International

Susan Harris
EDM 310.501

The Sunshine Coast Grammar School in Queensland, Austrailia, http://www.scgs.qld.edu.au/index.php is using blogs on its website for both the students and staff to use. The blog site has not been used very much by either the students or the staff. The only staff member to blog something was the headmaster and the only students to blog were the student leaders for that school. I searched many schools in Australia and could not find many schools that were really using the blogs. I think that it is still pretty new for the schools to get on board with and use everyday. Most schools I found had links to the school bulletin and important dates to know, such as exam dates.

Picture of Sunshine Coast Grammar School

The Sandaig Primary School in Glasgow, Scotland, http://www.sandaigprimary.co.uk/index.php is using blogs in its website to write about things that happened recently at the school. For example it tells about the classes doing weaving and then tells us how to do the weaving if we want to try it. One other really good thing about the site is that it gives links to other weblogs from other schools so you can easily see what is going on in other schools.

Picture of two students at The Sandaig Primary School with a bow tie that they weaved.

K12

The Greater Houlton Christian Academy, http://www.ghca.com/, is using blogs on its website to keep parents and kids informed about what is going at their school and in each classroom. A parent can go to the website and click on the teacher blogs link and then find their child’s teacher. Once there they can tell if the teacher has updated the blog within the past week by looking for a red star besides his/her name. For example, Mrs. Ann Sherman’s blog who is a first grade teacher has her spelling list posted. However, because there is no red star we easily know that she has not updated it within the past week. Mr. Nathan Foster’s Blog has a red star and you know that his test schedule that he has posted is current.

Bill Hill Consolidated School, http://www.bhcs.org/, also used blogs to keep its students and their parents up on currents events at the school. Ms. Lewendoski’s blog has pictures and information of a trip they took to Plymouth. Mrs. Baldridge’s blog is letting the students and parents know that she had perfect attendance in her classroom.

Both these school are using blogs on its website to keep parents informed about things happening at the school and in their classroom. I think that this is important because I believe there is a gap in communication between both parent and teacher that needs to be closed so that our children and thrive in today’s world. The main downside to the blogging to keep parents informed is that in the poorer communities a lot of household don’t have computers or access to one so the information in the blogs would be useless to those student and parents.

Access

Having looked around at the ACCESS, Alabama Connecting Classroom Educators and Students Statewide program I am left a little confused. I could not find any real information on what the site would have to offer a special education teacher. I did not find the site very informative, probably because I do not fully understand what it does to begin with.

The Access program seems to be catered for more advanced students as the following text states that was taken directly from the ACCESS for teacher’s brochure.

Ø Advanced Diploma and Advanced Level Courses in Areas Such as Foreign Languages, Electives, and Higher Mathematics
Ø Advanced Placement and/or Dual Credit courses

As a special education teacher I do not see a use for it in my field of study. The students that I will probably have will not be in advanced studies.

Alex

I think that the ALEX website ALEX (http://alex.state.al.us), which is an acronym for Alabama Learning Exchange is a very informative website for teachers. I couple of the things that it does that I found interesting was the fact that it will help to prepare lesson plans and it also provides links to other useful websites that can help in various subjects.

I my field of study, secondary special education I would probably use it for the websites that with anything else. I believe that I can probably find information and other study materials that will help the students to better understand the information that their teacher is teaching them.

EDM 310.501

Leanne Green