Week Four

I really enjoyed researching and learning about home to school communication tactics this week. From what I found online and from what people mentioned in the class discussion I was able to gather some excellent resources for my future classroom.
I had done some limited work with Kidspiration in the past but this new exposure to Inspiration was an interesting experience as things were organized a little differently. There seemed to be more choices and more "add ons" so to speak and it was obviously a more grown-up version of the program. I can see many obvious ways to use this program in the classroom, both for the upper and lower grades. You can also take the program and make it work in different ways for any number for different topics and lessons. Having the other free resources for mind maps will make a big difference in the classroom because it's something free for the teacher and they would be more easily accessible to students.
The activity from the reading (students visiting the creek and recording data) is something I a) probably wouldn't have thought of to begin with and b) truly would not have made the connection to create a mind map from the information. It's one of those amazing lessons that really connects to all students, as it touches on almost all the multiple intelligences and even brings technology into the mix. The steps and troubleshooting that the article mention touch on obvious problems that could occur in the process and it's important to remember that students will have these same problems and I, or teachers in general, need to be prepared to deal with these issues.