More Teachers Using Blogs

Man these things are hard to find . . . But I'm glad to see that if teachers really are using blogs in their classrooms, the blogs are hard to find. That goes to show that these sites can be well secured if need be.

I found a blog by Mrs. Harwood who seems to be maybe a high school teacher. Her school, location, and pictures are not avaliable. She uses blogs to assign work to her students so that they can build a writing portfolio. Mrs. Harwood'sclassroom blogs can be found by clicking on her name. Her students have pals they communicate with internationally through blogspot and her students work on projects together for their blog postings. It's pretty neat . . . worth checking out.

I think I might have hit the "motherload." I found a site that has a huge list of teachers using blogs. Most of them aren't so much used to educate the students, but more to educate society about the school, the classroom, the students, and so on.
I found one that seemed really neat. It was a young teacher from New Zeland, and she is a newcomer to the blogging world, but she has embraced it and used it to her advantage. She seems really excited about the way the world is changing so rapidly. Ms. Rachel Boyd taught her class of 6-7 year olds how to make a movie/video, how to work with blogs, and other remarkable things. You can find her at this site, and the picture at the top right is of Ms. Rachel Boyd.

Teachers Using Blogs in the Classroom

At Richards Elementary School in Whitefish Bay, WI the fourth grade students have started using blogs as part of their curriculum. The site lets students, parents, and community see a calendar of upcoming events to prepare for and look forward to. The teacher has posted friendly reminders, newsletters, links to websites of their "keypals" which is the equivalent of "penpals" when we were that age. This particular teacher posts assignments and updates her posts on a daily basis. She also has a link to a more personal classroom blog that really just has to do with her students and not so much the parents and community.

Adding Links and Pictures

First we will review the methods for creating a link. Our link will be to The Fischbowl , a blog for technology training used at Arapahoe High School in Littleton, CO. Here is a picture from Arapahoe High School

ACCESS

This website is about a program that contributes $85,000 to enable high school students in the state of Alabama to get a better education in the classroom and to get even more education through distance learning in online courses, the option to take advanced classes, more advanced techology, and teachers who know what they're doing.

There are three regions that cover all of Alabama and they are, Madison City Schools for northern Alabama, The University of Alabama for middle Alabama, and Troy University for southern Alabama. By the third expansion to ACCESS, every county in Alabama will have access to ACCESS. This program offers everything from foreign languages to mathematics.

I think that maybe the Alabama Department of Education is stepping up a little. Seems like maybe they're tired of not be very high in the area of intelligence, so they're making it more of a possibility for students to succeed.

Another Post on ALEX

As a teacher, I think I will use this website to get ideas on how to teach difficult topics to my class and to interact with other teachers. And this site has lesson plans for every subject you can imagine. I'm excited about using ALEX in the future. As long as it keeps us updated with the advances in teaching techniques that work and what not.

I might also use this website to show parents my lesson plans(since we can post our own), and get feedback from them and know what they think there children should be learning. This site could really be a way for teachers to stay on their A-game and do what they should be doing to raise up the next generation in an appropriate manner.

ALEX

Well goodness, ALEX is a haven for teachers. I'll probably use this website once I start teaching. It enables teachers to search lesson plans, different ways to teach their students, subject matter. It even gives teachers a way to interact with one another through sharing these materials with other teachers. The ALEX website is perfect for teachers because it will probably answer any question you have or solve any problem from as far as teaching goes.

You Tube Video

So that video was pretty intense. Wow! I don't even really know what to say. I mean, it's widely known that China is much "smarter" and technologically advanced, but who knew that such a small percentage of China is so much more intelligent than all Americans put together. It's amazing that the America's focus is on so many things that aren't relevant to our lives. And it kind of sucks to know that everything we're learning, as a human race, will be "outdated" before we even get to start teaching children. Very scary since we're all education majors. . .