International School Blogs

For my international schools, I found one in New Zealand. This one was pretty neat to me because it's not just one class that is using this blog. There are different classes links on here and this is also used by students as well as the teachers. There is one teacher on this site, Mrs. H, who is apparently a big time traveler who's home is New Zealand. She has been several places and is documenting it all onto this site with pictures, etc.

She is currently in Bangkok, Thailand teaching there. She is writing about her life and experiences there for the kids to read about and see. Then, the kids are responding to her with questions and comments; nothing formal, just open conversation. Because of this blog, these children are able to get an idea of exactly what it is like to be in a totally different part of the world. The pictures Mrs. H has posted of Bangkok, Thailand are incredible.

My second international school was in Brazil. The crazy thing is, DON'T LAUGH, none of the page is in English, but I still chose it. It is still shocking to me that children this young are able to blog. These are young children, and you can see where they each have their picture up and you can see on the right hand side where each child's link/post are available to click on. Again, these are young children!!!! They are already way ahead of where I was at that age! I guess when we tend to think, "technology," we tend to think of only adults and, actually I guess, only Americans......How wrong is that?

When I was really looking at this site that has NO English what so ever, I was trying to figure out what it could be used for other than connecting the teachers and students as well as connecting the students with each other as well. I see where they are posting the newsletters on this site for the children as well as the parents to be able to browse through and see what exactly is going on in the school where their children are attending.

United States School Blogs

When I did my search to find other schools using blogs as a part of their work, I honestly never expected to find ELEMENTARY schools doing the same thing I am JUST learning how to do in college. When I was in school, if we had an assignment due or if our parents wanted to check in on exactly what we were doing as a class, they had to ask the teacher when they dropped us off for school in the morning. This is apparently no longer the case. In my search, I found Mrs.Perry's blog. (Mrs. Perry is a 4th grade teacher at St. Leonard Elementary School in Calvert County.) It is completely set up to tie the teachers and parents together. She even has links posted to take the kids to sites for educational games. She also uses it to "brag" on her students. There are all sorts of pictures posted showing how the kids were suppose to create an animal which was fictional and a combination of the characteristics of several of their favorite animals put together. Upon completing the assignment, she posted some of their great art work so that everyone could see what they did! What an awesome way to encourage the kids to do their absolute best!

Mrs. Perry has also has a link to showcase the the work done by her students. You can also see, as Mrs. Perry says, "how her students are using technology." This is a wonderful way to again, connect parents and teachers, but to also really let the parents see how their children are spending their time at school. As we learned from our technology video from our last blog, technology is an unavoidable part of our future. If my child were in Mrs. Perry's class, I would feel very encouraged that my child was being properly prepared.

My second school that I found was in Central New Jersey @ AAHS. The teacher, Mr. Brian McLaughlin has done an awesome job with this blog'. His students are using this site to post comments on pretty much anything. They are allowed to just make post about whatever, and they also use the tools on his site to post about educational things as well.

Mr. McLaughlin has opened up this site for discussions to take place between his students. This is allowing them, even when they aren' t talking about school work, to communicate with each other.

Mr. McLaughlin is using his blog to, along with many other teachers, reinforce assignments, etc. He also has a map project going to let students mark where they have been in the world and is keeping track. I think this is neat because you can see exactly how many places we have all been.

Technology Video

If anyone that has watched this video does not come out with a reaction of "WOW," I will not understand them! I can not believe all of the information on this video for one, and for two-I cannot believe that this was actually created for such a small audience and is now being seen all over the world! That alone is enough to really make you take a serious look at how far we have come with our technological advances.

In this video, it is talks about how even our smallest of children are learning how to use computers now. This is the part that really hit home with me. I started to think back to just this morning when I was logging in so that I could play the learning games with my 14 MONTH OLD!!!! There are even special computers and furniture to accomdate our preschool cyber people now!


















The video also brings it to our attentions of how being a "logged-on" society has affected everything in our lives, even down to our language. It points out that you would have never heard people one hundred years ago using words like cyberspace, or google it.

I feel that this video is one that everyone should watch, and that it should really make all of us, especially parents, want to raise the questions that it discussed which would lead to answers of where the education of our youth is being steered. It encourages each and every parent to want to make sure that their children are being taught to be able to survive in the 21st century. I think that the message of this video is wonderful! Afterall, if we don't make sure that our children are being prepared...if we do not make it known that we care...then our current students and children will be totally shut out of a rapidly advancing world that is only get better with every passing second!

I am very encouraged after watching this along with a little frightened of my own weaknesses in the world of technology! This video has given me the motivation to get up and learn and I encourage everyone to do the same!

ACCESS

After looking over the ACCESS website, I am very excited about the learning opportunities we are developing with the increasing development of technologies. This program is bringing the classroom to the kids/students who can not go to the classroom for whatever the reasons may be! According to this site, Alabama is doing very well in trying to make sure that our schools are readily equipped to handle this program. After all, when you find away to offer Advanced Placement courses to a school that otherwise would have never given its students the option to learn at an advanced level , only good can come from its benefits!

I think that my biggest misconception about this type of learning was exactly how the classes would be offered. This will not only be an on-line "log in and work" sort of program; Video Conferencing is also offered. Here is a picture for an example of video conferencing so that you can get a better idea of how it would work:






There are several benefits to the video conferencing! Also, with it on video or on the web, think about this point that the site pointed out; the classes, experiments, lessons, etc., will never be just a one time hit-or-miss kind of lesson. The students can repeatedly log back on to review. Wouldn't it be nice to have that option in all of our classes!

Offering classes like this can only help our students exceed in a way that has probably always felt impossible to the very rural communities before now. Imagine having a gifted child that you know could be doing so much more than just these regular high school courses, but not being able to help them fulfill their potential because of distance. Think of all of the college applicants who needed those scholarships but could not receive them due to lack of AP courses on their transcripts. Now, maybe this will allow all students to have the exact same opportunities regardless of money or location!

The site also talks about where they are planning for 24 of their pilot sites to go to start off with. Take a look at these locations and hope there will be many more added in the future!

ALEX/ACCESS Assignment

Let me just start by saying, WOW! This assignment may very well be the single most helpful, yet mind blowing one I have ever done! My mother started homeschooling me when I was in the 5th grade and to say it was hard at times on both of us would be a HUGE understatement. We had no idea about any websites like these. I can only imagine the time and headaches we both could have saved if we would have been aware of ALEX or ACCESS or any of the links you can get to from ALEX's home page!

One thing that really stood out to me to be the main difference between these two sites is it seems that ALEX is going to be more "separated" from the classroom itself in the sense that it is for teachers, parents, students, etc. There is something for everyone; whether it is trying to make lesson plans, find activities for children on rainy days, assist your children with spelling, grammar, math, or even just trying to find educational activities for your child to do during the summer to keep them up-to-date. Do not think that it is out of the question to use in the classroom though, it covers everything. ACCESS is more of an "in class" tool for the kids who are eligible or in need of classes that are not offered in their school or even close enough for them to travel to. With this program, the student only needs a computer; you have your instructor online. If you are interested in Alabama's stand point on trying to make sure that all of our schools are equipped with this option, click here AlabamaSchoolsInfo.

Since I obviously missed the help from this site in the past, I can promise you I will not miss out on it in the future. My goal is to be an Elementary teacher, (hopefully somewhere between Kindergarten and 3rd grade) so I am geared more to the links for the younger classes. Once I started clicking on different links, I couldn't stop. The site that is themed from the children's show, BetweentheLions is amazing. It actually makes learning into an educational game. Since I am also the mother of a 14 month old and I am very determined to give her a head start, I can promise you that we will be spending lots of time on this site! I would definitely suggest ALL parents check into this as it is not only be geared to preschool ages.

Another tool that stood out to me was the grammar link. Especially with every child over the age of 2 now carrying a cell phone around and texting, our children's grammar and spelling has hit rock bottom. I know most people think that it is not that big of a deal, but these habits are not just staying in the text messages. In my opinion, the transformation from texting to writing a paper for school is almost impossible for a lot of kids. Now, there is a site for these children to go to and ask specific GrammarQuestions with a quick response. To see some of the activities for spelling click here SpellingActivities .

I believe that if we could make everyone out there aware of this site, we could help our children more than ever before.

1st Class

Today was my first experience EVER with Google doc. To be very honest I am worried about how I am going to be able to remember how to even log into this blog every week, but I am hoping that it will get easier as the semester goes. I have never blogged anything before, not even on My Space so this is all very new to me. I am excited, though, about learning how to navigate my way through the computer with ease. Our teacher seems like he will be very helpful, so I should do okay. I have learned in this first class that there is going to be alot to keep up with-especially with the assignments. My goal is to be able to finish this class in May not only with an A, but also with alot more "know how" than I have right now about creating documents if nothing else. I am getting very nervous though...So we'll se how it goes!