Are blogs safe for classroom use?

   Many people today are worried about their child's safety online. Sometimes the thought of having your child blog can be one that makes yourself stop and ask, "How safe is this?". There are actually many safe ways to use blogs for education.
   First of all, to use a blog you set up a username, which for safety's sake, is not your own name. This helps protect the child's identity and makes it where no one reading or posting on the blog, besides the teacher, will know who that child is. For example, a teacher could have each child pick an animal for their username, so if a child's name is Sarah but her username was Kangaroo1, all you would see when she posted was Kangaroo1.
   Another way that blogs have been made safe is that there are some websites that offer secure blogs that only the teacher and students can see. That way no one else on the internet can look, only the students post and only the teacher and students can read it. One site that offers this for free is http://www.classchatter.com/.
  Even if you do use a blogging site such as blogger.com there are ways to make it only accessible to the people you want to see it. By opening an account wtih blogger and then clicking on "Settings" and then clicking on "Permissions" you can change it to where only the people you choose and look at the blog. So a teacher could make it where only her students, herself, and the parents could look at the blog.
  Another way a teacher can make internet and blog use safe for his/her students is to talk about internet safety in the classroom. This is not only an important skill the students need to know for internet use at school, but also for use of the computer at home. The following is a great article by KidsHealth about internet safety for children: http://kidshealth.org/parent/positive/family/net_safety.html#
  Blogs can be a great educational tool as long as teachers make sure there students use them in a safe way. Well, this ends my posting on Blogs so I hope that my research was of help to anyone who is attempting to use a blog in their classroom. Thank you!

Blogs Continued....

    I started doing research into the ways you can incorporate blogs in the classroom by first looking into the textbook we are using for my technology class Web 2.0: new tools, new schools. It described blogs as "a set of personal commentaries on issues the author deems important. It contains texts, images, and links to related information on other blogs, Web pages, and media...in which both the bloggers and commenters exchange opinions, ideas, and attitues."(55)
    The textbook also gave quite a few examples of ways teachers have used blogs in their classrooms. There were quite a few I thought were interesting. One teacher used her blog to give her students the list of homework and answers to previous homework assignments. She also used it as a way to put up the class notes, which contain the main idea learned in that particular class. Another teacher at Paine Elementary in Trussville, Alabama used a blog as a way for students to communicate and ask questions of soldiers who were fighting in the war in Iraq. (http://www.paineandthesoldiers.blogspot.com/) Other teachers have used their blogs as a discussion area where the teacher or student posts questions about the curriculum topics and let an open discussion take place. Obviously there are quite a few ways to incorporate blogs educationally into the classroom and next time I will continue my research topic with the safety issues of blogs.

Using Blogs in the Classroom

Over the course of doing this blog I have come to wonder: just how do teachers incorporate blogs into their classrooms? How do they make them educational? How do they make it safe for the students? These are all questions that I hope to answer in the next couple posts. I will be doing research on this and post examples of blogs teachers have used. I will also post some of my own ideas and insights on ways that blogs can be successfully used in the classroom to encourage learning.

Classroom Websites!

   Lately we have been working on our classroom websites. They have been a challenge for me since I have never before attempted to build a website, but I think I am finally starting to get the hang of it. Our websites have pages for parents, students, and other teachers. They also have to incorporate items such as a page on the curriculum the students are learning, a presentation, and Picasa slideshow. When I first began working on the site I did not realize just what all you can do on a classroom webpage, but as I have researched and worked on it more I have come to see the possibilities. I can assign homework, have parents fill out forms, have links to 'homework help' web pages, and discuss what we are learning about in class. I can also incorporate media such as educational videos and pictures of work the class has been doing. I can use the website as a way to keep parents involved and informed on what is going on in our classroom.
   The website can also help improve student learning by having fun games and activities that can help teach them concepts they find difficult. I can also post practice questions that the students can fill out. The students can use these to review over material and I can use them as an assessment to see if the class as a whole has an understanding of the material. I can also post the homework assignments on the website so that if a student forgot or is unsure of what they are suppose to be doing they can easily access it. Our world today has become more and more technology based. By incorporating technology such as interactive classroom websites students can experience learning in a fun, more meaningful way.

Portaortal

   Last week we completed a Portaportal (http://www.portaportal.com/) assignment. A portaportal is a free web based bookmarking utility, so it is like your computer's favorites button except all online. Some benefits to using the Portaportal over the traditional "favorite" button on a computer are that it allows you to divide the websites into categories, allows you to write descriptions about each site, and is easily accessed from any computer. We created a portaportal for resources we can use teaching. So mine is divided into categories like "Science Resources", "Homework Help", "Games for Students", etc. Then I can just click on the category and select the website I want to go to. I can also write up descriptions of each website so that I can see before I click what each site has to offer. This saves the user time since you no longer have to actually go to the site to remember exactly what it is. Another benefit of using the Portaportal is that it is all online so that you can access it from any computer. So if I find a website I want to use while teaching at home, I can just add it to my Portaportal and then access it at school.
   I will also be able to easily utilize Portaportal in my classroom with my students. Because the creator of the Portaportal can allow guest access, I can allow my students to access the sites. When students need help with a homework problem they can just click on the "Homework Help" link and have access to dozens of sites that can help them with the problems they are having. I could also help my students create their own Portaportal and they can add sites that can help them with research or projects.
  Overall, I am very excited about the Portaportal and its uses in the classroom. I believe it is a much more effective way of bookmarking sites than the traditional way of saving it onto your computer. If you are interested in setting up your own Portaportal just go to http://www.portaportal.com/signup.php.

Are Our Schools Doing Enough?

      This week we were asked to watch the video Learning to Change-Changing to Learn. It was a very interesting video that I suggest you watch (just click on the title and it will take you to the site). One eye-opening moment in that video for me was the opening statement which said that the Department of Commerce ranked the I.T. intensiveness level of different industry sectors and Education was ranked number fifty-five, below that of coal mining. In the discussions our class had everyone agreed that our schools are not integrating technology into the school system enough. It has just not been a priority. We also agreed that the students of today are already immersed in technology at home by texting, email, and social media sites and that schools and teachers need to "catch up". What we need to do as teachers is find ways to incorporate technology into the classroom so that learning will become more interesting and so our students will be more prepared for the future. 
       “If we want to engage students in learning, we need to first understand their world. This world is without borders, boundaries, and is limited only by the speed of one’s internet access.” (Solomon, Schrum). Schools today do not understand this concept. They spend too much time teaching to the test and not preparing students for real life. As one of the speakers said in the video, jobs now days are looking for workers who can create, find, validate, synthesize, use, and problem solve with technology (Learning to Change-Changing to Learn).  So students need to have these skills. When we test our students on a standardize test of facts we are not preparing them for the real work world. On the flip side, teachers need to teach traditional skills that technology has made our students in danger of losing such as grammar and spelling skills, handwriting, and how to do simple math without a calculator. I hope to have my classroom one that gives the students the opportunities they need to learn with technology and become prepared. I truly do believe that “educators are agents of change” (Solomon, Schrum) so as teachers, if we want to see our students succeed, we have a responsibility to teach technology to our students.


Quotes sited from:
Solomon, Gwen. Schrum, Lynne. Web 2.0: New tools, new schools. Washington, D.C. International Society for Technology in Education. 2007
Learning to Change, Changing to Learn  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tahTKdEUAPk

First Posting!

I am currently in an Instructional Design and Technology class for Elementary Teachers. It has been very interesting and informative. The other day we watched the video 10 Big Ideas For Better Classrooms . It suggested ten ways that we can improve our classrooms. Here are my thoughts on some of the ways:
     The world around us is changing; technology being a large part of that change. This requires our methods of teaching to change. As our students grow and prepare for life in the real world they must become adept in things such as technology and real world problem solving. 10 Big Ideas For Better Classrooms offers some interesting solutions. One solution was technology integration in the classroom. Things as simple as using a computer to create a game show to help study for a test or as complex as teaching students how to use GPS, probes, and laptops to do studies on the world around them will not only make classes more interesting for the student, but teach them the technological skills they need to do well in this ever changing world.
     Another method of teaching that can assist our students in the real world is Project-based learning. Project based learning is hands on real world projects in the classroom. And example the video gives is students using their geometry skills to “build” a high school. This kind of learning makes the lessons fun, interesting, and requires the students to use real world problem solving skills. It also can foster communication and collaboration skills whenever it requires students to work together as a group.
    The video also mentioned parent and community involvement. Technology has made that much easier on us as teachers. We can now be connected to parents or the community through ways such as emails, web pages, and blogs. If a parent has a question or concern they can instead email the teacher instead of writing notes back and forth.
   The video also discussed the idea of studying "Emotional Intelligence". I thought this was very interesting. Teaching kids to express their emotions in proper ways is very important. I believe many kids now days do not know how to properly express themselves and so end up frustrated and angry. This is something that I would like to integrate into my classroom one day because teaching kids how to deal with social and emotional problems will help them throughout their lives.
  As a student studying to be a teacher I am faced with deciding what I want to one day implement in my classroom. While technology is sure to be implemented some of the dilemmas I face with it are: "How do I use technology in a safe way for everyone involved?", "Will my school even have the funds to have technology in the classroom?", and "What are some specific ways I can use technology to make class more interesting and get parents and the community more involved?" As I go through this technology and design class I hope to explore some of these questions and more and post what I find later.