Spotlight on Tech in District #1

Unit District #1 has had a tremendous start to the 09-10 school year. At our beginning of the year inservice, I gave a presentation to staff on various Web 2.0 tools that have potential for classroom use. I have been amazed at the response from our teachers, and would like to take a moment to highlight some of the incredible things our teachers are doing with these tools in the classroom. I know there are many more teachers using these tools, but these are the ones that have been communicated to me thus far. If you are using Web 2.0 tools in your classroom, I would enjoy hearing about your experience.

A site that can be used to easily build classroom webpages is www.weebly.com. It is very intuitive to use and has tremendous potential as a communication tool for classroom use. Mr. Sinkular, high school social science teacher, has built a page at http://sink.weebly.com/index.html He is placing many resources on the site which can either be linked to or downloaded. I know his students are really starting to utilize it as the "homebase" for his class.

We have other teachers who are experimenting with Ning, which is a tool to create social networks for their classrooms. I know that Ms. Sikkema (HS English), Mr. Baer (HS Social Science), and Ms. Martinez (HS Foreign Language) have developed social networks for their classes.

We have many teachers who are utilizing our own website to build their pages. An excellent example is what Mr. Leman (HS Math) has done with his site. He has turned his website into a tremendous resource for students and their parents. Ms. Morris (MS Band) has also done an excellent job of using our website to build a very informative page for her students.

We also have teachers beginning to experiment with classroom blogs. Mr. Dooley (HS Band) has created a blog which he uses to communicate a variety of important information to his students and their parents. He is using Blogger as his platform, which is the same tool I used to create this blog. It is very user-friendly and allows one to create a blog in a matter of minutes.

I have also entered District #1 into the world of "tweeting". You can follow us at www.twitter.com/unitdistrict1. This platform provides a quick and easy way to stay up to date on the latest District news. We are slowly building a following, but I expect it to catch on quickly once the word spreads. Next to Facebook, Twitter is the fastest growing social networking site on the web.

I know there are other teachers using Web 2.0 tools in innovative ways, but these are a few examples that have been brought to my attention since the start of the school year. As I stated earlier, I would enjoy learning about other exemplary uses of these valuable technology tools in the classroom.

Like it or not, the way we communicate in the global economy of the 21st century is changing, and Web 2.0 tools are at the forefront of this change. Our District website receives between 13,000 and 17,000 hits per month! It has become the preferred method of communication by many of our stakeholders. It is imperative that we embrace this paradigm shift and recognize its potential power for enhancing how we communicate with those we serve.