Favorite Web Resources

In the last couple weeks of instructional tech I have learned about many different web browsers. There are many different resources I can see myself using in the classroom because of how good they are.

First off, I really enjoy the site 4teachers. It has so many different helpful resources in preparing lessons and general aids for the classroom. I probably would use this site the most because of the many different resources it has on this one site. Such features include a design of your classroom. It can help with how I would like to rearrange my room with every piece of furniture I might have, and I can even type in the dimensions of room to see how things will fit to scale. This can be very useful, because a lot of times teachers are unsure of how to arrange their room that is good for positive learning. Another resource on this website is the note to parents section where it gives you outlines of how to write a letter that needs to be sent home. Such examples include field trip forms or notes going home about behavior. This can be extremely useful because it will help save time when you need to write letters to parents about things. This site is also interactive with students because of the available activities that are used to enforce learning. Another important tool on this site is the rubistar application. This can be very helpful when grading projects or papers or any type of assignment in class for the students. I can make the rubric to whatever type of assignment it is that I have given and give each student one. This way they will have exactly what I'm looking for on any one assignment given.

This website would probably be the site that I use the most for many of my classroom tools. There is so much on this site that it can help in many ways. Every way that I just explained would be a major help in organizing my classroom.

Inspiration

The program Inspiration would definitely be something I would invest in for my classroom. This is such a great program to make lessons easier and more fun for students. I would recommend this program to any teacher for their classroom.

This program can be virtually used in any subject you teach. Some content where it would be extremely useful would be in language arts with reading and writing, and other subjects such as science or social studies. During the language arts content if students are reading a book you can design a web or diagram that has the main characters then you can branch off and talk about their characteristics and traits. With this web it can help students write their own stories with characters and how their characters act. In social studies or history this program can be incorporated by using a web that can help organize different events that might have been discussed in class. With this web it will be easier for students to understand the main idea behind an event, and help organize people and the dates that occurred within the event.

This program is very useful for many content areas. The two mentioned are just some examples of how you can incorporate this program into the classroom. There are many other ways out there to make learning more exciting for students.

Social Bookmarking

Social bookmarking is a very useful tool. I believe it has a very important application in any classroom whether it be elementary up through college.

In an elementary class I can see social bookmarking as a huge benefit to me as the teacher as well as the students. In the classroom I can use social bookmarking websites to enhance lessons or activities that were taught. As a teacher I can tag and save these websites that might be good for following up on a lesson for the students. The websites I can bookmark can easily be located on my computer from home or school and I can have access to these links wherever. The students can also look at these sites if they have problems or any questions on things we might have already covered in a lesson. As for the students not only are they able to further their knowledge on these sites, but they can also share this information with other students. For example, if a student finds a website with good information about a topic they are studying they can share with their friends if they are working on a project together. And, if these sites are all book marked the students have a ready bibliography or list of resources to give a teacher already organized.

As for an Albright student I believe social bookmarking can help me. I believe this because many professors give students different websites to find information on and if they have a diigo page or some sort of social bookmarking page it is easier for the student to find web links rather than just searching for them via internet browser. I feel like if the professor can tag and organize the links on a social bookmarking page it would save the student and professor a lot of time that both parties can use from every year on.

Evaluating Websites

Evaluating websites before using them in a classroom or to do research is very important for many reasons. The first and foremost important reason to evaluate them before research or in the classroom is to make sure the website even works. It is also very important to check a website before research or for the use in a classroom because you want to make sure you are getting accurate information. Many websites out there are fake, or do not give accurate information, so you want to make sure when you are using a website for research you can get proper credit for correct information.

I think most people do not understand or apply the evaluating techniques when looking at websites. Like the example in class where professional journalist were were misinformed of the landing on the moon by Americans. These journalist proved they did not do their full research on the topic. These techniques are important and should always be in the back of someone's mind using the internet because there are a lot of fake websites out there. Student need to make sure their information is accurate because if you wrote a research project based off Wikipedia, a site where people can add and change information, all your research could be wrong and you fail a grade.

You can incorporate the evaluation techniques into a classroom by many different technology lessons. One example could be having my kids use their computer time looking at a list of websites I have given them. They can look up the website and tell me why they think it is reliable and a good source of information or not. I can even give them a chart with the different techniques on it and they can choose some websites of their own, or ones I have picked out and they can fill in each spot on the chart to make sure the website has every one of the techniques and can answer questions like, who is the author, when was it last updated, what is the content about and the perspective of the writer, etc.

Evaluating websites is very critical to classroom use as well as research. If students as well as parents understand these techniques it will greatly improve the research and information they retain and find.

Blogs in the Classroom

Incorporating blogs into your classroom can be an excellent tool in helping students to learn. However, like many things there is a disadvantage to using technology like blogs in the classroom as well.

Some advantages of blogging in a classroom is that students can use them to improve reading and writing skills. For instance, students can receive writing instructions from their teacher and go ahead and write their paper or thoughts on the topic in a blog. This will help students improve their skills by having a teacher be able to give feedback on the blog that was written. Students can than go in and easily correct or add anything they like to it. This also gives good instruction to peer editing where students can comment on each others blog and thoughts. Another advantage for online blogs for students is that their parents can go online and see what they are writing about and learning in the classroom. This gives the parents more up to date information on what their students are doing.

Some disadvantages of using this technology in your classroom is the possible concern for the safety of the children. For instance, like in a regular classroom setting teachers are to do a prevention plan on bullying. If you are online and blogging there is such a thing called cyber bullying that can occur. For instance, a rude or mean comment to another student about ones writing. The other comments are to be positive and constructive, and not making fun of or picking on someone because of their skill ability. Another disadvantage is in schools with lower economic standings they may not have the accessibility of computers like other schools. This is unfortunate because students and teachers would not be able to do lessons online, such as blogging.

First Blog

Hello and Goooood Morning!

This is my first blog.