Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Online Assignment #2 ~ Katy Lungren

I have been discovering some helpful websites over the past few weeks of searching and exploring. The most challenging aspect has been finding the time (between teaching, planning, extra school responsibilities, and such!) to thoroughly review and sort through the extensive amount of information and research I have come across. I still have a lot of sifting to do, but here are three sites that I found especially valuable in putting together my Professional Growth Plans.


http://www.sedl.org/connections/

SEDL (Southwest Educational Development Laboratory) National Center for Family and Community Connections with Schools – This site provides “people with research-based information and resources that they can use to effectively connect schools, families, and communities.” I found the information in the Briefs and Handouts section to be especially helpful in planning how to increase family participation. The Connection Collection area is a fantastic source for doing further research. It is an annotated bibliography database that is searchable. I have already found a number of articles and research papers that I am planning to read in depth at a later time that are centered on how to better include ELL parents in the larger school community and also how to assist low-income families in helping and supporting their own children academically.


http://www.iste.org/AM/Template.cfm?Section=General&Template=/TaggedPage/TaggedPageDisplay.cfm&TPLID=23&ContentID=3345

International Society for Technology in Education – This site has an abundant amount of information and research centered on classroom technology integration. The link above is specifically for the Educator Resources page. This page contains links to other sites with general technology integration ideas, examples, lesson plans, classroom supports, and so much more. Thus far, my exploring has taken me to Glossopedia, an online science encyclopedia for students that includes kid-friendly definitions and descriptions, videos, maps, and photos, Imbee, a safe and secure site that allows teachers and students to learn about blogging which I hope to use next year to set up homework help for students and parents and also use for students to discuss Literature Circle books with one another, and a number of subject-specific learning sites where students can practice and build skills in reading, math, and science.


http://www.thirteen.org/edonline/concept2class/resources.html


Concept to Classroom – This site offers a series of online “workshops” on a variety of topics. While the workshops seem to be of good quality, I found the resource pages for each workshop topic more useful for my current purposes. There are lists of books, articles, websites, videos, and materials for each of the eleven workshops. There is a workshop or two based around each of my three professional development goals. For my assessment goal, I used the Assessment, Evaluation, and Curriculum Redesign resources to locate some books and articles that I will be reading this summer. For my goal centered on building family partnerships, I used this site’s Making Family and Community Connections resources to better inform how I communicate with my students’ families and also found some great educational information to pass along to parents. To help find more information about technology integration, I found both the WebQuests and Why the Net? An Interactive Tool for the Classroom resource pages helpful.

4 comments:

rebeccabland said...

Hi Katy,

Thank you so much for your research. We share two of three Professional Growth Goals and because of this I have explored the websites you cited.

The National Center for Family and Community Connections with Schools is a great website! I was honestly, having a bit of trouble finding valuable resoures to involve families who speak a variety of languages; this website has some great strategies and handouts! I am definitaly going to use the handout; Types of Family Involvement in Communiites and Schools; to let families know that there are mulitiple ways to become involved with their child's education. Cheers!

Rachel Bergere said...

Good morning Katy,

I agree with you that it is challenging to find the time for research. Browsing through the websites to determine what is useful, what requires a subscription, and what would be possible in my classroom takes a lot of time! I really liked the “Concept to Classroom: Workshop Resource” page. I especially found it useful how each concept provided a link to books, articles, and websites.

The Glossopedia website is a lot of fun. I think I will link it to my own website for my students to use. It is slightly young for 6th graders, but I think it will be helpful for those students who may struggle. It could also get give them a jump-start when we are studying different science concepts. I think they would enjoy all of the pictures and interesting features.

Thank you for the additional resources and see you soon!
Rachel Bergere

Juli Rangel said...

Dear Katy,

I am impressed that you again were the first to post. Way to go! I do agree that time constraints are challenging when managing both our classrooms and our course requirements. There is a lot to sort through, but I know we’ll all end up with some excellent resources and new knowledge.

Thanks for highlighting the website, “International Society for Technology in Education” – www.iste.org! It was great to find so many links to other sites that have terrific technology integration ideas. In fact, two of the websites that I will mention in my upcoming post are listed there. I did check the Glossopedia website and bookmarked it for future use. Like you said, terrific kid-friendly science information! Thank you so much!
Juli Rangel

Vanessa said...

Hi, Katy.
I agree with what you say about struggling to find time. I think this summer we will each immerse ourselves in what we barely have time to discover right now. I am especially interested in the "Concepts to Classroom" site you describe, as that is definitely the trick -- bringing the theory down from the cathedral ceiling to the cafeteria floor. Thanks for finding and sharing these!