Video Conferencing, Email and Sending Faxes

In Alan November's book, Empowering Students With Technology, he gives great ideas on how to incorporate technology into the classroom. One example that he gives is having students send faxes to their parents. Kindergarten students can do this. They can draw a picture and fax to their parents at work or home. I think this is an excellent idea. I wish that I had thought about it earlier. I teach kindergarten students and plan on trying it. I would love it if my son sent me a fax. It would make my day! Having that communication during the day would be wonderful. I think all my student's parents will be thrilled with it as well.

Sending emails is another way that students can communicate with others. I think it is a good idea to have an email buddy from another state or country to write back and forth to. This allows students to read what others are doing in their classes. Students can make life long friends communicating by email.

Video conferences are excellent for communicating globally. In the past, I have had two classes participate in a video conference. One was with the San Diego Zoo and the other was with NASA. The students have thoroughly enjoyed this. They were able to communicate and see the representatives by live video. The students were not bashful and were eager to ask questions. Their questions were answered and they gained a lot of knowledge. Some video conferences are free like the one we participated with NASA. There are multiple organizations that participate in educational video conferences. I plan on having my kindergarten students participate in a video conference soon. I am anxious and look forward to how it turns out.

In Michael T. Romano's book, Empowering Teachers With Technology, he talks about left and right brained students. I found this to be interesting. As the books says, in the past, the education system geared its information giving toward left brained students - using more sounds and words (lecture and books). I am glad to see that educational systems are trying to make it more even, now by focusing on right brain learners, too - using visuals and graphics. I believe that this will help increase knowledge in all students.