Crystal

Crystal's Technology Page

January 21, 2011: Wikis are a great way to communicate with students and give them a creative way to practice and apply what they are learning. Students and teachers collaborate on a topic and a related assignment or project by interacting on the wiki. I can create wikis on a unit or even a particular lesson and have students respond and interact with each other. On the wiki's home page, I will post thoughts, summaries, assignments, discussion or story starters and have students respond on their own pages. Students can learn to copy and paste the assignment or prompt to their own page and respond there. They can also use the discussion tab to communicate with each other. The wiki I set up will continually change as students or I add comments or answers.

Using Schoolfusion on the new school/district website will provide an updated and more efficient way to communicate. Hopefully, parents will embrace the improved technology and take advantage of all that Schoolfusion has to offer. Each teacher has a profile that includes a photo and a personal statement. Each classroom teacher also has fusion pages for each subject area taught. This is where I would post the week's learning targets and notes about what lessons and activities are planned as well as notes on how we achieved hitting our learning targets. I could include highlights, funny stories, celebrations and challenges to build a sense of community and keep parents informed. Students could also refer to the fusion pages to clarify assignments. Schoolfusion also would allow me to post slideshows and podcasts of classroom activities or even curriculum content. For example, I could post a slideshow on the planets to review for an assessment, giving parents and students and opportunity to view it together online at home.

Thursday, January 27, 2011: Now that I have a fusion page, I set up my Staff Profile with a photo and a personal statement. I also received the handout on Wikis and explored some examples of other teacher's wikis from around the country.

Friday, January 28, 2011: First thing, we discussed adding photos to our profiles. I had already done this so was ready to move on to exploring my fusion pages further. As suggested for the classroom teachers, I merged the separate subject pages into one that I named, "Third Grade News". I rearranged this page to move the Homework box from the margin to the main page. I added an assignment to the Assignment box. This week's spelling words are now listed under Assignments. I also added an Announcement about the upcoming field trip to Cheyenne. When I make a change to my fusion page, all of the parents in my class will receive an email to notify them. I think this is a great feature! This goes a long ways towards eliminating that 'unknown factor' of papers leaving the student's mailbox at school and arriving in parent's hands. Although parents will be expected to check their email regularly in order to keep informed about the changes I've made to my page. I also added events to the calendar. I feel like the site is user-friendly and easy for me to edit. I am excited about this great way to communicate!