Week 8: Engrade Day

I'm going to talk about email and the internet being the social networking tools, because the more I think about it, the more I realize how important email is in a school. I try to think back before email existed and I can't help but wonder how people communicated, other than phone, in a fast way. Email has changed the ways of communication, and that has brought several benefits to the classroom.
How will these communication tools/social networking tools help me communicate with my students? If my students are at home and have a question about an assignment or a classroom related topic, all they have to do is log on and email me. If a student doesn't have access to the internet, they can either call me or go to their local library to use the internet. Obviously it'd be a wiser choice to just use the phone instead of drive to a library to email me, but there will be assignments that require online research, and in that case, the student could just go to the library. If I give my email address out to students and assure them that they can contact me at any time through email, of course I would want to make sure I check my email AT LEAST once a night, and then one more time in the morning. There are other ways to communicate with my students through the internet besides email. There are video chats and chat rooms that I could set up to communicate with my students. The students could set up their own chat room in study groups and communicate with each other too.
How will these communication tools/social networking tools help me communicate with my students' parents? Just as the students can email me with questions, the parents can email me with questions as well. I also plan to have a class website (now that I know how to make one) and on there will be information about the class, what we are learning in class, and what the students are doing in class. There will be samples of the students' work and a calendar with upcoming events. I think this is a great way to use the internet in the classroom because the parents can know everything that is going on in school just by logging on to my class website. Also, just as the students can do a video chat with me, this option is also open for the parents to use with me as well. I just really believe that it is so important to keep the relationship with the parents tight because working with the parents is almost as important as working with their children. They are leaving their children in your hands as the teacher, and it is important to build a trusting relationship so they feel that their children are safe in your classroom.
How will these communication tools/social networking tools help me communicate with my colleagues? The principal will be able to email out any kinds of announcements to the parents and to me and my coworkers. Also, if my coworkers and I wanted to collaborate our lessons and ideas and make one large activity for our students to all do together, we could do a google doc or a chat room. That way, we would all be able to compile our ideas. Email is so great to use with those who you work with because of the forwarding option. If I had something that I wanted to share with the other teachers in my grade, all I had to do was forward the email to all of them. The only time this would pose as a problem is if one of my coworkers wasn't familiar with such technology, and therefore I would have to print any announcement or idea and put it in his/her mailbox.
Why are these tools so popular with my students? Any new kind of technology use is exciting for students to use, especially in school. What kind of excitement would students get out of writing a paper when they could type it instead? If we taught the students in the classroom how to use Skype or had them all make up their very own email address, they would be very excited about this because they are using technology instead of reading a textbook or something "blah" like that. Instead of reading a textbook, the students could do a WebQuest and research information that way on the internet. In this activity, they could compile all of their notes in a Microsoft Word document, or a class-wide google doc, and then (if it was in Word) forward it to me. That way they would get practice with several kinds of technology tools all in one activity.
In which ways might I employ these communication tools/social networking tools to achieve classroom objectives? I think that through emailing and chat rooms and such, the students can learn how to work together and take teamwork to a whole new level. Instead of having the students do research in the library using books, they can do research on the internet (with my supervision or the supervision of a parent if it's at home) and still achieve the same objectives as if they were to use a book.
What are the pros and cons of the communication tools/social networking tools? Pros: Email provides a convenient and fast way of communication between teachers and parents, teachers and students, and teachers and coworkers, at any time of the day. The internet provides the students with endless sources of learning. It allows learning to become engaging through WebQuests and online activities. Instead of reading a book and taking notes, the students can surf the internet (using provided websites to avoid getting off task). This, leads me to my cons. Cons: The internet can be a very dangerous place. Through emails, all it takes is to open an infected chain letter and your computer is infected with a virus. Also, children may get off task and wander to websites which may be inappropriate for children their age. This is why it is so important for children to be supervised when they are doing ANYTHING online.
Video Reflection: Of all of the videos I've watched for this class so far, this was the one that amazed me the most. When the video says "We are living in exponential times," it couldn't have been more right. That is the perfect sentence to describe the world today. These statistics really show how much the world relies on the internet and technology. What really got me was when they said that if all the users of MySpace made their own country, they'd be the 5th largest country in the world. That amazed me!