class week plan

Well, I have many ideas for my work during the class week at the college. One of my big things is how to use technology to support 3rd graders who are still working on reading and writing skills at variable levels. I would like to develop a site in which I can communicate with parents either in a blog way or newsletter about what we are working on in the class each week. But, I also want the site to be a pathway to many other subjects/activity areas/links.....lots to think about and lots to learn about to better develop these ideas. I also have some concerns about the time demand to keep the site active and alive during the school year.........Mike

Yup, so you got here I see! Ok, so the pictures I have put on this blog.....nope, didn't make them myself, but somewhere in them maybe there's a name or credit...did not really look too closely. I think we assume if it's on the net it's open for use by anyone......how will this be monitored when there could be millions of users out there. I remember the music companies going after people who downloaded song after song, and the few that were brought to trial or fined for thousands of dollars....and yet there's so much stuff out there now...how can it be monitored? I suppose the best we could do as educators is to continue to suggest that students give some sort of credit somewhere when they use other people's work, pictures, media, etc. I guess I can credit the creators (or the graphic artist(s) of the Cloudy with Meatballs movie with the picture, but the other computer came off a google site I think.......maybe there's a credit on it somewhere, best I look soon. I'm thinking that whatever you use in whatever format, if a piece of the original work is intact then we are done with downloading or using anything else we see.....Orwelian? Mike B. Not feeling too philosophical at this time of night...

tech tools/apps

What would I like for tech tools/apps for my classroom/work? Hmmm, definitely a class set of committed computers (like 20), Elmo with projector, classroom printer, may even think a Smartboard may be fun to have. Dragon speak for kids who need assistance getting work on computers, digital camera/video camera......the list goes on. Apps? Learned a bit about Google Apps a few weeks ago at a workshop......not sure how to pull it together yet. Probably set up a class website with student access and work, assignments maybe?, resources for classwork at least...sometimes needa direction myself. I guess using the current curriculum outline would guide me in this area.