Standard 3.7
The artifact for standard 3.7, communication and collaboration, is more than a document or project. It is something that I used weekly to communicate with students and parents about ongoing assignments and upcoming assessments. I currently have a few ways that I that communicate with students, but this is the only public form. I created a blog using Wordpress.com to give students a place to visit about upcoming assignments and to give students an avenue to look up missed work and notes. I have other ways to collaborate and communicate with students such as My Big Campus. Here I am able to post discussion questions for students to discuss and collaborate with one another. This is more difficult to give an example because it is a private platform like Blackboard Collaborate is. Along with teaching, I am also a baseball coach and I have found a better way to communicate with players and parents rather than text and email. It is through Remind 101, a service for teachers to send messages but not receive any back. This has been a valuable tool for the coaching staff to communicate with all of the players and parents.
The ability to communicate with students is a huge part of being a teacher. With the three different ways to communicate with students and parents, I have created a network that is easy to use and access at all times. All three tools are accessible with mobile devices or tablets so I can access on the tools on the go. My Big Campus is the online learning platform reaches further than just my students and parents, but it allows me to be a part of larger community of people to help and collaborate with. With the library and resources that My Big Campus has to offer I can add my materials for others to use or I can borrow from others who have already created authentic lessons. These three mediums help me communicate and collaborate, locally and globally, with students, baseball players, parents, and teachers.
I have been continually learning and developing communication skills. Before I began using tools like the three above, the only technology I used was phone calls and email. With these new tools I have learned to make my life a little easier in terms of communication. I can communicate with these new tools anywhere. This has been the biggest thing that I have learned, that I do not have to be at school but can be anywhere and create a discussion post or send a Remind 101 about a game. Tablets and mobile devices connected to WIFI is what makes this process easy. If I had to do something different in the communication area for my students and parents, I would do away with the Wordpress blog and create a Weebly blog. The ease of use on Weebly far exceeds that of Wordpress. With Weebly I have the ability to embed video and Power Points, which is tougher on Wordpress. This makes Weebly more functional and creates a better way to communicate and collaborate with students and parents. School improvement is greatly impacted here. The main reason is because students are more informed about what is going on in the classroom. Parents are part of this improvement for the school because keeping them well informed keeps our students on the right track. Student improvement will be assessed through long-term higher graduation and lower dropout rates. I think work samples can give us data that shows students are following directions and completing assignments in proper time because of the communication available.
Class Blog from Wordpress
The ability to communicate with students is a huge part of being a teacher. With the three different ways to communicate with students and parents, I have created a network that is easy to use and access at all times. All three tools are accessible with mobile devices or tablets so I can access on the tools on the go. My Big Campus is the online learning platform reaches further than just my students and parents, but it allows me to be a part of larger community of people to help and collaborate with. With the library and resources that My Big Campus has to offer I can add my materials for others to use or I can borrow from others who have already created authentic lessons. These three mediums help me communicate and collaborate, locally and globally, with students, baseball players, parents, and teachers.
I have been continually learning and developing communication skills. Before I began using tools like the three above, the only technology I used was phone calls and email. With these new tools I have learned to make my life a little easier in terms of communication. I can communicate with these new tools anywhere. This has been the biggest thing that I have learned, that I do not have to be at school but can be anywhere and create a discussion post or send a Remind 101 about a game. Tablets and mobile devices connected to WIFI is what makes this process easy. If I had to do something different in the communication area for my students and parents, I would do away with the Wordpress blog and create a Weebly blog. The ease of use on Weebly far exceeds that of Wordpress. With Weebly I have the ability to embed video and Power Points, which is tougher on Wordpress. This makes Weebly more functional and creates a better way to communicate and collaborate with students and parents. School improvement is greatly impacted here. The main reason is because students are more informed about what is going on in the classroom. Parents are part of this improvement for the school because keeping them well informed keeps our students on the right track. Student improvement will be assessed through long-term higher graduation and lower dropout rates. I think work samples can give us data that shows students are following directions and completing assignments in proper time because of the communication available.
Class Blog from Wordpress