On Wednesday we held our 3 unit test of the school year in my social studies class. As we have progressed throughout the school year my student have learned how to use various forms of technology to prepare themselves for their test. Last night was a very busy night for me as I watched my traffic for my website increase drastically and I found myself fielding questions for the better part of the night. There are three ways in which my students have discovered how to use technology to make their school lives easier.

Increased Traffic

The image above shows a snap shot from my incoming traffic from my class blog last night. Spikes of traffic hits is not uncommon for my blog, but this spike was unique in the fact that it primarily consisted of traffic from Fayetteville IP addresses…in fact, our blog received over 100 hits last night just from kids and their parents. The reason they were visiting at such a high frequency was because they were seeking out resources to study for their test. I use our social studies page on our blog to host a wide variety of resources such as class handouts, study guides, upcoming dates and other important information. As a teacher this has become my best friend outside of school because it provides a one stop shop for kids who want to obtain information outside of class.

Google Talk

This has proven to be probably the most useful tool this year for my students. Google provides a widget that can be embedded onto any blog and connects directly with the talk feature on your Google Account…my widget is located to the right. Last night I must of had about 20 different individual conversations with students and parents that had questions about their test. Students and parents alike were able to get quick and easy answers to their questions last night as they were studying for their upcoming test. This provides an absolutely awesome opportunity for me to help ensure that I’m able to clear up any topics that may be unclear to students. Not to mention it also eliminates the all time great excuse of “I didn’t get to study/do my work because I didn’t understand”.

Text Messages

Lastly text messaging…that’s right, I said text messaging. Google also provides another really awesome service called Voice, this allows me to set up a phone number which can receive calls and messages then directs them to my personal phone. While text messaging is one topic that is very polarizing in the world of education, I feel like I have found a great use for it in our classroom. Here’s how it works, students or parents have a concern so they visit my site and find the “call me” button located on the right of the page. From there they are able to either call me or text message me on my Google Voice line. The message gets relayed to my phone with allows me to quickly respond using a vehicle that it very easily accessible to me and my students as well…texting.

Many teachers may frown upon using some of the technology that I use in class to stay connected with students…such as texting, facebook, blogging, and chatting. Some may see it as a being an “inappropriate” way to communicate with students or something that doesn’t really have a place in education because it bleeds over into their personal life. To me though, if we are really in the business of helping kids then why wouldn’t we want to connect with our students more? Using the before mentioned technologies help me be a better teacher due to the simple fact that I’m able to help students in and outside of the classroom…and at the end of the day, if they are using social media to interact with the taught content isn’t that an awesome thing?

Mr. McClung