The final week

          Online communication tools can be a blessing but can sometimes include some frustration if not utilized appropriately. Email is one of those. Email is great because it allows you to send a message instantly and allows someone else to read it at their convenience. If you call another teacher, you may be interrupting them in the middle of a lesson. I know sometimes this happens over and over again and it becomes very frustrating. Sending an email doesn’t interrupt them and they will be able to read the message at a time when they are not as busy. Most of the teachers I work with are pretty good about checking it and responding to emails when they get a quick second. Email for talking with parents can be beneficial in the same way. It’s much easier for you if a parent is sending emails rather than calling you throughout the day. I also like the fact that newsletters can now be emailed out. For the most part they are informative and parents know to expect them if you have told them they would be sent via email.

            On the flip side, email can have its problems. First of all, when you type something there is no tone or voice. Some people can take things the wrong way and become offended at something that you didn’t mean to be offensive at all. People have a way of reading things in their head differently than the sender would have read them. This may be a major issue in sending parent emails because you may not be able to clear it up immediately as you could if it was someone within your workplace. There are also times when people do not respond to email. They can read it and accidentally forget about it or even say they never received it. This is a problem if it is something you really needed an answer on. You also must be careful with attachments. Sometimes attachments from an unknown source (or even a known source for that matter) can hold viruses that will damage your computer.

            The school I work at has many firewalls to prevent viruses. They have a program that monitors emails and blocks any that may be construed as junk or viruses. Sometimes emails like this still manage to get through though. For the most part, I feel like our IT department does a great job at working to prevent us from getting any emails that we don’t actually want.

            Online communication tools can really help teachers who always have busy schedules. As long as you are careful and use them properly, it can be a great way to send messages to parents and coworkers.

Week 7

One type of software that I would use in the classroom regularly if I had a classroom is Microsoft Word. I have seen many students utilize this software and it is good to start out at an elementary level because they will have to use this software in middle school and high school.

As a paraeducator, I go and observe and assist in many classrooms. I assisted one teacher as she utilized Microsoft Word to meet her writing objective. Students used Microsoft Word to write their personal narrative pieces. Students double-spaced their pieces so they could print them out and meet with partners to peer edit each other’s papers. Using the computers also helped to advance their “home key” typing skills. It also helped many students to catch spelling mistakes or grammar mistakes before they printed them out. Many students in her class also struggle with handwriting. She has 4 students that are special education and have trouble writing words correctly. Using the computer made it easier for them to work with partners since everyone could read their handwriting.

            One problem that did arise was that she has only 6 computers in her classroom. By breaking students up into different rooms, every student was able to work on a computer for a 30 minute chunk and get a lot done rather than just working for 15 minutes in a center. When sending students to the computer lab, she realized that those computers didn’t have Microsoft Word. It was taken off as a way for the school to save money. They were equipped with a different writing program. It allowed students to edit Microsoft Word documents and save documents in a Word format. It seemed okay in theory, but there were so many problems that came up. Some students weren’t able to pull their writings up in the computer lab. They would simply look like symbols. Some students did fine in the computer lab, but after they saved it, it wouldn’t open up on a Microsoft Word computer. A couple students even ended up losing everything they had worked on. I personally think that the school should not have taken Microsoft Word out of the computer lab. There will always be problems with saving documents from a different program and Microsoft Word is something that students can use regularly, especially in older grades. There would have been a lot fewer problems if Microsoft Word were on all computers in the building.

Although there can always be technological issues, I think Microsoft Word is a great software to utilize for writing objectives and more. It is so important that students start using this program early so they can be prepared to write papers in higher-level grades.