Edith Bowen and website evaluations

We went to Edith Bowen today and saw an example of a classroom where technology is used very well. The teacher's name was Mr. Johnson. He has 6 computers in the back of the classroom that the kids use for spelling and math and probably other subjects. Mr. Johnson also has ipods for each of the kids in his classroom where they can watch educational videos, listen to books, or there are pictures of fun activities they have done. The ipods are for classroom use only. They did a simulation of the winter olympics at their school and Mr. Johnson had a WII set up in his room and they played games on it and he taught them about decimals with it. He says that he applies for grants frequently and asks the parents of his students to donate things that they may not be using, like old ipods or nintendo games.

I was very impressed with the use of technology he had in his classroom. He also has a website that he used to communicate with parents and provide the educational links for his students. He says that next year he is thinking of setting up a system where he communicates with parents via text messages. Pretty cool stuff! He says that he is able to have a lot of the technology that he does by applying for grants all the time and by reading magazines, skimming for grants or teacher awards.

I think he is a great example of gathering resources to use in the classroom that some other teachers haven't. I could see the extra effort he has gone to to use technology in his classroom, and it was all in the best interest of his students. Some technology that I would like to have in my classroom one day is a dot cam and computers. I will probably have to apply for grants but it will be worth the extra effort.

We also did website evaluations today. The forms that we used to evaluate weren't my favorite. I have used a different form for one of my other classes to evaluate websites that I liked a lot better. It's important to look at websites with a critical eye and analyze the value for your students. There are so many out there that it's important to pick the best ones.