Week 9

Comments 4 Kids
This week on comments for kids, I got to see the geometric shapes the the students were learning. This was one of my favorite things about math. I have to say, the music made it all seen hard core.

ALEX
Alabama Learning Experience, or ALEX, is a site for people involved in education, whether administrator, teacher, or student. For teachers, one of the things that stuck out at me was lesson plans. When I have talked with teachers in high schools, they always emphasis how important the lesson plans are. They even have links for different subjects then lesson plans for the different grades in those subjects. ALEX have a link for teachers to make puzzles for their students. They have Podcast treasury where teachers can put up podcasts for their students or assign their students work to learn new things. The podcast treasury has links for different subjects.

This would be a very helpful and technological tool for not only teachers but students, too. Most information that one could think of needing for a class is in this site. ALEX has research and news to educational puzzles or tips. This is definitely something we should keep up with.

ACCESS
Alabama Connecting Classroom, Educators and Students Statewide has its history and goals on the About ACCESS links along with staff information and spotlights. It lists its courses and has test preps and a resources link. You are supposed to be able to read what past teachers and students say about ACCESS, though I could not get through the link. ACCESS also has certain courses for teacher to help them teach their best through ACCESS.

I think ACCESS is a great program for students. They would be able to take courses from other schools that their school might not have by web based courses and videoconferencing. Students would be able to interact with other classrooms and teachers across the state. Not only will this help students socially and academically, but they get to advance in technology just by taking an ACCESS course. This also means that students in a poorer school could take classes from a richer school (which sometimes mean better teaching). Students could even take some college courses.

For me, if I was a teacher using ACCESS, I would be happy knowing that I could reach out to students beyond my own community. I have already learned about videoconferencing or blogging or such for classes, but this would be me staying with those students for the entire semester and helping them progress. Teachers also have CAST, Connecting ACCESS Staff and Teachers. Teachers can talk to each other and give tips or even blog with each others classes. We have talked about blogging with other schools. ACCESS just helps you find the other schools to blog with.