November 17th

*In today’s society there are an abundance of tools for students to use to share their work with the communities. Depending on the age and grade level of the students, these will affect the tool of choice. Being a teacher of first grade, I feel the best way to manage this opportunity would be to share on the teacher’s website so family members, other teachers, and community members can have access.  Classroom teachers could also create a classroom blog and share student’s work in this manner.  This would also leave the door open to people of the community to access. The list goes on and on in today’s digital world. 

*There are endless opportunities for teacher’s to enrich their students with authentic work and opportunities connected to technology in today’s world.  Depending on the grade level, the teacher can incorporate activities using Skype and Podcasts to help students get connected with other classrooms around the world.  These types of tools can be enriching to our children of the future, as well as confusing.  It is the educator’s job to teach the students the communication skills and cultural skills to take part in activities that revolve around technology.  Alan November mentions in his book Empowering Students with Technology that “As we connect our students to the world, we need to focus much more on our staff development on preparing teachers to help students manage relationships and cultural negotiation” (November, 2010).

*In my opinion, the most beneficial design for a teacher created website would be interactive.  I think it would be user friendly for children and adults.  It would have a place for blogging or a discussion forum.  It would also have a spot for posting work, helpful learning links, assignments and newsletters.  I think one of the most important pieces to a teacher created website is that it is capable of interacting with other colleagues.  In today’s education, collaboration is a vital piece to successful teaching and learning.