Where Do I Come From?

Just today I started teaching a group of fourth graders in an after school program for academic enrichment. That might be a fancy way of saying these are kids that need a little extra help or could benefit from some one on one time with a teacher in a less hectic atmosphere than the daily classroom. One of the first things I like to do is to ask kids to tell me about themselves. The questions are never exactly the same but the gist is what's your favorite, what's your least favorite, what is your very best thing, and where do you come from?

It's important to know where you come from, because it might give you some answers about where you are going to. Family-Mingle is a Web 2.0 tool website that wants to help you figure that out. It's an extremely user friendly interface that will have you setting up a family tree in less than a minute. Students as young as my fourth graders should be able to use this site with no problems at all. It's point and click at its friendliest. The only setback would the need to have the names and dates of the people in your family and their births and/or deaths.

It would be extremely easy to make a very simple lesson plan for a 2 generation family tree, just including the parents and siblings of the student, but this in turn might spark an interest in the family to try and continue the tree once the see the ease of the program at home. The student could take home a printout and show the parents on the home computer how simple it is to add information. What easier way to convince an adult than watching a 9 year old manipulate the keyboard and mouse?

http://www.family-mingle.com/ really is worth trying for five minutes. I originally intended to spend five minutes, and twenty minutes later I was calling my mother for my grandparents birthdates. It can be very addictive, and educational as you learn about yourself and where you came from.

To blog or not to blog?

It really is the question, isn't it? There are so many blogs out there now, but the answer is a resounding Yes! Blogging is the long lost art form of letter writing. People bemoan the fact that the children of generation...what letter are we on now? I digress, that these children will never know the joy of letter writing, receiving mail, etc., yet they do know the joy of email, and now they know the joy of blogging. Post a blog, and wait for the comments. It's not unlike writing a letter to all of your friends at once, but on the very upside, no trees die, and everyone saves time and effort.

As for the benefits seen in education, teachers have found blogs to have an amazing impact in the classroom. Students are very enthusiastic about the idea of posting their thoughts online. It's used as an incentive, a reward, a sounding board, something of an outsource, where people in the community have an opportunity to work with students online sometimes, it just opens up a whole world of opportunities to a room that was previously limited by its four walls and a budget.

Not only are teachers using the blogs for their students advantages, but for their own as well. Teachers are forming communities with their blogs, and developing support systems that allows an exchange of information that was never possible before. Instead of being limited to what is available in the local supply store, or the latest education magazine, teachers are now able to bounce ideas off of each other within minutes, and spread the word instantly about what works, and more importantly what doesn't in the classroom. This has been a veritable godsend for the neophytes especially, but also those who have been teaching for a long time, and looking for new ways to freshen up their repertoire.

Blogs have opened up an exciting new frontier in the classroom. Teachers are pioneers in a brave new way, but they are more than meeting the challenge. This is an amazing time in education, and I am grateful that I am part of it. My grandchildren are being born right now, on the very cusp of what I think is the launch of technology's true take off in education. I can't wait to watch it happen for them.