Friday, January 30, 2009

Teachers Using Blogs Internationally

One international class blog that I found was located in Auckland, New Zealand. Buckland's Beach Intermediate school uses several blogs for several of the grades they teach. One of them is located at http://thediaryofannefrank.blogspot.com/ . The Diary of Anne Frank is the actual name of the blog where a group of 10-11 year old (sixth year) students from Buckland Beach Intermediate posted some of their literature assignments, such as letters written to Anne Frank, summaries, character analyses and other materials. For instance, they posted a podcast reflection on the book and a poster of Anne Frank. Here is their poster designed by Andrew:


anne frank poster


Also at Buckland Beach Intermediate School is another literature-based class blog for the seventh-year students, who are 11-12 year olds. They were in the process of reading "Goodnight Mister Tom", by Michelle Magorian, when their blog was being published. They wrote scripts, picture diagrams, poems, predictions, and discussions about the story. If you type into your browser http://goodnightmistertom.blogspot.com/ , you will see their site. If you scroll all the way to the bottom of the page, you can see this little diagram using letters made by Robin:


willie mister tom diagram

Teachers Using Blogs in the U.S.

One of the first class blogs I found was located at Noel Elementary School in Noel, Missouri. If you type in http://mrcsclassblog.blogspot.com/ in your browser, you will find a blog by Mr. C's fifth grade class. The class posted things like a book on water and dams they had been they had been reading and studying, and also a list of character traits of the main character, Stanley Yelnats, in the book "Holes". On January 21, 2009 they had posted pictures of the Barack Obama Inauguration and what had been going on in class that day. One of the photos was of the kids sitting in the classroom actually watchig the inauguration. Here is one of the pictures of a poster drawing one of the kids made:

obama poster

Another class blog in the U.S. was being used at Century Elementary school in Nixa, Missouri. If you go to http://teachers.emints.org/FY06/elliottl/ you will find their class blog. Lori Elliott, the 5th grade teacher, maintained the site for her students. In this blog, the teacher posted things like power point presentations, photos,resources, parent help, and updates. If you select "Our Class" and then click on the PowerPoint link, you will see one of the presentations titled "Boys Will be Boys", created by Mrs. Elliott. If you select "Class Blog", also under "Our Class", you will see that Mrs. Elliott posted some pictures of her summer vacation there. Here are a couple:

cruise boat


beach sunset

Thursday, January 29, 2009

Sunday, January 25, 2009

Did you know?

If you go to http://thefischbowl.blogspot.com/2007/06/did-you-know-20.html, you will see a presentation. The information in this presentation contains facts that most people probably are not aware of. For example, the numbers of college graduates in the year 2006 in these three countries are as follows:
The U.S.-1.3 million
India-3.1 million
China-3.3 million

To me, this was rather surprising. I thought that the U.S. produced the largest number of college graduates, and definitely was unaware that it only produces a third of the number that China produces. Also, 100% of the college graduates in India speak English, and it is predicted that in 10 years, the number one English-speaking country will be... China. There are new college majors now that didn't even exist 10 years ago, such as new media, organic agriculture, e-business, nanotechnology, and homeland security. This shows the advancement of today's job necessities.

As for progressions in technology, it is simply amazing. More than 70% of 4-year-olds have used a computer. More than 50% of 21-year-olds have created web content. The number of internet devices alone increased from one thousand in 1984 to six hundred million in 2006! E-bay revenue for 2006 was six billion dollars, and there have been more than 2.7 billion searches performed on Google only this month! It makes you wonder who answered these questions before Google was around. More than 230,000 new users sign up for MySpace every day, and if MySpace were a country, it would be the eighth largest country in the world!

One thing we need to consider: are we as teachers doing our job to prepare this generation to put these technologies to use? One quote from the presentation especially caught my attention. "We are currently preparing students for jobs and technologies that don't exist in order to solve problems that we don't even know are problems yet." And Albert Einstein said "We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used to create them." Are teachers overdoing it in the wrong areas, and not yet doing enough in others? When is too much too much? And, what changes need to be made? These are questions I think are very important to consider and analyze as we continue in learning to be educators.

Tuesday, January 20, 2009

ACCESS

In my last blog, I promised the next post would be about ACCESS. The Alabama Connecting Classroom, Educators and Students Statewide(ACCESS), is an amazing online program that allows students to take courses and interact with teachers through technology by the web. ACCESS works with high school students and offers advanced diplomas, which are required by the state, AP courses, distance learning, additional courses and electives that may not normally be available, and remedial classes for those who may need extra help.

Students are able to converse with teachers face-to-face and ask questions when help is needed. The distance learning is especially welcome for students who live out in rural areas if no high school or transportation is available; they can participate in general courses, AP courses, electives, interact with teachers, and receive their diploma all from home. It can be either synchronous or asynchronous learning. Technologically, the students who use ACCESS will have a slight advantage over traditional classroom students because they will have had more experience learning online. All a student has to do to sign up for ACCESS is to be registered with the public high school in their area.

ACCESS is not only beneficial to the students, but also to the teachers who use it, by providing them with additional technology and tools to better educate their students. The teachers receive specific training to be able to operate the teaching systems within the ACCESS program. ACCESS is an Alabama statewide program that gives both students and teachers better opportunities to enhance education as much as possible.

Sunday, January 18, 2009

ALEX

ALEX, the Alabama Learning Exchange, is a community database that allows teachers to post lesson plans online. Teachers can also search for the required courses of study quickly and easily. ALEX even connects administrators and parents of students, so that the parents know what academic standards are to be met by their children. In this way, parents can better prepare their children at home and encourage them to do well in school.

ALEX is fairly simple to use, as it is set up in a very organized form. If a teacher were to go to http://alex.state.al.us/, they would be sent to the main page setup with eight separate icons, labeled Courses of Study, Web Links, Lesson Plan, Search, Personal Workspace, Professional Learning, Distance Learning, and Help. These icons tell the inquirer exactly what information they would need right away. This program is extremely useful and beneficial, especially if one is a novice in the field of teaching. It can provide teachers with templates for setting up their lesson plans, show them which grades should be in which levels on every subject, and give them web links for extra resources. Teachers can even have their own personal, password-safe workspace online to make things easier.

In addition, under the icon Professional Learning, ALEX provides information about special education, English language learners, grant opportunities, and certain tips and tricks that can be very helpful to teachers and administrators. The distance learning help is provided by ACCESS, another useful online program that will be discussed in the next blog.

Friday, January 16, 2009

About Me

Well, as you can tell from my blog my name is Jacquelyn. I first came to South two years ago in the Fall of 2006 as a transfer student from New Orleans, majoring in nursing. After only one semester, I decided that since my family was moving to Tennessee in December, I would move with them. We lived there only for about eighteen months, but when we went up there, since it was too late for me to transfer again, I got a job as a childcare provider in an all-summer/after school care program.

Now, I had worked with kids many times before: Bible school camps, babysitting my five younger siblings and other kids, etc., but this time, I came to the conclusion that I would be a teacher. I had considered going into education for awhile, and the daycare experience was my final push towards making that decision. So, we moved back down south to Mobile in September of 2008, and that's how I ended up back at South two years later. They supposedly have an excellent elementary education program here.

Some of my interests include reading and writing. I enjoy helping kids learn to read and reading to them as well. I have taken two psychology classes in my past college years, both of which I found quite interesting. I consider myself a little "technologically challenged", so I'm sure this class will help me out a lot with that aspect of teaching. As for my personal hobbies, I like photography and putting together photo albums. Music and movies are fun. My favorite types of music are old-school, classic rock, instrumental, soul, and jazz. I also love shoes more than anyone I know! My mom says I have a disease.

Tuesday, January 13, 2009

In Class Sample

First blog!!

In EDM310-103 right now:)