After reading appendix C in the book Web 2.0 New Tools, New Schools I learned of many valuable strategies of implementing technology into the business education classroom. One is having a class wiki site where I can post important links to various business organizations that deal with what we are learning in class. I can also put up podcasts on our class wiki for the students to listen to when they are traveling for sports or sitting at home after school. These podcasts can be from professional speakers or a conversation that we had in class that day. The wiki could include an agenda of what would be covered in the next week so that students could prepare and read up on the topic before coming to class.
In order to facilitate good communication between parents and other teachers I could also have my own personal blog that they subscribe to via RSS feed. This blog could list the upcoming events in my classroom and help me collaborate with other teachers once they know what topics will be covered. This blog could be used as a weekly newsletter home for parents keeping them informed and at the same time providing the parents with valuable information they may find interesting.
A strength of this scenario given in the book is that communication and collaboration between different parties in the school is kept synchronous giving students, teachers, and administrators the awareness of what is going on. A weakness of this scenario is that it may be time consuming to put all of the links onto a wiki and update it daily. In addition, students may be distracted using their cell phones in school and not pay attention to the lesson being covered. Parents who know exactly what is being covered in school might try to take over the classroom by suggesting different things to be covered.
I think this scenario really brought about some good points of how to integrate this technology into a real classroom scenario. I am looking forward to applying some of these strategies into my classroom.
2:47 am - 11-30-2010
Good communication is a key to success in any area of life and occupation. A blog is a great idea and tool to use to help others keep-up with what is going on in the course. Students, administrators, parents, and more are able to participate better with the course as they know what is going on.
6:15 am - 12-1-2010
Yes, I think having a class wiki is a great idea. Having your own blog (at least weekly) would be a valuable tool to communicate with all stakeholders. You agree with most others in regards to the weakness.