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!
