Blog Post #11

For this post, I watches Ms. Cassidy's skype interviews. In these interviews, she explains the ways that she uses technology in her classroom. I enjoyed these because it showed me ways to incorporate all of the things that we have been learning into a real life class. She had a lot of great ideas. Ms. Cassidy uses a webpage, a class blog, and wikis to teach with technology. She adds all of these things into her curriculum. Each of her students has their own blog where they can write posts and post pictures of their work. I think this is a really good way for parents to keep up with what their children are working on in school. With this, she always ensures these children's protection. She sends out a letter at the beginning of the year to let the parents know that the students work will be posted online. She also gives a few tips on ways to keep the children safe, such as, only using first names and not posting pictures of the children with their names attached. Ms. Cassidy also took the time to answer some questions. She gave great ideas about how to use blogs and wiki even in PE classes. She told the boy that a blog could be used to keep parents informed of practice times if they were to change, and it could also be used to keep everyone up to date on the team stats. In all classrooms, however, a class blog is an excellent way of keeping the parents informed of what is going on in the class. This can be a useful way of letting them know what is being worked on in each subject, and what the children's homework is, so they can help their kids with it. I plan to have a class blog for my class. I think it is the best way of communicating with the students and their parents. I also think it is a great opportunity for the kids to have the chance to post their thoughts and work for the world to see. I believe it will help with their reading and writing skills, and it is a good way to open up doors for different relationships with all kinds of people. They will hear feedback on their work. However, I will want to send home a letter at the beginning of the year to get the parents permission because some may not be comfortable with their children using the internet. I am glad these interviews were assigned for us to watch because Ms. Cassidy has been doing it for a long time, and she let us know that we aren't just going through this class for no reason. All of these tools are very useful in the classroom!