USING INTERNET TECHNOLOGY IN THE CLASSROOM Written and Presented by Mike Hetherington to the H.W. Porter faculty – August 25, 2005

THE WIRED GENERATION Late 2004 survey of 1,100 random teens…12 to 17 Teens are technology rich and surrounded by a wired world 87% use the internet – compared to 66% of American adults Of wired teens About 50% use the Web everyday About 50% high speed – 50% dial-up 75% of teens use IM vs. 42% of on-line adults

The Wired Generation 45% of teens have cell phones and 33% use text messaging Email is still a fixture in teens lives, but IM is preferred 33% of teens with IM have used it to send a music or video file The size of the wired teen population surges at the seventh grade mark

Class Web Pages Teacher Pages at H.W. Porter Mike Hetherington - Schoolnotes page and server based page Roy Lawrence – Schoolnotes page Tammy Ekstrom – Scholastic.com page Jean Trask – TeacherWeb page Heather Montanile – TeacherWeb page Karen Martin – TeacherWeb page Jane Skolnick – TeacherWeb pag

Class Web Pages What are they used for? Posting homework assignments “What we did today” communications to parents Reminders for Tests, Quizzes and Project due dates Links for on-line notes, study guides and project directions Links to other interesting web sites Here is list of web pages at Smith Middle School

Class Web Pages How to get started! http://schoolnotes.com http://teacherweb.com http://teacher.scholastic.com/homepagebuilder/index.htm -

Quia.com Website used for teacher created on-line games and activities Shared activities from other quia users on many different subjects Also allows you to set up a class page – could be used as your web page Accepts file uploads – can be used as a home for your notes and study guides Has an excellent quiz feature. You can create on-line quizzes and tests. These tests are automatically scored and quia presents a detailed question by question analysis of the results. One month free trial - 1 year subscription is $49 per year per instructor.

Google Earth “For anyone who had ever dreamed of flying” New York Times A 3D globe that sits in your computer Use to demonstrate from aerial views Physical landforms Political boundaries Very detailed city and street views Free download at http://earth.google.com/earth.html

On-Line Gradebooks mygradebook.com Very similar to Integrade Pro – Very fast and very reliable Web based- can be accessed from home Ongoing home-school communication Students and Parents can review student grades with password protection Used from November – June with very positive feedback from students/parents Eliminated 90% of the “I didn’t know my student was having trouble” calls. Free 30 day trial - $49.95 year – less w/grp. Disc.

Weblogs (Blogs) Web based journal of thoughts and ideas on a particular subject Allows students to have a published voice Room_613-Talk – Last year’s class Blog Class discussions; polls; poetry; what we learned today;post student writing for an authentic audience Can collaborate with other classrooms across the world Planet 5th – Millard Public, Omaha, Neb. http://room613talk05.edublogs.org/ Mr. Hetherington’s Class Blog 2005-2006 Weblog for this presentation (Full list of links)

Weblogs Where to blog????? www.typepad.com - powerful, moderated comments – 30 day free trial – then $49.95 and up www.blogger.com - commercial www.edublogs.org - free –– Post a comment here www.classblogmeister.com - another free site built for educators – school passcode is hpwnpr

Podcasting Also known as webcasts, an audio file that is made available over the internet Itunes software (and others) allow downloading and uploading of podcasts. Room 208 Podcast is an example of a classroom podcast Start with a blog, then let it develop from there Gives students a voice, they decide the topics, write the stories, transitions, script times etc and then record the broadcast using digital recorders.