Thing #3

Having survived the first few weeds of this course on "Instructional Technologies," I now believe I can post an entry to Thing #3 having a little experience under my belt. After much thought, and a some discussion and ridicule from my teenage daughters, I have realized that this type of forum may indeed be a huge part of the future of education. Keeping up with the future will be a certain chore for those who do not embrace the possibilities of using all these clever tools that are out there for public consumption. Many schools across the country are using different types of programs to close the gap of communication between teacher-student and teacher-parent. One such program is called Power School. Power School is used by Clarksville-Montgomery County School System (CMCSS) and has been in full implementation since 2010 and it has been a wonderfully successful tool for information dissemination. Teacher blogs are a similar concept, but they are surely more informal and a personalized way to bring the classroom to any student and parent virtually anywhere.

Imagine the possibilities:

·         Additional content for a lesson that visually and/or audibly describes in clearer detail what the classroom could not do or have time to complete.

·         Make a game of internet quest out of the curriculum content.

·         Provide extra credit for additional opportunities to learn by providing links to helpful sources.

·         Remember how study hall was so lame? Allowing students the freedom to work blog projects is time better spent.

·         Teachers might be able to collaborate on a project that uses a competition format which asks the students/classes to build the best website with content based on the chosen subject.

·         The teacher can provide links to the best resources available to the student without fearing the questionable use of Wikipedia.

·         Parents might love it because they would be able to get clear instruction on the day's events at school should their child miss a particular day.

·         Finally, let's face it, sometimes textbooks are just lame.

Of course the teacher is not necessarily able to simply start a blog without authorization. There will have to be policy and procedure in place to keep the student, teacher, and school on a clear legal path into the future.