Monday, February 20, 2012
Week 4- Empowering Students with Technology
Five and six year olds using Ipads and net-books in the classroom! In the chapters read this week in November's book there are many wonderful technology opportunities offered for students at any age in the classroom. I think these chapters brought together many of the discussions and articles that we have been focusing on over the past couple of weeks. This was not only an informational text where definitions and road-maps on to how to use the internet but it was a great resource with examples of how technology can be used effectively. I was able to make many connections between my own classroom and the information presented. I evaluated my classroom blog and began to think about how I can connect my blog to increasing the home-school connection for my students. I thought of ways to improve my blog, not only by using these chapters but also by using points in Bonk's article from week 3. On page 37 in November's book he talks about the importance of classroom websites as a way to get parents more involved in what is happening inside the classroom. I want to take this a step further and use my blog, since I already have a classroom website through my schools website, to see it I can increase parent involvement. I have set this as my goal for the next few months to see if an increase is noticed as I am currently having a hard time getting parents involved what is happening in the classroom. I also like the information presented in this book in regards to Skyping. As I posted in an earlier post, I have used Skype in my classroom before. We have Skyped with another first grade class in the district and also Skyped with a farm last year when we studied animal babies as part of our Science unit. I have a colleague who used Skype to talk with her class when she was on maternity leave. They student, parent, and teacher feedback was great! I agree with November that there are endless possibilities when using Skype in the classroom.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
What a great idea to Skype throughout maternity leave. I never thought of that. I do hear from several colleagues that the teachers and students loose that connecting time if leave is in the beginning of the year. That would serve the purpose of keeping the teacher in the loop and can be included in decision making if needed. I can also play devil's advocate and say that when I was bonding with my daughter when on maternity leave, I'm not sure I would want to micromanage. Just a quick, hi how are you, what have you been learning? Brief Skype would be nice.
ReplyDeleteI agree. You can really do great things with Skype even if it is quick. The forth grade students and parents that used it with their teacher on maternity leave gave wonderful feedback.
ReplyDelete