Although technology is powerful learning tool that is used throughout the activities on this site, there are technology concerns that need to be addressed.
Online Safety
One major concern is student safety online. Students need to be monitored as they work in any online environment to ensure that they are safe.
They need to be guided as they "surf" the web to ensure that they do not end up in any inappropriate places. Should this occur accidentally, an adult needs to be available so that the situation can be discussed and students understand why the site may not be appropriate.
Students also need to understand that they should never put any personal information out online and they should realize that a person they meet online is not necessarily who they say that they are.
The activities in this unit are designed with safety in mind. Students do access onine interactives, but these interactives are bookmarked ont he student desktop so that they are not accessing any other locations on the web. In addition, these interactives are used with the teacher and/or media specialist on hand to assist students in their proper use.
The Blog is the other online technology used throughout this unit. When students are on the blog, they are at school, and again, guided by an adult. Students will have the web address and access the blog at home, but should have parent supervision. In addition, the teacher and/or media specialist is the manager of the blog, and all posts must be approved. This prevents others from outside our class, from commenting to our students.
Accessibility
In addtion to concerns about online safety for students, another Technology concern is is cost and accessibilty. Some of the latest and greatest technologies can be quite expensive. Not all families have access to computers at home, and those that do have computers, do not always have the same software programs or other hardware accessories such as digital cameras. This concern was another consideration in planning this unit.
The main way that this accessibilty problem was avaoided was that all of the technology components were done at school, with the exception of the digital photography. For the photography, a durable digital camera, desgined for young users, was included int he Mercy Watson Journal Bag. All students were given a lesson on how to take pictures during class at school, and all of the pictures were downloaded off of the camera back at school as well.
The student work with software such as Microsoft Power Point and Word was also done at school, so that families did not need to be concerned about having the correct software, although these are common packages.
The work online was done at school and the web addresses were provided as an option only for those families interested.
The activities desgined for this site were made to be done with relatively basic, but very valuable technology, that any school will probably have access too. In addition, there is no technology requirement for students to work on at home that has not been provided for. Any access that students have to the technologial components of this unit at home is optional.
Technology Skills
Finally, a third technology concern applies to the classroom teacher. This unit was designed to be done as a collaboration between classroom teacher and media specialist. If a classroom teacher is less than comfortable with some of the technology components, the media specialist will be there as a partner to provide support or even to lead the activities the first time through. Hopefully, then this teacher, after working with a media specialist, will feel comfortable to employ the technology on their own and even help their grade level teams use the technology.
