Chapter eight

Chapter eight discussed the vast majority of Electronic resources available to educators. The chapter discussed educational journals and their uses as well as how to access them whether it be by PDF or HTML. Something interesting that I hadn’t really thought about before this class was teacher blogs and chat rooms. I guess I didn’t think teachers could be so organized! I believe that through these blogs the teachers learn about all of the electronic resources available to them. For example, the chapter said some electronic resources teachers take advantages are test generators and electronic grade books. Maybe a teacher could be faced with a decision on which program is the best for them, but do not want to risk downloading anything? They could go onto the teacher blogs!
Another way teacher blogs can help is to arrange a global learning community. Not everyone knows of someone in another country, specifically a foreign teacher. Through blogs a teacher could meet and arrange for their class to have cyber pen pals or they could arrange for a video chat.
Another great way for teachers to utilize blogs are to communicate with the parents. We have all been in the position where your parent asks you, “So what did you do in school today?” I don’t know about any of you, but this was the LAST thing I wanted to talk about after having done it all day long. If a teacher were to use a blog daily, then the parent could simply look up what their child did in school and generate conversation that way.

Comment Questions: How would you use electronic resources in your classroom? What would you use? How often would you like to use it? What technology would you most like to use in your classroom?