Web resources

We looked at many web resources in the class but two of my favorite were 4teachers and emints. I will probably use these two the most in my classroom. I liked 4teachers because it has many resources related to making assessments for the classroom and forms to communicate with parents and other administrators. It also has activites for students to work with and lesson plans you can pull ideas from. I really liked Emints also because it has a lot of information useful for the classroom. It is also organized by grade level and subject area. There was a lot of information on animals, holidays and famous places in the world and much, much more. This resource contains a lot of other useful things for teachers and students.

Inspiration

Inspiration is definitely a program that I would invest in for my classroom. It is a very helpful tool for teachers and students and can be used in all subject areas. As a teacher I can use it to plan out lesson plans, write curriculum for the class and communicate with parents on events that are coming up and things we are focusing on in the classroom, through concept maps and diagrams.

The students can use it to make story webs, character recognition, word walls and more. In science this tool can be used to make cycles such as; the water cycle and life cycles. It can also be used to organize animals by species and class. In history it can be used to make timelines of events and organize specific facts about a historian. It can also be used in math to show orders of operations and steps to a word problem. Inspiration can be used for so many different things in the classroom I don't know what teacher wouldn't invest in it.

social bookmarking

Social bookmarking is a very useful and efficient tool to use in the classroom. It can be used in any classroom from elementary to college. Because children are growing up with more and more with technology they know how to use different tools, especially the internet and social bookmarking could be used as a great tool to find useful websites. In the classroom a teacher can save certain websites on lessons that were taught and different subjects. These websites could have useful information for the students that expand their knowledge and let them see other activities that could be used. Students could find websites that interest them and inform the teacher of materials that relate to what they are learning. Social bookmarking also lets teachers save sites and view sites that other teachers save. They can use material from sites that other teachers post. They can also save sites for certain subjects and projects the students may be doing. This is such a great tool because instead of losing the sites they are always there when you need them and can view them at home or at school.

As an Albright student social bookmarking can really help me as an education major. I wish I knew about it before this year because it could have been a lot more helpful. As an education major we visit many sites that help us as teachers and sites where we can get lesson plans and activities to use in our classes. It would be so much easier to tag these sites so I could go back and use them whenever I want and need to. Social bookmarking should be used by all teachers in every school environment.

http://delicious.com/laura.krieger11

Evaluating websites

It is very impotant to evaluate websites. You want to make sure that the information that you find on the internet is accurate and valid. Anyone can post things on websites and can create and put anything on their sites to try and fool people. When you or your students are doing research you need to be aware of the signs that the website is fake. First you should check to see if the site has an author, then look at the name of the site to see if it looks authentic and how the website looks. You should also look at the date that it was created and last updated to see if the information is up to date.

A lot of people do not evaluate websites properly and recieve false information that they believe is true because it is on the internet. People should really learn how to evaluate websites properly especially teachers so that they can teach their students.

In my classroom to make sure that my students know how to properly evaluate websites, I will first inform them of how to do it and then I would have them go onto websites and evaluate themm by filling out a worksheet. This way I know that they know how to do it before I assign them a research project to do, which requires them to get information from the internet.

incorporating blogs in the classroom

Using blogs in the classroom is a very helpful tool. It can be used in many ways in the classroom. You can post homework assignments and grades online. You can have the students communicate with other students, either in the class, in another class, in another school or a different state. You can give the students an assignment online and have them blog about something they read or an assignment they had to complete. You can also use this to communicate with parents by posting their childs success and let them blog about it.

Some advantages of using blogs in the classroom is that it minimizes paper work for the teachers, it gives the students the chance to use technology and communicate with eachother and the teacher through the internet. Another advantage is having communication with parents. Students can also blog about assignments that they had, which gives feedback to the teacher. The teacher can then change the assignments accordingly.

Some disadvantages of blogging in the classroom is that some students will take advantage of the privelege. Some classrooms and schools may not have enough money to purchase computers for all the students. Students may not have computers at home to complete the assignments. But overall blogging is a very efficient classroom tool.

First Blog

Hi, This is my first blog!!!