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November 15, 2000: Issue 1
In this issue:
•
Elmwood Murdock Launches Unique Web Parent
Program
• 4 Classroom Sites
Published at EM Elementary
• First
Grade Site Gets Parents and Kids Involved In School
• Web
Parent Program Brings Teachers and Parents Together
• Cybernet
Safety for Kids
• Students Exchange Email in a Safe Environment With ePALs
• Fun
Online Thanksgiving Activities for the Whole Family
Top of PageElmwood Murdock Launches Unique Web Parent Program
Elmwood Murdock Elementary School received a grant through the Nebraska Information Technology Commission (NITC) to implement a unique program called "The Web Parent Program". The primary goal of this project is to promote Internet literacy throughout all grades. Along with promoting use of the web for life-long learning and communications, children, teachers and parents will be taught to use caution against personal exposure, and to recognize dangerous and inappropriate use of the web.
A "Web Parent" is a volunteer position for each elementary classroom , similar to the traditional “room parent”, but focusing their efforts in assisting the classroom teacher on creating a web page for that classroom and updating the web page throughout the school year. Due to the fabulous parent support in our school district, we were able to recruit enough Web Parents for this effort. A complete list of the Web Parents is available at our website.
The Web Parent and the classroom Teacher become "Web Parent Partners" and collaborate with other web parents and teachers on learning new skills together, and adopting and advancing Internet literacy. Our Educational Service Unit has provided training for our web parents and classroom teachers on web page development skills and Internet skills.
A survey to evaluate current competencies was conducted with all grades, and teachers were enlightened to the misconceptions that children have about the Internet. For example many children thought that everything on the Internet was true.
At this writing, four of our classrooms have published their first website, and have created a global window to the proud work of our children and our school. Students participated in Student Vote 2000, and the results of the Elmwood Murdock vote and the vote of over 500 schools across Nebraska were published over the Internet.
In coming months we will be working on setting up “pen pal” relationship over the Internet with another classroom. We will be emphasizing Internet curriculum integration in the classroom, and students will be exposed to practical uses of the web. These experiences will allow our children to realize that even though we are a remote small town in Nebraska, using the Internet makes us very much a part of the global digital world.
For a complete description of the objectives of The Web Parent Project, please go to our website.
From elementary site there are additional links:
NITC
Nebraska Information Technology Commission
Top of PageKindergarten:
Kindergarten families can find their weekly notes here,
daily schedules and lots of good information to help kindergarten families
keep up with their kids. And, if there is such a thing as too much fun you
might be able to find it here. There are great links to online educational
games, craft projects, lyrics and music to fall songs, like "Turkey
in the Straw". The kids will be having so much fun they might forget
that they are learning too! Thanks to Mrs. Dawn Hromanik and Mrs. Diane
Vice for all their hard work!
First Grade Room 1A
This site has fun graphics that draw kids to it.
First
grade families can find the Show & Tell schedule, the daily schedule,
and the holiday party committees on Mrs. Cook's first grade website.
The Kelso's choices page provides a quick reference to choices kids can
make to solve a problem or conflict. The Interviews section gives the
first grader's response to an interview question, very cute! And the
Young Author's section will have stories from the kids. See the
article on the First Grade in this newsletter
about the great things that happened with this site. Thanks to Mrs.
Carol Buck and Mrs. Emilie Cook for a wonderful site for their classroom.
Second Grade, Room 2A
Mrs. Linda Glantz has worked hard to take on new Internet
technology. She attended a week long class this summer on technology
in the classroom, and brought her work from that class to the EM
Site. The 2A site has "Meet the Teacher", school supplies,
daily schedule, curriculum and rules to follow. All good information
for second grader families. Thanks to Mrs. Glantz and her web
partner Mr. David Philson for bringing this site online. Keep up the
good work!
Third Grade, Room 3A
It must be true what the site says about 3A kids being cool
kids, because this site is really cool. Along with good information for
Mrs. B's families on her teaching philosophy, you can print project forms,
like the book report form that the kids always loose or forget, and their
spelling lists. There is a wonderful art gallery of work from the kids so
that all their friends and family from far and wide can see the good work
they have done. The Kids Website section offers safety rules, and links to
kids' favorite sites, and educational websites. You will be entertained by
some fun animated graphics too. Great work and many thanks to Mrs. Cindy
Meyer and Mrs. Backemeyer.
Read on about Mrs. Backemeyer's focus on teaching Internet Safety or "Cyber Safety" in this newsletter.
Top of PageThe Web-Parent Program provided an opportunity for Carol to develop her skills and get involved in her son's school right from the start. Carol eagerly attended classes, and stepped up to the challenge as soon as she was needed. The first grade website of Mrs. Emilie Cook and web parent Carol Buck was the first web parent website published for our school.
Mrs. Cook was pleased to find out that her kids are involved in their website. The website includes interviews from the children and stories they have authored.
Mrs. Cook writes, "When starting this website, the first grade parents were the audience that I had hoped to interest. I wanted the pages to keep parents aware of our schedule and let them know about projects we were working on. But now I hear another audience is using the pages! I am very pleased to hear my first graders talk about how much they can read on the website. It's a common fact that children love to look at themselves in pictures. Now I see they really enjoy reading about themselves too. Knowing my class is reading at home, I am anxious to update the interviews and stories. What a great learning tool-I am lucky the kids discovered it!"
You'll want to visit the first grade web site (link at the right) to see the great things that are happening in Mrs. Cook's room.
Top of PageThe Web Parent opportunity has given me new skills that I can put to use in my classroom. Designing a web page with a parent, Mike Winter, has given me a chance to get to know another community member well. Mike has more computer skills than I do so he is a safe bet to remember the steps in the process if I were to forget. He also gives me insight as to what a parent is looking for when viewing a school web page. Besides working with Mike I
have become better acquainted with other parents in the district. A web page is a great way to promote what we do as teachers without having to send pictures and an article to a local newspaper. This page can be viewed by anyone in the world. Children can share with relatives that do not live very close to the school. I am excited about the possibilities of this new avenue of communication.
Top of PageOne Sunday morning I read the Parade magazine from the Sunday World Herald. I came across a cartoon which I at first took to be very funny. It showed two little boys at the computer. One little boy said, “Gee, we can go around the world before we can even cross the street.” The more I thought about the cartoon the more I realized the importance of educating students about the tools of technology.
With current events our class began talking about the web. We discussed www standing for World Wide Web. One students made an analogy and compared the computer web to a spider web. They both make connections and lead you to different areas. Then we talked about the safety of the world wide web. A prime example of this was www.martinlutherkingjr.org. When we entered the site the students voted on whether they thought it was a legitimate site. Of course all of the students believed it was because it contained a wonderful picture of Martin Luther King and of course had his name. All of the students believed it would be a great place to research about Dr. King. Then I went on to show the students the rest of the site. We realized the site was probably built by an persons seeking to discredit Martin Luther King. It is possible for anyone to buy the rights to a web site.
Another excellent site to help students learn more about the safety of the internet is www.disney.go.com/cybersafety. This site contains three different stories about how to use the internet. The students viewed the stories with a partner and then we read the stories aloud as a class with
the LCD machine and took notes. With the notes they had taken the students felt it was very important to share the information they learned with others. So they created posters with cybersafety rules and have them displayed around the school.I feel that the 3rd grade students are seeing technology as a powerful tool. It is something which can be a great asset and advantage if it is used appropriately. I feel the 3rd graders are off to a wonderful start.
Internet Safety Sites:
Top of PageI
n early October, the two third grade classrooms began using ePALS. A teacher monitored, filtered email system for teachers and students. The kids are really enjoying using ePALS. Both classes have been emailing each other over the past month. We are going to branch out and get family members' email addresses so we can email them. The students have created an "address book" within each of their own ePALS accounts.Parents had expressed concern over the safety of their children receiving an inappropriate email from someone. ePAL's specific purpose is to create a method for children to exchange email in a safe environment. Any email that comes to a student goes to the teacher's "Inbox" first. The teacher has to approve every email that is sent to the students. It also works the other way. The teacher has to approve all email that the students send out. ePALS has created a very safe and fun way for our students to learn and use email.
Email will be around for a long time, until technology comes up with something better. We hope you will ask your children about ePALS and let them explain to you what they are doing. To learn more about ePALs, go to www.epals.com.
To find out more about the unique ePALs program for classroom email please go to:
Top of Pagehttp://www.night.net/thanksgiving/
http://www.nebo.edu/nebo/holidays/thanksgiving.htm
http://www.memphis-schools.k12.tn.us/admin/tlapages/thanksgiving.htm
http://teacher.scholastic.com/thanksgiving/index.htm
http://familyeducation.com/topic/front/0,1156,1-3714,00.html.
Top of PageIf you have comments, questions or suggestions for this newsletter, please write to Marie Gregoire, Web Parent Project Coordinator: mgregoire@alltel.net.
To subscribe send email to: mgregoire@alltel.net.
To unsubscribe send an email to: mgregoire@alltel.net.
NEWSLETTER ONLINE
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Murdock Web Parent Program News online http://www.elm.esu3.org/webparent/newsletter/WebParentNewsIssue1.htm.
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