Globe Trotting!

The Global Schoolhouse is a website that I would find useful in my classroom. This website was created by former teachers in an effort to increase communication on a global bases. The website offers activities for elementary through high school age students. It contains political information, virtual field trips, and science connections. In our curriculum students are asked to make text to world connections in their readings. This website is an excellent model for students in making that connection. However, my favorite area was the area of special needs students performing. This would be a good source for confidence building with my students. The website also offers a section where software can be purchased by teachers, administrators, etc. Overall, this website would allow my students to discover different and exciting new places, obtain background knowledge, make world connections and even play games to improve thier knowledge.

Run, kid, run!

Run, kid, run!
Originally uploaded by Gianni D.

It's raining

Do you know what that means?

The website I added to my delicious account was a vocabulary website. I liked this site because it offered different lesson plans that could be used to develop vocabulary skills for students. The site covered grade levels K- 12th grade. The skills included spelling, predicting, retelling which would be very useful in the primary grades. Some of the sites even had memory games for student to play.Some of the websites were interactive, internet connected, cooperative group oriented etc. The links were also rated from one star to five stars. This site would be beneficial in the classroom setting so that instruction could be diffentiated for students. The activities ranged from very easy to challenging which would help motivate slower paced students because they would be successful and motivate higher achievers to improve their skills.

Teaching each other

The EFL classroom 2.0 was an excellent blog site. Their motto "when one teaches, two learn" describes this site perfectly. The site is divided into two sections, the main page and the site map. The main page provide several options for teachers. These include a chat room, a forum which contains lesson plans, teacher question and answers, blog posts etc. All of this information would be extremely useful when working with ESOL students. The teachers respond from all parts of the country. The teachers teach grades K-12. The site map serves as a network of information and where to obtain information. The information includes video sites, listening sites, speaking sites and everything in between! I really loved this site and I think it would be useful for all that work with ESL students

Have you loved on someone today?

I chose to read a from the Mysterious Teaching Blog. Underneath this blog was a blog about how parents show or think they show their children that they love them. The author indicated that today's students often rely on teachers to get hugs because parents feel that theyshow love by buying things, believing them over teachers or other adults. By the same token they send their children to school without breakfast, without proper clothing and sick. The writer felt that parents in some cases didn't care. I disagree with her in that respect because some parents are trying so hard to put food on the table, clothes on their back and make them feel like they are like all of the other kids in the neighborhood. However, regardless of why children are asking for a hug, we all feel the need to be loved and needed. So,in the correct circumstance, it's okay to provide a hug to students.

Peachy Keen Websites

The three articles that I viewed were ,were discussed e-learning,
writing and collaborative learning . The collaborative learning site discussed the seven steps for social networking. The site included information that would be helpful before launching into this endeavor, helpful information to use when searching for other networks and ways to evaluate work completed on this site. I felt the most important information provided was the need to be careful with what students are writing and the age in which students should begin to use this site. the e-learning site discussed sites that provide professional development and resources that can be used with ELL,ESL and EFL students. Since the blogs are updated several times a day the information is current and useful. The third site was discussed ways for creating text to speech animated movies. this site enables students to use words in context, create diaglogue and create writing in a variety of genres. All of these sites could work together to create a writing atmosphere that would enable all students to be successful as well as develop BICS and CALP.

What a Way to Go!

The article "The Best Places Where Students Can Write On-Line" discussed different places students could go in order to write. The first area discussed was Edublogs where students could go and write their own blogs. Another place that students could go to write was Micro-Blogs. In micro-blogs students could write short posts and could add multimedia items. E-cards is another site that was referred to . In these sites, students were able to use the images provided and create writing related to the images. Bookr was a site he specifically said was useful to ESL students. This site allowed children to Flickr an image,drag the image to a book and then write about the image. My favorite site referred to in this article was Writing Online Books. In these sites the student were provided with story frames if needed, prompts if needed and students could invite others to help write the book. This is a valuable collaborative teaching tool. It would encourage students to write and help them if necessary. In any event, the student would be able to successfully write!

From Which We Came

I read the article about The Best Websites to Teach and Learn about African-American History These sites are accessable to English Language Learners. It included websites for news media such as CNN, newspapers from around the country as well as kids magazines. In addition the websites included interactive sites and video sites. some of the articles included timelines which would help students to get a visual picture of when historical events occurred. The articles were weritten in language that students could easily understand.

"Listen and YOU Will Hear!"

I read the article "Best Websites to Help Beginning Readers". This article discussed eleven best websites to help beginning readers. Some of the websites had free access and some were offered at a low cost annual fee. The websites included those offering talking stories and others provided the beginning reader with interactive activities. The website also considered "Starfall" which is often used in PG County a very good website for the beginning reader.The information I liked most about this website was that it included websites from other countries such as Spain and Korea. This website would encourage students from other countries to embrace their heritage and build on their prior knowledge.

Play toy or Power tool?

I read the article "Future Changes" which discussed the use of Wikis. The article discussed Wiki use as being sanctioned and unsanctioned. The article also discussed using Wiki accounts for social interaction and collaboration. I agree with the writer of this article that a Wiki account can be useful if companies provide the workforce that is to use Wiki with proper training and up to date software. I also agree that Wiki can be used for collaboration when groups are working on a project. I feel that Wiki may be considered a playtoy and used for social communication due to the lack of training in proper usage. This Wiki also discussed a variety of topics ranging from sanctioned and unsanctioned usage to President Obama's use of his blackberry. This site provided alot of information about different topics which would be useful to those perusing this site.

sitehttp://www.ikiw.org/

Practice what you Preach!

The article "Basic for Beginners: What Is Web 2.0? " made a lot of sense. As a teacher I spend a great deal of time encouraging students to try something new, trying to get students to learn new vocabulary and expand their information network. However, as a teacher, I think that I am reluctant to try something new. This article reminded me that I must lead by example. As I though about my years of teaching, I remembered how I had to adjust to my students having computer time during instruction time. I fought the changes but learned that the students were able to complete their computer time and get instruction too! It is the same way with blogging. As I become more comfortable with blogging, it will be easier for me to blog and get my students involved in blogging. I just have to practice using blogs and then let the students do it instead of continuing with a do as I say and not as I do attitude.
article: http://coolcatteacher.blogspot.com/2009/01/basics-for-beginners-what-is-web-20.html

Class Project?

The article "Thinking About Teaching Blogging to your Kids", made me feel a little better about the difficulties I am having trying to blog. I guess it does take time, patience and perservance in order to "master" blogging. I can see how it would be beneficial to students if it is done on a step by step basis. It gave me an idea of trying to get the special education teachers in my building to try blogging as a group and seeing if it is a tool we can use with our special education student so they can interact with each other or other special education students in other schools.
video: http://web20intheclassroom.blogspot.com/2008/04/thinking-about-teaching-blogging-to.html

Bloggers rule

Blogging does encourage the students to read. I don't think it encourages them to write grammatically correct. It encourages isolation. The social skills of face to face are lost- what is netiquette? If we are teaching BICS and CALPS to our ESOL population how are they obtaining this?
blogs http://murcha.wordpress.com/2008/03/14/20-reasons-why-students-should-blog/

response to article Rationale for educational blogging

After reading this article by Emmy and Jhonny I see blogging in a different light. The article reported that Blogs provide a means for students to interact with each other and their environment. It provides students with a purpose for writing and enables them, through study and interactions with peers and experts, to become independent thinkers. For ESL students, it can motivate them to interact with others and develop grammar and writing skills. I agree that students need an opportunity to write, be heard and respond to what they read. I agree that blogging may be a viable way for this communication to occur. I just find computer so imtimidating!While computers continue to make me uncomfortable, I realize the importance it holds for connecting to our students and the world around us. Therefore, I will try harder to make blogging a way of communicating with my students and colleagues.

Computers

I have two computers in my classroom. Since I teach special education using the co-teaching model, students are seldom in my class. However, they may come in during recess or free time and use the computer to access educational sites such as starfall or study island.

Computers in the classroom

In my classroom I have two computers. one computer is used mainly for special education information. The other computer is used by students to complete links such as starfall or study island. Since I am a resource teacher, students are seldom in class. My services are mainly rendered in the classroom using a co-teaching model. Students use the computers in class during their free time such as recess.