interest, then I feel that it should be embraced.  We will never be able to slow down these trends so I say if you can't beat 'em, join 'em!