In my practice as a preschool teacher, web tools that I use are to enhance education by keeping my teaching resources in order to quickly and consistently retrieve them. They are also used to share information among fellow teachers and staff and to keep parents up to date about their children's education. While I use some computer and internet based resources directly with the children, the most important tools for me are the ones that make my job better, more interesting and more organized.
Bookmarks
Diigo is a new bookmarking site that features the ability to have online access to your cataloged favorites anywhere you go. It offers multicolored highlighting to help you remember exactly what you saved the page for in the first place. It also offers sticky notes (a teacher's best friend!) to allow personal notes to be placed right on the page. This is a great tool to keep the many other internet resources that a teacher may use organized. It could also be used as a class or parent site, allowing pages of interest to be stored and vital information to be hightlighted for attention. Students or parents could pop sticky notes on the page with their own thoughts to promote communication or spark further discussion.
Photos
I am not sure what site is "BEST" but password protected photo sharing sites are an amazing tool. While permission still needs to be obtained from parents to post student pictures, many of these sites - such as photobucket - offer an administrative login and password and a guest password for viewing only. This allows only the teacher or administrator full access to the site but allows parents or other chosen users to log on using a secure password in order to view photos. Preschool parents would love to see every minute of their child's day but that is not possible for most. As a teacher I email individual parents photos of their child occasionally but a secure site for the entire class to use is a great way to keep parents and kids connected during the day.
Document Sharing
Emailing documents is a great way to get information from here to there quickly, cheaply, and paperless-ly. However sites like Google Docs allows multiple people the ability to work on projects when they are able or even simultaneously. It is not always practical for groups of people (especially teachers or parents) to get together physically to collaborate on a project nor is it effective if everyone sits around a table with note paper and one person tries to input all sorts of info onto one computer. Document sharing sites provide everyone in a group an equal chance to input their thoughts and information. A combination of Skype and GoogleDocs can take the place of many face-to-face meetings and allow for broader participation.I am definately a fan of technology however I also want to say that all the tools in the world cannot make up for face time (I mean real face time, not the app). While sharing information via web tools is a convenient solution to a world that is constantly running up against a deadline, a concerted effort should be made to maintain the types of relationships that only in-person contact can really foster.
Please share with me YOUR favorite tools!
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ReplyDeleteWow! I am so glad that i chose to click on your blog!!! Your site is amazing. I am floored by that flower chart in the middle of the page. I have to remember to refer back to your chart when I am in need of creative ideas.
ReplyDeleteSo, I wasn't even thinking about Googledocs until I read your post. AHHH! I use googledocs for everything at work! We share our lesson plans on there which makes it easier for my supervisor to respond to us with comments/feedback. My students send me their essays via Googledocs sometimes when we need to make revisions. Finally, my colleagues and I collaborate on ideas via googledocs, such as when we are looking to revise the curriculum.
You asked for us to share a tool: I interned at "ZOOBURST" this summer. Its a website that allows you to make digital storytelling books. I made a "book" to outline my syllabus for the first day of school this year. Check out zoo burst.com.
Hi Tara,
ReplyDeleteWe used google docs a lot in the course development process. Great Post!!!
Cheshta
I love that your tools are designed to help keep you organized; I have come to learn that being organized helps you be a better teacher. Usually I think of this in relation to my physical classroom/personal spaces. I never thought to relate the concept to my internet spaces as well! I love the Diigo tool. I usually just bookmark things randomly and have to scroll through a huge list to find what I’m after. I particularly like that you can highlight specifically why you bookmarked something in the first place, because I can not tell you how often I open a page and have no clue why I saved it. As far as expanding it to include students and parents, I think it’s a terrific idea. Now, on to organizing my internet……..
ReplyDeleteGoogle Docs truly is an amazing tool. I used that in my last school on professional development days with other teachers to design unit maps. All of us were able to update the same unit plans (from the previous year) and add comments at the same time. Because everyone worked in a different color, we were able to keep track of each other's work. This was much more convenient than having one person complete the updates by having five other teachers calling out what to change. A workshop I attended a few weeks ago with the BTANJ encouraged us to do something similar with an entire class of students. It it an interesting idea having them all work together in this manner, and the teacher can watch from a computer as well to see what everyone is doing in real-time.
ReplyDelete