Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Blog Assignment #13

In today's blog post I will be accessing two different sites. The first one is ALEX, which is an acronym for Alabama Learning Exchange. The second site is called ACCESS, also an acronym, meaning Alabama Connecting Classroom, Educators and
Students Statewide. Below I will go into detail about accessing and navigating the site; I will also discuss how this information is relevant to me as a future teacher and how I plan to use this information.

Site #1: ALEX
The Alabama Learning Exchange is a website designed to help Alabama teachers with lesson plans and curriculum requirements. I like the design of the site, it is user friendly. On the main page, there are eight main links. The first link is "Courses of Study"; in its section of the site, you can choose a subject area such as Social Science, and from there it gets more specific, for example US Government. In the US Government section there will be lesson plans and websites that other teachers have created. Below the link for the lesson plans is usually one or more symbols. These symbols represent different state tests that the information appears on frequently.

The second link is "Web Resources". In it you will the information tiered just as "Courses of Study" are arranged; the only difference being the final result is a website resource instead of a lesson plan. The "Lesson Plans" link is very similar to "Courses of Study" but the search procedure is a little different. The next button to appear on the main page is called "Search"; it does exactly what it says, it searches, and it searches the sites tied into ALEX.

The fifth link is titled "Personal Workspace". After clicking the link, you are asked to login. This is a place where you can save your work and collect materials; its similar to an electronic filing cabinet. The sixth link is called "Professional Learning"; in it you can find links and access to power point presentations and other resources to help learn and teach ALEX and Thinkfinity. Also ALEX has an extensive podcast collection from credible Alabamians.

I believe this is the most important resource that I have found yet in EDM310 for teaching. I like having all that information accessible and in one location. This seems like it will have the biggest impact on my teaching career as far as websites go. As a student I believe this website will be influential in creating and adapting lesson plans.

Site #2: ACCESS
ACCESS is also a very important Alabama teaching resource. As well as having information for the various courses taught in Alabama, it also contains course requirements, what grades these classes should be taken, and a brief course description. This site differs from ALEX because it is for students and teachers, not just teachers.

Alabama State Department of Education logo

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