Chapter 10 Discussion
1.
What online resources are available to assist
educators in researching areas of interest? Describe some of them.
Various online resources are
available to assist educators in researching areas of interest. Online publications such as electronic
journals and articles are sites that allow users to research topics using
site-based search engines and usually offer links to related information. There
are a number of online publications accessible on the Internet. Some
publications address specific subjects, while others offer information on a
variety of topics. Online professional organizations are another resource that
can help educators in their research. Many of these organizations offer online
publications, as well as news about events and issues important to the
organization. One professional organization with an online presence that I am a
member of is the Association of Texas Professional Educators. Wikis are an
additional resource for educators to access when researching information. A
wiki is a website where content is collaboratively written so that anyone with
access to a computer and the Internet can edit or add to the information on the
site. Perhaps the largest and most popular wiki is Wikipedia. Weblogs or blogs
for short, also provide good resources for educators. Blogs are online spaces
where users can post personal thoughts or comments. Many educators create their
own blogs to share information and resources related to their profession and/or
educational experiences. RSS feeds or “Rich Site Summary” feeds are news
updates that are “continuously and automatically renewed via the web”. These
feeds can be good resources for educators as well because they allow viewers to
stay informed about information that is of interest to them or relevant to
their research. Additional online resources with often abundant sources of
information are government websites. The U.S. Department of Education site
contains information about “education news, national standards, programs,
grants, research, links to other federal agencies, and a wide variety of
publications and reports”.
2.
Post your teacher website (if you have one), in
the Webliography. How can a website help improve communications with students,
parents, and the community?
While I do not have a specific
classroom website per say, I did create a dashboard site in my last technology
course which I shared within the Webliography.
If I were to create a website for
my future classroom, I think that the tools that I used to create this site
would be beneficial. I believe that having a classroom website can improve
communications with students, parents, and the community because it opens up
communication not only between the teacher and the students, but it allows
individuals within the community to view information related to the learning activities
that are occurring within the classroom/school. On educator created websites,
teachers can post important information like rules, schedules, and homework, as
well as “communicate expectations to the parents of all students in the class”.
Using email and other resources available through a website, teachers can
communicate asynchronously with parents to discuss important matters and
student progress. Additionally, if teachers securely post access to grades and
attendance records through a website, parents can monitor student performance.
All of these elements work to create a “powerful home-school partnership”. By
allowing the community to view the website, teachers can invite members to
attend or participate in classroom events, thus helping to enhance the learning
environment.
3.
You have decided to create an electronic
learning community for your students to communicate with other students worldwide.
How would you go about doing this?
Although there are different ways
to create an electronic learning community for students, during my last course,
I discovered the site ePals. This website is a free tool that allows educators
to create a global learning community by connecting students/classrooms with
other students/classrooms around the world, thus expanding learning
opportunities. While this site is discussed briefly within the textbook
readings, my experience with the website inspired me to want to use it with my
future classroom to help create a worldwide electronic learning community for
my students. Once registered for ePals,
teachers can create accounts that allow their students to gain access to the
website. When a teacher matches his or her students with another classroom, the
students can correspond through a ePals tool known as SchoolMail 365 or the
video conferencing tool Skype, through the ePals site. Both tools allow secure
correspondence and the interaction between the students can be monitored by the
teacher. In addition to these tools, the ePals site also offers students access
to various educational learning games and websites, as well as different sites
that can be utilized for research purposes. Teachers can also create a Project
Workspace within ePals and allow students to collaboratively work on and submit
assigned projects or join and contribute to projects that other classrooms have
begun within the ePals shared project page. In general, I feel that the ePals
site is one of the easiest ways to create an electronic learning community for
students.
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