Model Educator Blogs

There are so many resources out there that allow you to expand your knowledge of technology in the classroom. A great example of a well rounded blog that cover quite a bit in the world of K-12 education is Between the By-Road and the Main Road. This blog concentrates mainly on literacy topics including reading and writing and one thing that caught my attention right away was the number of book lists that she has compiled. These lists includes a number of picture books that concentrate on special needs, inspiring girls and women, as well as a large list of new children books that have been published in the past couple years.

Another interesting blog that I cam across was iPads in 3C. What I liked most about this site is she is concentrating on the integration of the iPad2 into her classroom. She includes multiple examples of using this technology across the curriculum and the benefits she has seen with them so far.

Finally, as a special ed teacher I am constantly looking for off grade level materials to help supplement the classroom curriculum and for this reason I have fallen in love with some blogs that I have come across this school year. Here are a few that I have discovered and have found to be extremely useful. Chalk Talk: A Kindergarten Blog, Little Warriors, and Tales from a K-1 Classroom all full of wonderfully creative ideas.

Internet Projects and WebQuests

The amount of high quality instructional resources available to teachers on the Internet is overwhelming. However, there are resources that make the daunting task of searching the Internet and utilizing information a bit easier. In the reading Teaching with the Internet K-12: New Literacies for New Times you will find ideas that help to enrich your curriculum with internet resource. Some ideas that came up in the reading were Internet projects and WebQuests, two ways of using the internet that I was not overly familiar with. All of which make perfect sense in the means of organizing resources on specific topics for teachers to use as instructional tools to help students explore and discuss different topics. Here are a couple of examples:

Internet Project: Surfing for ABC's 

Not all the links work in the above example, but I liked the idea especially for a kindergarten Internet project. 

WebQuest: Designing Hermit's New Home - basing a WebQuest on literature read in class

Puppet Pals iPad App

New Literacies

When you stop to think about it the impact the Internet has had on every day life is incredible. The Internet allows us to do, learn, and become involved with things that were never possible in the past. One of the greatest things is seeing this technology move into the classroom more and more. When technology is used properly and is made available it can be such a wonderful means of motivating, engaging, and assisting our students in their day-to-day lives. 

New Literacies encompass a whole host of materials and opportunities on the Internet. It involves creating opportunities to navigate through, search for, read about, and create projects on anything you can think of. These new literacies have already had such an impact around the world on people’s lives it’s time that it be seen as a crucial part of every classroom.

I wish I can say that I have incorporated all kinds of technology into the work that I do with my students, but to be completely honest I haven’t. I think we get so wrapped up in our day-to-day assignments that certain things get pushed to the side. Although I do use a Smart Board, IPad, and IPods I know I’m not using them to their potential however, I look forward to giving some new ideas a try like creating digital storybooks and finding new apps to use on the I devices like Puppet Pals, which I came across when I was watching this youtube video:

NETS

Due to the ever-growing need for individuals to be “Internet savvy” there must be a means of determining proficiency with technology. There is an organization International Society for Technology in Education that puts out The National Educational Technology Standards (NETS) for students, teachers, and administrators.  No longer will student’s just “use” the Internet we now need them to be critical learns through use of the Internet. The six areas that are concentrated on for students are: communication and collaboration, research and information, critical thinking, creativity and innovation, technology operations, and digital citizenship.

I think it’s just as critical that teachers are held accountable to be up to date on new and exciting technology and for this reason the NETS have standards for teachers that include the following areas: digital age work, digital age learning, student learning, professional growth, and digital citizenship. This allows teachers to stay up to date on new and exciting technology and provides them with further resources to use with their students.  

Helpful Websites

While searching the internet this weekend for some much needed inspiration I came across two websites that turned out to be quite helpful. The first is One Place For Special Needs where they have a comprehensive list of apps that are conveniently categorized by skills set. The second website I came across was Studdy Ladder. At this site you can find tons of resources from K-2 in multiple subject areas. Hopefully you will these sites just as helpful as I did.

My First Blog!

Here at my first night of class and trying to absorb as much of this technology as possible. I'm excited to see what I can take back and use with my students!