Earnest - Week Five

I cannot believe we are already in Week Five! I have honestly learned so much about educational technology that I can utilize in my current position with my school district, so I’ve been pleased with what I have learned and re-visited in the educational technology realm.

As I was considering a subject for my online communications tool paper, I decided to go back to a tool I had used when I was actively teaching in the classroom at the high school level. I had personally purchased access to TeacherWeb® because it had many features that I wanted to use with my students, such as online quiz capability, a calendar, an announcements page, a way to include previewed Internet links as part of assignments, among other features. I fully utilized the Web site in my social studies classes, especially when I was in a classroom with its own computer lab setting. I was lucky enough to have a classroom of 30+ seats for the usual class setting, but I also had pods of four (4) computers each that I could utilize at any time during a class. That’s what made the TeacherWeb® site so helpful and gave my students computer and Internet skills at a time when that was not widely taught, at least in my district. I had great feedback from the students and from some of the parents who actually used the site’s calendar to keep up with the information from the school and my class that I included. It worked well, too, for any student who was absent but who had Internet access at home. They could quickly get online and see what we did that day and complete some, or all, of the assignments so they wouldn’t fall behind.

With all that said, if I ever was to return to the classroom, I would personally pay to utilize the TeacherWeb® site again. When I completed my research for this week’s assignment, I realized that the company has certainly kept up-to-date with today’s technology tools and they have added many features, like the digital storage lockers, that I would love to use with my students. This online communication tool is not that expensive, around $3.25 a month, so most teachers could afford to use it easily. With all the features, a teacher can utilize some or all of it and be happy with the result. Since the site is so user-friendly, there would not be much preparation with the students (or with their parents/guardians) to use the site. Since the teacher (user) controls the way the site is used, it is very safe and students would feel comfortable using it right away. If I used it successfully years ago, I would certainly be able to use it successfully again. If anyone reading this has never checked out TeacherWeb®, I would suggest that you do so right away. It’s a great place to start if you don’t have any Web site at all or have never used an online tool with your students consistently. Try it out soon!