Online Teaching Experiences

There were so many great options to choose from, it was difficult for me to choose only one of them to write about.  I teach fourth grade and I love the idea of using a blog in my classroom and I plan to do so but for this assignment I had to choose an online experience that can be used to actually "teach" something.  A blog would be a great tool to use for reflection, summarizing, commenting, communication, etc.  A wiki is also an awesome tool to use in the classroom.  If students were doing group work, writing a report or doing research it's a perfect way for me to be sure that one students isn't doing all the work.  If the internet is available to them at home, every member would be able to work on it from home without worrying about doing something another group member has already done.  If I had it my way, I would use a combination of online tools to create a learning experience that students would truly benefit from.

Online field trips is an online teaching experience that I could definitely us in my classroom.  What a great idea!  With budget cuts in almost every school system, field trips are one of the first things to go.  By using this resource, students will get to go on a "field trip" in their own classroom.  Of course it wouldn't be exactly the same but the students would enjoy it.  I would do some sort of hands on follow-up activity so students can gain a deeper knowledge of the field trip.  Students could work in groups to write a report about their field trip using Google Docs.  If we had a class blog page, I would have students blog about it.  

I was at a school last week where a class was on Skype with a park ranger at the North Dakota Badlands.  I think this would be categorized as an interactive discussion with an expert. The park ranger showed the students her view of the Badlands from her office.  She also showed them some of the artifacts they have found at the Badlands as well as pictures of animals that live there.  The student were then able to ask her questions.  It was really neat!  This was a very interactive activity.  Just like before, students could then choose an animal that lives there and do a research project about it.  They could also write a blog about their Skype trip to the Badlands.  

An RSS Feed would be harder for me to use in my fourth grade classroom.  I can't think of a lesson I could actually "teach" using one.  My students could use them for current events and maybe some research projects but it is not an interactive tool and the sources are not always reliable either.  For elementary age students, there are many other resources that can be used for these purposes.