February 22, 2014
Building
and Refining my PLN
Some Useful Interesting Blogs and About Wikis,
Wikipedia, and UTube
Because I am presently a resource teacher under special
education services for middle school, I have interest in looking at how other
teachers/districts put together their webpages.
I don’t have a specific resource room website up yet, this assignment
was a good opportunity to motivate me to look at some of them in terms of what
information they have and how it is presented. Further, I found some great resources to use
as references to be able to pullout and review, as a professional, when needed
having to do with special education. By
making them a part of my rss feed, they are always right there when I need them
and I don’t have to go fishing through books to find the information.
The Wayland Public
Schools of Massachusetts has a nice site that includes a resource room
page. What I like about it is how they,
yes, explain what resource is, but they also list all the peripheral special
education staff; including the teachers, counselors/psychologists, speech
pathologists, occupational/physical therapists.
They explain what everyone’s responsibilities are, as well as, a “Did
you know” section. This would be a good idea to transfer to my school.
Resource Room by Susan Jones, M.Ed. is a site that is
full of helpful information for a resource teacher. Along with having excellent
advice on being organized, she continues to remind you of things that will make
a difference like being proactive, staying on top of IEP responsibilities, and establishing
communication routines early. This site
covers a lot of ground including the implications of distance learning and students
with disabilities. It’s a good site to
review from time to time.
Spedexpress is another good resource for both parents
and teachers, published by Dr. Hill, and explains many of the disabilities that students might
have, the different types of placements, a questions and answers section, as
well as, offers behavioral interventions; and other advice such as how to
support a grieving student.
The Teaching Blog Addict is a resource community put
together by teachers and offers resources for how one might use technology in
the classroom, informs of different technologies, lists common core, how to be
more organized, curriculum support, as well as, all kinds of ideas on how to
improve blogging, including information on feedly. It also invites your contributions if you
want to publish an idea.
Power My Learning is another resource site for educators and
this one is also open for parents, and students to join. It offers tons of activities, and allows
teachers to build classes, and monitor assignments. Parents can also get involved with student
learning, and monitor assignments. I
registered and tried out one of the activities, and feel that this is going to
be an excellent site to use in the classroom for interactive skill
building. There are activities for all
core subjects, including math, language arts, science, social studies, music
and art, technology, and world languages.
However, I don’t know if all of the activities are free. This was probably my favorite because of all
the offerings. However, it’s brand new,
and will it last.
The MiddleWeb is another teacher resource specifically for
grades 4 through 8, and offers all kinds of resources from advice on student
behavior to books and articles, bloggers, and all kinds of activities. It is a good resource for teacher teaching any subject area, and
appears to be a little more organized than some of the other such resources
that I looked at.
Judging the Quality of Wikis and Non-vetted Sites
Views on the use of
Wikis
With regards to wikis, I find them to be quite amazing as to
how one simply has to register to have
them, and there becomes available a quick space to allow for collaboration,
community, and links instantly. I don’t
know how the school administrator (tech guard) will respond to loading a wiki
on the netbooks, but I can’t wait to see if they will be acceptable
loading. The students will gain from
being able to work collaboratively on projects online that are not necessarily
connected to a textbook series, but will be able to research more of their own
resources and bring to bear more of their own ideas. As students democratically compose, edit, and
link information, they grow in multiple ways, including the give and take of
respectfully sharing. The only drawback
I would possibly consider, at this time, would be that during crunch time, you
must be patient and perhaps wait your turn while others work on the wiki; as
only one person can work on it at a time.
Views on the use of
Wikipedia and Utube
I feel that Wikipedia and UTube are good resources that can
be used to help bring students closer to understanding a topic, a part of
content, or an idea. They are perfectly
okay to use as a part of researching something that will bring about more
knowledge and understanding. By this I
mean, don’t let Wikipedia, Utube, or for that matter any resource be the gospel
of research. I think that rather than banning these
resources, and my district doesn’t allow the use of UTube; we should teach
students to be conscience of, and vigilant in searching out many resources of
the same or similar ideas, and compare and consider all, before forming an
opinion. For a quick idea of what
something is or isn’t , Wikipedia is a good start, and I find nothing wrong
with searching out a Utube video for a visual example of something. Kahn Academy is an excellent example of
using videos to support students in acquiring knowledge. Yes, it’s a much bigger, more organized
project, but the videos are used in basically the same way that a single
production video is used. Don’t get me
wrong, I love Discovery Education, but there have been instances when it hasn’t
been available for reasons I care not to mention. I say teach students to not rely on any one
source of information.
How have I been doing
with using the new tools?
The thing about this class is that the professor sort of
makes me look at and figure out how to use the tools that are introduced
through his of the lessons. So, I admit
I have learned how to use Twitter, I have actually started doing a little
Twitting. But I still must admit that I
have yet to learn more of the bells and whistles of Twitter. I’m still in the novice stage. In regard to RSS feeds, it’s about the same,
as I’m getting better because I’m beginning to understand how it really
works. I noticed that Netvibes doesn’t
necessarily like widgets. I see how this
could be a big help in the classroom with organizing resources for students to
go online and retrieve when necessary. I
am beginning to like this idea a whole lot, and I’m completely sold on the
wikis and can’t wait to start one of my own.
Tweeting the Experts
Theguardian Teacher
Network - This is a huge professional network for all professionals with a
mammoth teacher network wing. It is interesting
how that I found theguardian Teacher Network and realized that the series:
Inspiring teaching discussed the 5 top technology tools for the English
classroom and one of them just happen to be screencasts. I tweeted about just having completed
one. What I really like about this site
is all the useful information offered for teachers, including career and job
information listed in the recruiterzone.
Also, I couldn’t believe all the resources offered for the
classroom.
The National Center
for Learning Disabilities - seeks to improve the lives of all with learning
difficulties and disabilities by educating parents, working with schools,
acting as advocacy and impacting policy.
The organization offers resources for both parents and teachers, and
those with learning disabilities, as well as, holds events to bring attention
to the important work that is being done to support children, adolescents, and
adults with learning disabilities. I am
now following Dr. Sheldon Horowitz@LD_Expert.
Education Week – This is a good way for educators to stay on
top of what’s happening in the industry, particularly, as we tend to often
isolate ourselves in our work environments.
EdWeek mentioned how some school districts turned snow day into
e-learning days, and I wonder how many schools in Michigan did so. I Tweeted about how I think it is important
to stay abreast of trends in education using such resources as EdWeek.
Powermylearning – is my absolute favorite resource for the
classroom through I have a concern because it is very new. This web-based site makes thousands of online
learning activities available to teachers, parents, and students in one
place. I Tweeted about how much I
already feel this site is very useful; as it covers all subject areas.
You had so many good website I was not sure which one's I wanted to comment on however there were two that I think would be fantastic for me and my students. Theguardian Teacher Network is a wealth of information with the recruiterzone assisting with all types of job information and the powermylearning.org is my favorite because all my classes are taught on line and this website gives you tons of online learning activities I can use to make my class a lot more engaging.
ReplyDeleteHey Andrea, thanks for checking them out, I kinda just lucked up on those resources and plan to put them in my diigo to keep and pull up when needed, I will also share with other teachers in my building.
DeleteHi Regina,
ReplyDeleteThanks for the information about the websites, especially powermylearning.org. This is a great website! And it's aligned to the Common Core. The fact that parents and students can use it too is a plus!
I definitely agree. Anything that both students and parents can use definitely help, especially with parental involvement.
DeleteYou definitely picked some good resources for learning, Regina. I always look for scholarly resources since I have been taught that way throughout my life. Scholarly resources books and reputable articles (and certain organizations such as Smithonian, US Government that has archives and records).
ReplyDeleteFor Wikis during a class assignment, they can be a great tool for a project.I agree with the drawback about two students editing at once and only one can save the work (I have experienced the frustration as a student for entire class assignments and small group work). I think wikis would be appropriate for small group work only. The frustration isn't terrible with small group work, but with a large class editing a wiki, it can be quite challenging.
We should teach students how to be vigilant of how to use Youtube and Wikipedia. They are not terrible, but Wikipedia needs to be used as a starting point only since anyone can edit and some facts have been wrong on Wikipedia. However, there are some links to outside resources that students can then click on and continue their research from their. Regarding Youtube, lots of teachers and organizations (The US Government and nonprofits) use it directly for educational purposes, and students need to know which videos are the correct ones to use when doing research.
Hey sherlock, the wikis are going to work out just fine in the classroom. Now that I am aware of ways to use them, I'm excited about the possibilities. My only drawback is that I don't really control any classrooms since I mostly push in as a resource teacher to give students needed supports. However, I will continue to recommend technology uses to the lead teachers.
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