Week 2- Blog

The school websites that I researched are the Bloomingdale Public Schools in Bloomingdale, NJ.  This is a very structured site that is broken down into subcategories.  All three school's in this district have there own personal links and provide specific information about that individual school. 

The Martha B Day School is a pre-kindergarten, kindergarten and 1st grade school.  There site gives a informative breakdown of the school's education philosophy, school schedule, principle's page and curricula and curricula mapping.  There is also a extensive faculty list where parents can look up there child's teacher.  Even though the schools activity column is limited due to the young age group this website goes above and beyond with informing parents of updated events.

The Samuel R. Donald School is a 2nd, 3rd and 4th grade elementary school.  This website is a bit harder to follow then the Martha B Day School's.  It is formatted as a template but also includes such links as principle's page, curricula and curricula mapping, photo's and school closings.  All of the scheduling can be found right on the Samuel R. Donald homepage.

The Walter T. Bergen is a 5th, 6th, 7th and 8th grade middle school.  This website definitely is the most informative of all of the Bloomingdale sites.  Each grade level is broken down in detail with links to all of the
teacher's personal academic web pages.  General information to all school activities and all administration including the nurse page is easily accessible.  A printable PDF file is accessible of the schools bells schedule for parent use and convenience. 

In conclusion, the information stated in the website is extremely effective and is everything a student, parent, teacher, or administrator would need to explore what the school can offer.  Easy access to individual teacher pages for homework updates or school weather announcements is now only a click away.  Online photo albums of children and teacher activities makes the Bloomingdale Public School website one that is user friendly to both parents and students.

Technology Blog: Week 1

I am 23 years old and feel very grateful to be afforded the opportunity to be living in this day and age.  Technology is constantly changing and we are at its forefront.  I’m sure most of us can remember the elementary schools days of having our parents and teachers push us to take beginner typing instruction or having to read out loud paragraphs from a heavy hardcover history book.   My mother and father both worked office jobs so I picked up the simplicities of a computer at a young age.  I never really was too far advanced but I was defiantly able to get by with using the different Microsoft Office programs.  Now however, we live in a completely different world.  Today’s world is filled with virtual technology, social networking, texting, twittering, e-mail, blogging and many others commodities.

The beauty of all this new technology is to have it channeled for positive and productive purposes.  Using such tools to create a learning project much like the one Karen Elini did with her 9th grade English students.  "Friends and Flags is a collaborative learning project that promotes multicultural awareness by connecting classrooms around the world in international learning teams made up of two to six countries" says Eini.  This is a prime example of using the social networks of today to link students from all over the world.  They are now able to interact and discuss different points of view from other students who come from completely different social, religious and economic backgrounds.  Susan M. Allen and Karen M. Dutt-Doner discuss the benefits of today’s modern digital and interactive libraries.  "Classrooms now have access to millions of digitized documents.  Students have the opportunity to use these documents as historians and scholars do: analyzing and evaluation information; interpreting snapshots of a given person, place or event; and synthesizing their findings".  This is huge for the creative mind of the learner.  Now the student is given the ability to explore and discover his or her own interpretation of their research. 

            In conclusion to my first blog, I am very excited to learn and explore the ways of using today’s technology for positive and productive reasons.  Like what was said in the video “Learning to Change- Changing to Learn” it is very important that we understand that the world moves forward and the right steps must be taken to bring that technology into our classroom’s.  I am very excited in taking the right steps forward and using our technology productively.