ePals is Up!

I am very excited to announce that I received all the information needed for epals.com and I have finished creating user names for my students. I am very excited to start with this project in my classroom. I now need to set up assignments and forum topics for my class and we are good to go!

Epals.com came with some pleasant surprises. Awhile back I was commenting to a colleague that it would be so nice if the students had email on the district server so that they can send and receive school related emails at school. I also commented that the teacher could send announcements this way to the students and it would be safe because district email is monitored. Well, my wish came true and I didn't even plan it that way. My class now has e-mail through epals.com. The great thing about it, is that it is teacher monitored. I can go and see what the students are sending and receiving and block messages if I have to. This is great because it is only supposed to be used for class.

As a side note this is the beginning of networking for my students and I am very excited to facilitate their networking and hope they can carry this on in their middle and high school careers.

Technology in My Classroom and How it's Failing

Recently I've been trying to integrate more technology into my classroom. It has not gone very well so far. One of the problems I feel I am facing is resistance from my school/district.

In my EME 5050 class we've been talking about blogs and how they would be useful for our students to connect to other students. I was very excited about starting a blog for my class and started looking into it. My idea was that I could get my students to write a summary of a book they are reading and post it then comment on other students entries. This would start a mini book club of sorts. I quickly found that it was going to be impossible due to "red tape." The first indication was when I asked some colleagues about it and they warned me it wouldn't work. I smiled at them and said that I'd like to find out on my own. The second indication it wasn't going to go well was when I tried to go to a blogging website while on campus. All blogging websites are blocked district wide. This is a major problem for me because I want my students that are not able to access the internet from home to be able to blog while on campus. So far this is placed on hold until I can get someone from my district to listen to me about the NETS-S standards.

I have decided that I will replace the blog with something temporary. I decided that my students will type a blog on Microsoft Word and save it to the student computers or email me a copy of it. I will then attach it to my website. The students will then have to find another student's blog on my teacher website and comment to it by typing up a response in Microsoft Word and follow the same steps as before. This is way more work than it should be but at least I am getting my students to use technology.

If anyone else has a better idea please let me know.

Websites Galore

Students and teachers use websites everyday. Every website has different purposes. Teachers could use websites to record grades, communicate with other teachers around the world, find lesson plans, research a subject, or look for pictures. The list is endless. Students can use websites for the same purposes. There are varying uses for websites and they have become an everyday part of life for most teachers and students.

Using websites has become such an integral part of education that the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) has created standards for educators and students. The standards for students are known as National Educational Technology Standards for Students (NETS-S). ISTE has also provided standards for teachers known as National Educational Technology Standards for Teachers (NETS-T). These standards can be found at http://www.iste.org/. I will share some websites that I have come across that I feel will relate to these standards.

One of the most common uses of websites is performing “searches.” A search can pull up a whole myriad of results that can be difficult to understand. It is important for educators to show students how to use proper searching techniques such as using all lowercase letters. Another way to make a search come up with better results is to use concise words. Searches can be a great resource or can become a headache quickly.

Many school districts have websites for their faculty and parents. The website that my school district uses has recently changed. It is now a one stop shop for anything that is going on in the district. Employees can sign in to the website and access documents that used to be only available from computers at the schools. Teachers can look at the districts curriculum suggestions for pacing. Parents can sign in and look at student’s grades. There is a email directory that people can use to find employee’s email addresses. The new website has been a huge success in my opinion.

I have also found myself spending some time on Florida’s Department of Education website. The most popular reason for me to be visiting the website is to look up state standards. Recently, Florida has changed some subject area standards and they have new ones listed. This has helped me see the differences/similarities between old and new standards. I have also been using the site to look up information on state certification and testing. The Florida Department of Education website is www.fldoe.org.

One website that I have enjoyed using lately is www.eduref.org. A good use for this website is for teachers to have one place to go to find resources. One NETS-T standard is that teachers will collaborate with other teachers. The website has a section where teachers can pose questions and have them answered by other teachers that are members of the website. The NETS-T also calls for educators to create “Digital Age Learning Experiences.” On this website one could find many electronic lesson plans. I feel that this website is a gateway to many other opportunities for educators that cannot be ignored.

Another site that I have come across that I enjoy is www.edweek.org. This website is a hot bed for anything going on in the education news. It has stories linked to it ranging from the California budget crisis to Obama’s recent speech to students. It is important for educators to be linked together so that they can help each other. I have found that if I know what other teachers are struggling or succeeding at, it will make me a better educator.

The last website that I feel meets a lot of the ISTE standards is any blog site such as the one that is the medium for this reflection. Blogging allows students and teachers alike to be creative in how they present information. It allows teachers to collaborate with each other. It allows students to learn language skills while doing something that they enjoy. Teachers can model to their student how to behave on a blog so that the students can have “digital citizenship,” one of the NETS-S standards.

There are a lot of websites on the World Wide Web. Accessing them correctly is hard but doable. I have not yet begun to scratch the surface but will continue digging for good websites to use for my growth as an educator.