Sunday, October 21, 2007

Internet Safety - the final chapter

This week's focus in my online class was on internet safety. Since I already teach my students about internet safety, but I am always looking for new material, I really appreciated this focus. I saw many things that I hope to use in my classes. Now I just need to find the time to incorporate them!

This is the last week of the class, so I know it will be easy to lose my focus on all the things I've learned. I intend to use my blog as a way to keep reminding myself of all the great things I've learned. So I promise to visit here at least once a week, and post a blog about what new material I've incorporated into my classes that week.

Last week was interesting, because I had a test planned for my Intro to Computers students. I test them on computer vocabulary words, which is also what their homework involves. We happened to be focusing on the internet and associated words, and I've discovered (the hard way) how confusing the terminology is to many students. So I did something different, at the last minute, when I realized that they weren't getting it. We spend the entire period on the differences between the internet, the world wide web, web sites, web pages, web browsers, URLs and search engines. We talked about which are hardware and which are software; which pieces are on their computer and which aren't, and what each thing is composed of. By the end of the period, they really knew it, and the test results were much better than usual. I ended up doing the same thing with my more advanced classes as well, since I realized that they probably didn't understand the concepts as well as they might. It turned out to be a very rewarding day!!!

Stay tuned for future posting about what's going on in my classes. Until then, Go RED SOX!!!

1 comment:

Janice Stearns said...

I'm pleased to know you will be using your blog to reflect on all the new tools you are learning about. That's a great use of a blog. Others can learn from that too.

Your reflection on vocabulary terms is enlightening. The fact that you changed your strategy is the sign of a good teacher. I'm sure that students understand better the different terms now that they have had a chance to have a conversation about it to make it stick.

I look forward to reading your blog in the future.