UEN Resources

I can use UEN resources in my future classroom several ways to enhance learning for my students and add a technology element to my teaching. There are several resources on UEN that are available and helpful. One really great service that UEN provides is Pioneer Library. Pioneer offerrs some pretty amazing resources. One component in Pioneer that I love is their Preschool Pioneer. Because I am an Early Childhood major, I love anything that has to do with small children and because we are in a digital age, younger children are becoming more technologially capable. Teaching children at a young age how to use technology will give them a great start on their education.
Also in Pioneer, they have several search engines to find information that would be helpful in the classroom. Ebsco host and eMedia are great ways to find alternative and supporting information to academic concepts. Also there is links to several news and information sites that can be used to inform your classroom on issues and events happening in the world. You can access previous articles and research information to add to lessons and really connect what your teaching to the world around your students.
UEN just provides several opportunities to access, credible and useful information to use in the classroom.
Also UEN is great to help with creating a lesson plan. They have a great feature in My UEN that can create lessons plan. I love this because when creating a lesson play, you can focus on the content and not the format stuff. It gives you a link to all the information that would be helpful in lesson plan such as ILO's and objectives and such. I am really excited to start this lesson plan and I think I will use this feature a lot in creating all my lessons.

Blogging in the Classroom

Blogging can be a useful tool in the classroom and by using it responsibly and teaching my students how to use it can add a great technology element to the classroom. Today, technology is moving forward quite quickly and as a teacher, I can move forward with it, using it as a tool to motivate my students and enhance their learning.
One idea how to use blogging in my classroom that I love is creating a class page accessible to students and to parents that talks about all the things we are doing in the classroom. On the blog, I can have the topics and concepts we are currently discussing and learning about in class so parents are updated on the material their children are learning. Also I can have an additional resource link that I can post other links to some really great resources that parents can use at home to review what their kids are learning at school. There are some really great resources online (games and virtual manipulatives) that kids can have fun with and still learn academic concepts.
Also another way I can use blogs is for my students writing. With an older age group like fourth or fifth grade, I could use blogs as a way for my students to publish their writing. Students find a lot of success in their writing when they can publish what they write and by publishing on a blog, this allows their peers and possibly their parents log on, read, and comment on their writing. It would be a great way to do peer reviewing and maybe get some ideas from each other that wouldn't take too much time in class.
Also I think having a classroom blog would just be a fun way for students to learn about the great things that technology can offer and teach them how to use it responsibly. As a class, we could design the blog, discuss things we want to post on it, and allow everyone the chance to say what they want. It could be a great and fun way to connect together as a class.
I think that using blogs in the classroom could be a great tool when used appropriately. As a teacher, I need to keep up with my students and use technology in a good way instead of fighting against it.