internet 4 classrooms

A co-teacher of mine told me about this internet site. She said she goes there all the time in the computer lab for math practice for her kids. I just went there and it is pretty good. I did a 2nd grade search to filter out some of the info and that helped find what I was looking for.

Wiki space still going well. We did our first QAR questions to our pen pals today and the kids did really welll. They really get QAR and it helps so much in our discussions in other subject areas because I can ask them a question and tell them if it is an in the book or on my own. I can tell it helps them so much to know where to go to get the answers. It almost relieves some of the stress of not knowing how to answer questions. It gives them a bit more scaffolding in responding to questions. I did not teach them author and me right away - maybe later. We just did right there and on my own. Next week we are going to try think and search.

Wikispaces for 2nd graders

Today we started our electronic pen pal project on wiki spaces. We are going to post messages to our pen pals but we are also going to do a type of literature circle using the space while both classes read Horrible Harry and the Holidaze. Today I taught the web site to the kids for about 20 minutes, they wrote the user name and password on their writing folder and then they wrote a short message to their pen pal. We went into the computer lab this afternoon and I was amazed at how well they did. I couldnt believe it. They sat down got the home page up typed in their user name and password. The only thing I had to help with was how to find the discussion page. WHat an awesome thing that was. I would highly recomment this type of project. Their reaction to seeing their posts on the web was worth all the work we put into setting up the space and planning the management of it.