I have also worked with several communication tools, this too has been very interesting. The ListServ has been one that just keeps on giving! I have found many interesting ideas and activities as well as issues that I had not been aware of before joining this ListServ. I am also using Eudora and am looking into the students having key-pals with some of the members of the Rotary Club (this group is one of our Partners in Education). I am still trying to get the webboard figured out and I would like to spend more time working in a Chat room, with both of these I need a lot of practice!
Another thing that will be very helpful is the numerous resources available to me through Ridgely School and Springfield District 186 such as CD-ROMs, software programs, and web-based resources that will be beneficial in the area of Language Arts and Technology. It was not until researching these in one of our modules that I found that our district and my school have an unbelievable amount of materials readily available. I think many of these will be excellent to use with my kindergarten class. I also found that there are many tools that I can borrow, such as cameras and scanners, to help enhance my curriculum.
This school year, we will have Internet access in all of the classrooms in our building. As I quickly learned, Internet users have the capability to tune in to an unlimited amount of materials. An important issue that I have been made aware of through this course is one relating to the Acceptable Use Policy (AUP). I feel significant advances can be made in creating a formal technology plan for Ridgely School. I know that I can be an asset to our technology committee and can be instrumental in seeing that our technology committee looks closely at the Acceptable Use Policy of Springfield Public School District 186 and add to it for our own use. I believe that it is important to have a formal policy and that all district staff as well as the students and parents know what this plan entails. After reading the articles for these assignments, I realize the importance of really checking out the information viewed on the web. There is so much out there and a lot of it looks so good on the surface! I heard a lot about AUPs from people through the ListServ too. In light of all of the information obtained I now feel it is very important that all people using a Ridgely server be required to sign an AUP.
I have found many fun and interesting resources, and many terrific places that I think my students will enjoy visiting. All of these will bring a lot of excitement to a school project of exploring the Internet! Plans are underway now for a school wide project entitled S.O.A.R. into Cyberspace (S.O.A.R. stands for Students Online At Ridgely).
Through my work in this course I was also made aware of how Technology is a great way to help teachers make accommodations for students with disabilities. I had the opportunity to work with some alternative page design strategies and found articles and web sites pertaining to Web access issues for students with disabilities that I know will be excellent resources.
In the beginning of this class we were spending a lot of time trying to figure things out and help each other. For classes in the future, maybe a little more time could be spent with the technical support people before the start of the course starts and then it might be a little smoother of a start. I really appreciated also the help and quick response that I was given when I did run into difficulties. Our questions and problems were dealt with right away and that made it easy to continue working without a lot of wasted time.
In future courses I would also like to see time given to actually complete a sample product from a lesson. This way we would be sure to know how the software or the program works before we try to use it in our classrooms. I have eleven lessons for my Unit 1, and there are several things that I want to try because I'm not sure they are going to go the way that I am hoping! It would also be nice to see the projects that the others are working on. I did find out that as I go through my lessons District 186 has something that is called "Just In Time Training". This will help because when I go to do any of my projects they will assist me with the programs and software that I'm not familiar with.
I think that I have a great start in providing my students with an enhanced curriculum that will better meet the needs of all of our students. I have learned a tremendous amount in the past four weeks, and I am really excited just thinking about the enormous potential for further growth in the area of technology.