Web+Technology

As technology evolves, educators have an increasing number of resources available to them to enhance student learning. New technologies bring new possibilities to all classroom levels and subject areas. This page focuses on how technology:
 * builds student engagement by providing classroom access to real-world situations
 * supports and enhances students’ comprehension and literacy skills, while developing Internet research and navigation skills
 * promotes cooperation, collaboration and a sense of community

=How can technology build student engagement by providing classroom access to real-world situations?=

**Word Language** Practice:
Authentic websites allow students to practice vocabulary allowing them to experience authentic materials: []
 * Students will listen and repeat, listen and click for the right answer, listen and follow directions in Spanish with this website from Spain: http://cvc.cervantes.es/aula/mimundo/
 * Students can practice numbers in Spanish through games with this website:

Virtual Field Trips:
Virtual Field Trips allow students to experience places beyond the cla ssroom walls. Students have the opportunity to visit, explore, and learn outside their own communities. These virtual trips can take students into new worlds of information and knowledge.
 * Students studying Ancient Egypt may visit this interactive mummy site created by the BBC to help them envision what the mummification process truly entailed: Support Egyptian Studies- Create a Mummy!
 * Teachers could spend a day exploring the Connecticut River Watershed without even leaving the classroom with this virtual field trip:Rollin' on a river
 * Check out where Mark Twain lived without leaving the comfort of your desk:Come on Over!
 * Visit a colonial house in Guilford: The Whitfield Musuem
 * Be part of an interactive butterfly field trip:Don't just wing it!

Virtual Tours
Taking a virtual tour can allow children that may have never traveled outside the borders of their state to learn about new cultures, climate zones, and geography. Using Google Earth, and other web resources, teachers can tap into the natural curiosity of middle schoolers by showing them other parts of our world. Middle school children can research and construct pieces of the virtual tours and then combine it with the work of peers to have a unified virtual experience.

Let me be your virtual tour guide!

Skype:
Skype is software for voice over internet communication; it also offers instant messaging, video conferencing and file transfer.

Uses of Skype in the classroom:

 * Conference with experts who might never be able to physically visit: authors, scientists, government officials
 * Communicate with other classrooms across the country or around the world in 23 different languages

Benefits of Skype in the classroom:

 * engage students with real world experts or peers living in another culture
 * record conversations/interviews as artifacts

=** How does technology **** support and enhance students’ foundational literacy skills, such as reading and writing, while developing 21st Century skills and new literacies? **=

At the Elementary Level:
Beginning readers often ben​efit from the use of interactive stories to foster early literacy skills. Interactive storybooks can promote and support many developing literacy skills in young children. Specifically, these virtual stories help students to build vocabulary, make connections between letters and sounds, reinforce concepts of print, model fluent and expressive reading, and build motivation and interest in reading. Here are a few examples of interactive storybooks:
 * Interactive Storybooks:**
 * Select from a multitude of "just right" interactive texts for your students to engage in on Starfall
 * Clifford the Big Red Dog, just became even more lovable through his interactive adventures with Emily Elizabeth. Scholastic's Interactive Clifford Storybooks
 * To hear some classic children's stories, like Patricca Polocca's //__Thank you Mr. Falker__//, Janell Cannon's //__Stellaluna__//, and Chris Van Allsburg's __//Polar Express//__ read aloud by members of the Screen Actor's Guild Foundation check out this site Storyline Online

In addition to the interactive technologies available to support student learning, they are also many online resources which assist teachers in providing their students with high quality literacy instruction. The following sites offer a multitude of lesson ideas, suggested books, and general reading strategies for teachers to implement into their daily instruction: A,B,C...easy as 1, 2, 3 Teacher's College Reading and Writing Project [|Florida Center for Reading Research] [|Reading Rockets]
 * Lesson Planning:**

===pod and vodcasting with Lunch time leaders : []=== ==As the website above describes, lunch time leaders is, "Dedicated to learning in the 21st century". The ability of students to be involved in global communication is a wonderfully powerful tool. Middle school students can find out what children are doing in Bordeaux, France while creating their own podcasts to be accessed by students in other countries. This is a great motivational activity to get children involved in the new literacy’s of audio and video production while reinforcing traditional reading and writing skills. ==

Wikis
Wikis, like the one you're reading right now, are webpages that use wiki software to provide a browser-based platform for fast, easy content creation using WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) or basic markup code for text editing. You don't need to know html or any other coding language, wiki's remove the coding barrier from web content creation, making it possible for anyone to contribute and collaborate online.

Uses of wikis in the classroom:

 * teachers can post content online: assignments, instructions, rubrics
 * students can post individually or collaborate as a group
 * collaborative class notes
 * individual assessments
 * create artifacts from class projects and experiences

Benefits of wikis in the classroom:

 * develop traditional reading, writing and collaboration skills, as well as new literacies, like writing specifically for the web, asynchronous collaboration
 * provides a platform for small group or class-wide collaboration
 * teachers can control access, track changes and individual participation
 * discussion tab provides an opportunity to shape development of content

How does technology promote cooperation, collaboration and a sense of local and global community:
= =

At the Elementary Level:
Interactive Pen Pals: Interactive PenPals takes the concept of traditional pen pals to a whole new level, by making it easier to communicate with individuals on a global plain and expose students to diverse cultures around our world. Through the use of interactive pen pals students are learning to communicate and collaborate with people from all different walks of life and places in the world in the digital world.
 * Sites like EPals, allow teachers to search for and locate PenPals from different continents and countries around the world. It provides teachers with the option to match similar aged and grade level students together and also has a feature where educators can select a topic they are interested in communicating with their penpals about. Check it out at Epals!

==Middle school can be a challenging experience for many children and creating Wiki pages is an excellent activity for this age group. Middle schoolers can benefit tremendously from working collaboratively and cooperatively with peers on a shared goal. This is excellent preparation for the real world by forcing them to "get outside of themselves" and learn to value other perspectives. It also helps the children get situated in their school community through this "conversation" with peers. ==

Podcasting
Podcasts are digital audio or video files that are made available through web-based syndication via programs like iTunes or Juice, known as podcatchers. //Uses of podcasts in the classroom:// //Benefits of podcasts in the classroom://
 * create artifacts of class activities
 * record lectures, class discussions, or small group conferences and make them available for listening in the future
 * record and listen world language scripts
 * assessment
 * develop 21st Century skills including recording and editing audio and video files
 * develop new literacies including writing for audio and speaking/presentation skills
 * students become contributors by sharing podcasts within the school, with the local community and beyond
 * creates an audience for student work beyond the classroom
 * students improve their language skills by creating dialogues and recording them or by listening a ready-made dialogue and interpreting the meaning.

Networking
Most students are familiar with Social Networking and can benefit from Educational Networking in the classroom. Web-based sociail networking occurs through a variety of websites that allow users to share content, interact and develop communities around similar interests. __http://www.wetpaint.com__ and __http://grou.ps/dashboard.php__ are safe ones to start.
 * //Application in the World Language Classroom://
 * 1) Students can create a profile page and describe themselves giving "personal" information in the target language.
 * 2) Students will be able to participate in group discussions and blogs according to the units taught.
 * //Benefits://
 * 1) Students become the "teachers" as they comment on each others writing, taking pride on things the've done well and suggesting things to make it better.
 * 2) Videos and links can be added to the page to help students remember and practice vocabulary and grammar structures taught.

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