C4T #1

Student Internet Use in the Holidays
This blog is about a study that the teachers did on their students about internet usage during the holidays. They wanted to get an idea of how many students had access to the internet at home and what they were looking at when they were using it. 29 classes responded and the outcome was that out of the 29 classes, about 25% of them had at home internet usage. The teachers used the information to see how the students used their technology that they had at home before the school issued net books and the internet access on them will be available to the students 24/7. I left a comment stating that it was a good idea to do the survey because I believe that when the students are not pressed for time on the internet, they will do more productive things with it. Right now, most of them have limited access to the internet so they are choosing to do more social networking with it than school work. I believe that will change when the school issues the net books because the students can access the internet whenever they want.

Engaging Parents through Home School Partnerships
This blog is about helping the parents with technology that they are not used to. Schooling is very different now from when the parents went so it is essential to help them out so their children are getting the most out of their education. The school is having evening meetings to teach the parents the basic skills of what it takes to teach now. The purpose of the meetings have been to inform the parents about the Manaiakalani project and how it is progressing in their school, and to give the parents a hands-on opportunity to interact with their own children's shared learning. They even have creative ways of getting the parents to attend by the children making invitations for the parents to come. I commented on the blog by saying that I totally agree with the project because I didn’t have any technology skills given to me or my parents growing up. I went all the way to my senior year of high school without a computer. Looking back, I have no idea how I did it, but it was simply because my parents nor I was taught anything about them. Dorothy left a comment on my page saying that I am very lucky to have a teacher like Dr. Strange and to have the opportunity to learn about technology this way.