Based on the YouTube video....http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8woVgj6Ao8
I think that online classrooms are going to continue to grow and improve in every school district across the country. By having online classrooms, school districts can better serve every student in their district and can truly follow the national goal of "no child left behind". Online or virtual classrooms can also save school districts lots of money. Think about the costs that schools can avoid. They would no longer need to provide a building, transportation, food service, and staffing. Some school districts are also charging families to enroll their child in an online class which enables the school system to make even more money. For our school system (MCPS), the online courses make a lot of sense because for one our county is extremely large and two it will improve our overall graduation rate. As I mentioned before our school system will eventually save lots of money (and maybe earn money) by continuing their virtual classrooms.
After watching the YouTube video above i started thinking about the future of the classroom teacher. With the current laws, many charter schools are being set up online. This means that families can decided to send their student to the local charter school over their local public school. Each student receives approximately $8,000 from the state. If the student goes to a Charter school, that $8,000 will go to the Charter school rather than the public school. If a child decides to attend a charter school, by law they still get to participate in any extra curricular activity that is offered at their local public school. Guess who pays for the transportation, uniforms, insurance, etc.? The public schools. Another problem that worried me about this video was the fact that Charter schools do not have a Union. Most Charter schools pay their teachers MUCH less than the public schools which could eventually lead to some conflicts down the road with public school teacher salaries. If schools are losing money and enrollment numbers to local charter schools then they are also losing funding for staffing public school teachers. This means more lay offs for public schools. So, yes online classes like the charter school that the family from the YouTube link above has enrolled their students in might be a great thing for them. However, as public educators we also have to be aware of the consequences for allowing online charter schools.
Thursday, July 15, 2010
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Reflectiion on Blog, "10 Things Teachers Should Know How To Do"
In case you have not read this blog, here is the link....
http://whatedsaid.wordpress.com/2010/06/24/what-teachers-should-be-able-to-do/
My Reflection:
I feel that a lot of the veteran teachers do not know how to do most of things on this list. I like all ten ideas and think that 5-10 years it will be the norm for every teacher to use ALL of these technologies. My favorite technology listed was the one on Skype and Voicethread. I just saw a commercial today for the new Droid cell phone and they were marketing the fact that you can use Skype directly on the cell phone. Imagine if you could have a parent teacher conference using skype on a giant flat screen monitor in an Administrator's office and on the other side the parent was using skype for the conference on his/her cell phone. This would increase the amount of direct parent contacts a school could have with parents and at the same time the parents would not have to leave work early to meet with his/her kid's teachers. I still do not have much experience with Skype but after reading that blog, i decided to sign up for it and learn how to use it. As far as Twitter in the classroom, i can see the advantages of having it but i don't think it would as effective as sites like "EdLine".
One major problem that i do see keeping schools behind on the technology is the school systems regulating what sites are acceptable for teachers to use. In our county here in Maryland we are not suppose to use any site or software with out student's unless it has been approved. The problem is....if our school system is behind and not updating their list FREQUENTLY than our teachers, students and parents will be the ones who suffer and cannot take advantage of the wonderful opportunities that are out there.
Here would be my "10 Things Teachers Should Know How To Do Before Walking Into The Classroom"
1. Email- This is essential...most info in the school is sent to your email. (No more handouts in your mailbox) Also, the majority of parent contacts these days are done through email.
2. Microsoft Windows- As a teacher you will probably use MS Word, PowerPoint, and Excel at least once every week.
3. Electronic Grade Book- All of the grades these days are done on software like Pinnacle or Easy Grade Pro. Knowing how to use these programs is a MUST.
4. Copy Machine- Yes, this is "old fashion" technology but it will still be an essential piece of equipment that you will need to learn how use.
5. Scanner and Acrobat- It seems like every school year more and more parents are requesting that homework be scanned and sent through email. Scanners will also come in handy for sending things like worksheets to your colleagues. For most school systems, Math, Science, and Language Arts are given Countywide Unit Assessments which must be sent through some type of scanner machine. These machines will most likely be replaced in the next ten years by something else but for now it is a MUST to know how to use these
6. Internet- Knowing how to use the internet will allow you to research items for your class, look up lesson plan ideas, and to access many cool educational web sites.
7. Creating Basic Web Sites- It might not be a MUST just yet but in the next couple of years the majority of teachers nationwide will have their own class website. A lot of web sites contain class blogs which are becoming more and more popular.
8. Promethean Board/Smartboards- Chalk boards are becoming extinct and Promethean Boards are taking over. It does take some time to get use to the basic features of a Promethean Board. In the next five years most schools will have either a Promethean Board or a Smart Board in every classroom.
9. GOOGLE- It seems like whatever one site can do, google can do better. I would recommend anyone who is becoming a teacher to bite the bullet now and sign up for google. Google continues to come up with a million different ways to help you as a teacher. i.e. Google Apps.
10. Skype/VoiceThread- It might not be a MUST yet but in the future the majority of parent conferences will be done on sites like Skype.
http://whatedsaid.wordpress.com/2010/06/24/what-teachers-should-be-able-to-do/
My Reflection:
I feel that a lot of the veteran teachers do not know how to do most of things on this list. I like all ten ideas and think that 5-10 years it will be the norm for every teacher to use ALL of these technologies. My favorite technology listed was the one on Skype and Voicethread. I just saw a commercial today for the new Droid cell phone and they were marketing the fact that you can use Skype directly on the cell phone. Imagine if you could have a parent teacher conference using skype on a giant flat screen monitor in an Administrator's office and on the other side the parent was using skype for the conference on his/her cell phone. This would increase the amount of direct parent contacts a school could have with parents and at the same time the parents would not have to leave work early to meet with his/her kid's teachers. I still do not have much experience with Skype but after reading that blog, i decided to sign up for it and learn how to use it. As far as Twitter in the classroom, i can see the advantages of having it but i don't think it would as effective as sites like "EdLine".
One major problem that i do see keeping schools behind on the technology is the school systems regulating what sites are acceptable for teachers to use. In our county here in Maryland we are not suppose to use any site or software with out student's unless it has been approved. The problem is....if our school system is behind and not updating their list FREQUENTLY than our teachers, students and parents will be the ones who suffer and cannot take advantage of the wonderful opportunities that are out there.
Here would be my "10 Things Teachers Should Know How To Do Before Walking Into The Classroom"
1. Email- This is essential...most info in the school is sent to your email. (No more handouts in your mailbox) Also, the majority of parent contacts these days are done through email.
2. Microsoft Windows- As a teacher you will probably use MS Word, PowerPoint, and Excel at least once every week.
3. Electronic Grade Book- All of the grades these days are done on software like Pinnacle or Easy Grade Pro. Knowing how to use these programs is a MUST.
4. Copy Machine- Yes, this is "old fashion" technology but it will still be an essential piece of equipment that you will need to learn how use.
5. Scanner and Acrobat- It seems like every school year more and more parents are requesting that homework be scanned and sent through email. Scanners will also come in handy for sending things like worksheets to your colleagues. For most school systems, Math, Science, and Language Arts are given Countywide Unit Assessments which must be sent through some type of scanner machine. These machines will most likely be replaced in the next ten years by something else but for now it is a MUST to know how to use these
6. Internet- Knowing how to use the internet will allow you to research items for your class, look up lesson plan ideas, and to access many cool educational web sites.
7. Creating Basic Web Sites- It might not be a MUST just yet but in the next couple of years the majority of teachers nationwide will have their own class website. A lot of web sites contain class blogs which are becoming more and more popular.
8. Promethean Board/Smartboards- Chalk boards are becoming extinct and Promethean Boards are taking over. It does take some time to get use to the basic features of a Promethean Board. In the next five years most schools will have either a Promethean Board or a Smart Board in every classroom.
9. GOOGLE- It seems like whatever one site can do, google can do better. I would recommend anyone who is becoming a teacher to bite the bullet now and sign up for google. Google continues to come up with a million different ways to help you as a teacher. i.e. Google Apps.
10. Skype/VoiceThread- It might not be a MUST yet but in the future the majority of parent conferences will be done on sites like Skype.
Monday, June 28, 2010
Thursday, June 24, 2010
Catchup Math
On July 6th we will start our first day of Summer school at Shady Grove MS. The class that I will be teaching is an Algebra Prep class. Almost every student in this class has received nothing higher than a "C" in Math for the 2009-10 school year. One of the types of technology that i am going to implement into my class is Catchup Math. This is a web based site from HotMath.com. Catchup Math has the student take a Pre-Assessment for each chapter of the Math course that they are assigned. For this class, the students will be taking the Pre-Algebra course. Once the student takes the Chapter Pre-Assessment, the Catchup Math site will develop a customized plan for the student for that particular chapter. Each plan will consists of notes, examples, online video lectures from a Math teacher, practice problems, math video games, and a chapter test. This site will hopefully help the students fill in any of the gaps that i could not get to in the short month of summer school. Throughout the summer, i will be posting my reflections of my students using this site.
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