Week 8- Teaching and Learning with Technology (chapter 13)

        Some of the different forms of online communication that I have really learnt about this semester are Email (and its many uses), Webquest, and the use of electronic devices such as the PDA. Each of these things provides a different way in which teachers and students, or teachers and parents can communicate. Most of the time when teachers are absent they leave substitute teachers written lesson plans for their students. With the use of a webquest they can now leave the website for the substitute to give the students to have them complete their work with the teacher’s instructions clearly given. All the substitute teacher has to do is monitor that the students are working instead of playing games. Email can used to contact students of assignments which are due soon. Email can also be used between teachers or between teachers and administrators. Email is becoming one of the best ways to contact parents. Many parents email teachers with concerns about their child this is also a way for the teacher to keep parents updated on the child’s progress. The PDA is a small computer. Most of today’s cell phones are PDA’s this allows teachers, parents, and administrators to have access to email and other important programs anytime anywhere.

        My school district has many different computers. We have a couple MAC labs which are secured so that you cannot access the computer without a log on name and password. To insure that the computer doesn’t sit idle to long it as periodically for the user name and password to be reentered. The other computers have systems from Windows 98- Windows xp.  Each of these computers is equipped with antivirus and the same log on security as the MAC’s. The one problem with all the computers is that fact that some of them are so out dated it’s hard to tell if their slowing down are caused by their age or by a virus. Another problem is the fact there are only so many computer technicians in the county. We have 6 elementary schools, a middle school and a high school. Each elementary school has at least one computer in every classroom and one lab. The middle school has at least two computers in every classroom and two labs. The high school has atleast two computers in every classroom and six computer labs (3 PC labs and 3 MAC labs). This means that if one computer gets a virus the technicians may not get around to working on it until after a couple days or weeks. This gives the virus a chance to spread and cause more damage. As far as hackers the school has a very secure internet set up. You have to have two different types of passwords to log on to the wireless internet or the schools network. The only concern I have at work is the fact I am afraid if my computer gets a virus I will lose all the documents I have saved on it.