Join the Discussion!

In the hustle and bustle of 4th of July tomfoolery (usually involving firecrackers and high-school inspired stupidity) and preparing to purchase our first home, I’ve neglected the blog and forum a bit this summer. Never fear, though! There are all sorts of great goodies planned for the forum and the site in the next month, two of them being the return of the monthly forum newsletter and several added features to the forum.

While the forum will be down for maintenance this morning (I’ve been neglecting updates on that as well), I invite everyone to join the discussion this week and share a thought or two about a great resource or idea that you have for integrating technology. While working at an independent bookstore in our small resort town this summer, I’ve run across many teachers on vacation that have wonderful ideas and stories to share about the activities and lessons they’ve accomplished with their students. So many wonderful stories in fact, that it makes me determined to push my own students harder this fall, and with a greater emphasis on collaboration among themselves, other classrooms within the building, and other classes around the world by using the Internet.

What am I getting at? If you have a wonderful idea for staying connected with another classroom via e-mail, blogs, or videoconferencing, then join the discussion! Let us know what you use with your students, on your own, or as a classroom to help extend learning outside of the four walls of your classroom and into the rooms and minds of classrooms around the country or world. No worries if you haven’t been ambitious enough yet to use the Internet to communicate electronically with other schools. I’ve only had a small amount of experience with a blog at the end of this last school year, and even then we didn’t really get a good chance to develop a deep dialogue.

I usually don’t put up “calls to action” as I know so many of us are busy that the call usually goes unanswered. It’s alright, I know how busy the summer can be, and how valuable our time is while not in the classroom, so any and all thoughts are welcome. If you can’t respond in the forum due to maintenance, please leave your thoughts as comments below.