Evaluation of Video from K12 Online

The image to the left shows a snapshot of the video I watched from K12online.com. It was a really interesting video because it showed great ways to incorporate technology into young elementary classrooms. One thing you have to remember when working with students younger than 13 is the Children's Internet Protection Act (CIPA). This restricts students of young ages to participate in social networking and some online sites that could be beneficial for teachers to use. This video provides many solutions to this problem. One of the websites that is very beneficial for younger students, according to Kelly Hines, is Wall Wisher. Wall Wisher allows students to post sticky notes online for all classmates to see. The next website Mrs. Hines mentioned is Wordle. Wordle shows a large collection of a variety of words that describes an event, a main idea, or topic. Students then have to work together to determine what the correct answer is. This allows discussion to arise in the classroom environment. Another interesting feature of Wordle is that the teacher can create their own Wordle creation!! This website looks so fun and I will definitely bookmark this on Delicious. A third website mentioned in the video is Comic Creators/Comiq. This website allows students to create their own comics based on different topics that relate to the classroom. For example, Mrs. Hines had the teachers create comics on the four different type of sentences using Garfield. Students really enjoy being able to imagine and create things on their own. The final website mentioned in the video is Edmodo. This website allows students to communicate with each other and the teacher using a note feature. Teachers and students are also able to create polls and ask questions to the whole class. All of the websites provided in this video were very beneficial. I am so glad that I was able to find this video. I will definitely remember these websites when I become an educator! If you are interested, I would view this video by clicking on the link below! :-)

http://k12online.ning.com/video/little-kids-big-possibilities-1

Evaluating Teacher Websites for Special Education

This website that I found is called Using Technology to Raise the Achievement of ALL Students. The website is sponsored by Consortium for School Networking (CoSN), which is a professional organization that specializes in utilizing technology in the classroom. The purpose of this website is to inform and educate teachers on ways technology can be incorporated for students with and without learning disabilities. It also provides information on laws associated with individuals who have disabilities. The layout of the website is very professional and easy to navigate. There are no ads visible other than logos of companies that the website incorporates. On the right hand side of the website, it allows viewers to sign-up for updates made by CoSN. This appears to be a nice feature for some teachers. As a future educator, potentially in the field of special education, this website would be extremely helpful. It would help me design activities that incorporate technology for students with disabilities. The website also provides a tab that contains many other resources that could be viewed. The amount, as well as variety, of resources provided is remarkable. There are resources that simply describe the laws associated with special education. There are resources that provide general information on students with disabilities. And, finally, there are resources that are more specific to technology and special education uses. A final point to note about this website is the self-assessment test feature. This allows educators to see areas of strengths and weaknesses when it comes to utilizing technology. When the results from the self-assessment are completed, the CoSN provides additional resources to view. This added feature is not something you always see on websites and could be interesting to examine.

Evaluating Teacher Websites for Elementary Education

This website is entitled Elementary Teacher Resources. It appears to be sponsored by Kelly Mikesell, a teacher for more than ten years. Within this website, Mrs. Mikesell has provided a collection of all her teaching resources (lesson plans, strategies, ideas, etc.) that she has accumulated throughout the years. The main purpose of this website is to educate other teachers and share ideas that she has found helpful. Not only does the website contain a lot of useful tips, it is also very easy to access. The navigation toolbar on the left hand side of the website is very convenient, and allows for easy mobility throughout the website. There are also no advertising links that get in the way while you browse. I believe that this website will be very beneficial to me as a future educator. If I do not know a good lesson plan for a specific subject, I could easily find something to match what I am looking for on this website. Even if I do not find a perfect match to what I am looking for, it will supply me with ideas that I could use to create my own lesson plan. It is always beneficial to learn from other teachers! Along with the Elementary Teacher Resources website, Mrs. Mikesell provided a lot of extra links that may be beneficial to explore at the bottom of her page. One of the most interesting links that I found contained her list of top teacher websites. This could be extremely helpful! Overall, this website seems really awesome. There is such a variety of resources provided for a variety of elementary school grades all compacted into one website. If you are in need of a good teacher website, I recommend visiting Mrs. Mikesell's page!