International Blogs

The first international log I found is a teacher in Brazil who uses the blog to communicate with his class. He answers some of the questions that his students post to him. Also another thing I have yet to see on a blog, he had a place where the students would take a vocabulary quiz. It was very interesting I almost wish I was one of his students so I could see what the test was like. The top of the page said "blog designed to test and discuss web tools that can enhance language learning". The teacher also put many helpful links and tools on the right of the page such as a Google Search, the Cambridge Dictionary, and a slang dictionary which I thought was very funny. I think everyone should check out this blog I believe it was the most organized and easiest to follow and use the tools. The link to this blog is http://ihopeitworks.blogspot.com/.

The second blog I chose to check out was started by a teacher named Erin Freeman from New Zealand. The name of her blog is M3teacher, which I think is very clever. This blog uses many interesting techniques to communicate with the teacher. One blog post had an invitation to study at a pizza bar. It had a place where the people who were coming could put their names. Also the teacher posts weekly, a list called "Diigo's Bookmarks." These are links that the teacher thought her kids or parents might find interesting or useful. Some of these links included online flashcards and other fun ways of learning. I have placed a picture of the teacher to the right. The link to this site is http://m3teacher.blogspot.com/.

Educational Blogs in the U.S.

The first blogs I found used in school is not used by one grade specifically. It has posts from teachers about ducks that they keep as pets in there classroom. It all started when a duck laid eggs on one of the playgrounds at the school. They placed an egg in each kindergarten class and the blog is used to keep the students and parents and other children at the school updated on the ducks. The blog is called The Duck Diaries which I think is a very clever name. It was very interesting reading about what was going on. The blog also posts pictures that some of the 1st and 2nd graders drew of ducks and other things. The link to this blog is http://duckdiaries.edublogs.org/. I hope some of you find this interesting even though it is from a couple of years ago.

The second blog I chose to look at was for a sixth grade class. The site was put together by a teacher named Mr. Hetherington. I never found the name of the school but some of the blogs posted were very interesting. A lot of the blogs were posted by the teacher telling his class about it and about somethings going on in his class. Then there were many, many blogs posted by students. Some of them were just funny little things they decided to post on there and then I saw some haikus and poems that the students had posted. I assumed this was an assignment that the teacher told them to post on the blog site. This site is also very old but I thought it was one that showed a lot of the things you can use blogs for in school such as assignments and communicating with your teachers. The link to this site is http://hetherington.learnerblogs.org/.

ACCESS

ACCESS, also know as Alabama Connecting Classroom, Educators and Students Statewide, is a program that gives access to instructions and courseworks for highschools in Alabama. ACCESS will consist of Internetbased courses with Alabama certified teachers helping with the online process that would not usually concist of Alabama ceritfied teachers. The program will also have internet bases courses using instruction models tought by "E-teachers. "

Some ways ACCESS will help students and teachers connect on the internet is by by providing access to many things that are going to help. Some of this will be access to advanced diploma coarses, which will help some students finish college faster. Another plus to this program, it will expand the number of class at these highschools and also expand the resources these highschools will have. I think the most important thing this ACCESS with be bring to highschool teachers in Alabama is more technilogical tools brought into the classroom to teach. Again, I still do not fully understand how the program works but i am excepting to learn more when I visit a highschool who has all the advancments in teaching this program has to offer.

Sorry it's late I couldn't bring up the file to learn about the program with computer that I use.

ALEX

ALEX, also known as the Alabama Exhange is a computer program for teacher, parents, and students that allows them to share lesson plans quickly. I think the most useful feature on the page is "lesson plans". You can choose from a number of subjects then after choosing the subject you can choose by grade or keywords to find lesson plans for what you are teaching. Another feature is the "weblinks" where a teacher, administrator, or student can find very helpful links. I believe you can also create a "personal workspace" which would keep things for your eyes only. The website also gets into "professional learning" with information about things like Special Eduation and Alabama Leader Developmeant. The "distance learning" feature talks about ACCESS which I will know more about fo my next blog. I am still a little confused about how all of this works but I hoped this helped a little bit!