October Entry
Going into a lesson dealing with fantasy and reality, I expected the children to be enthusiastic and excited.  They had already demonstrated these characteristics when the computer arrived and I expected more of the same.  The computer arrived only a few days prior to the lesson so I didn't have a lot of preparation time and knew I could not follow the lesson exactly as it was written.  During the first part of the lesson, I read two stories to the students.  As usual they listened attentively and appeared to enjoy the stories.  We worked on a class story together.  The students were loud, calling out what they wanted to become part of the story.  I tried not to become frustrated, but did.  I had to encourage several students to add to the story so that it was truly a class effort.  The story turned out better than I expected and the students were proud of it.  I wanted to use the TV monitor and let students circle statements of fantasy but the students are too short to reach it and I feared it might fall.  We underlined using Word instead.  Both the students and I enjoyed our first experience with the computer.  We plan to write individual stories to put on the website mentioned in the lesson plan as soon as we are connected to the network. 
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November Entry
November 5, 1998
During October, the class named our class pet for the Pet Exchange Project.  Most of the students were able to take Rocky home with them before he left for Australia.  We check our e-mail daily hoping that he has arrived in Australia.  The grade two class in Australia has dispatched Hoppy and Joey, their kangaroos to us.   Our class is anxiously waiting their arrival.

We published one newspaper this month.  We concentrated on things that are happening in our classroom.  We visited CNN with the intention of using some of the information there in the newspaper. It was a little too much to absorb in the time we had to do our newspaper.  We plan to do a newspaper at least once a week.  It was obvious to me that this was an enjoyable experience when the students asked if they could each have a copy to take home with them.

We have not used the Cyber Ambassadors this month but intend to begin using them tomorrow.  I have made plans to use each of the four students at least once a week.  They will be assisting students as they put creative writing on Word. 
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December Entry
For the story, Wednesday Surprise, the students wrote a bio poem focusing on the character traits of Grandma.  The students were excited and participated better than usual. They let me know when the lesson was completed that they liked their poem and stated that it was fun doing it. When the lesson was completed, I felt the students had a greater understanding of the story and Grandma's character. I think they were grateful for a different kind of lesson, not the usual read and do workbook pages day.

The class visited CNN and Channel One this month with the intention of using information found there in a newspaper.  Since our visiting class pet is from Australia, the class was particularly interested in an article we found about Australia and an ice cream made there.  Writing the newspaper took more time than I expected but turned out nicely.  The experience with CNN was not nearly as devastating as during the prior month.  We sent the newspaper to the office to be printed so that each student could take a copy home that afternoon.  Our principal complimented us on our efforts.  This and the pride the students exhibited made the effort worthwhile.

We were able to use two of our Cyber Ambassadors this month.  On two different occasions, Sarah and Katie helped one of my students use the tools in Word to correct his creative writing. The writings were then saved to a diskette, and the student later inserted pictures to illustrate.  Originally I allowed the students to type the story he had previously written.  This was too time consuming, so I decided to type the story in Word just as the students had written it. This worked much better, and the Cyber Students were able to do more than just watch the student type.
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January Entry

This month I entered names into my e-mail address book at school. The address book was not new to me since I had used it at home.  However I had not taken the time to establish one at school.  I entered mostly names of teachers in my school and a few from others in the county.  I also entered the e-mail address for our Pet Exchange partner in Australia. 

Two Cyber Ambassadors helped in our classroom again this month.  Katie and Sarah Jane helped students edit their creative writing using the tools in Word.  They also helped students search the internet for pictures to illustrate their creative writing.  I have worked out a schedule for using the Cyber Ambassadors with their teachers, but at this time have used only Katie and Sarah Jane .

The students have been taking the pets from Australia, Hoppy and Joey, home with them.  Journal entries are written by the students and read to the entire class as I type the entries in Word.  We save the entries to send to our participating class in Australia.  The children are learning to write in the first person.  Our partner class in Australia has not contacted us in a while so we don't know if our pet has arrived there yet. We had one scare with Hoppy and Joey.  They were left in the daycare classroom during Thanksgiving and could not be found when we returned from our break.  We put out a bulletin and finally located them.  They had been left hanging on the back of a chair and spend the holiday alone in the classroom.  They spent an additional day with the middle school students.  Though I am sure they had an interesting adventure, the students and I were frantic and thought they were lost forever.
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February Entry

During the past month the students in my class learned to use ICQ to chat with other classes.  We asked Mrs. Pfutzenreuter's second graders to find verbs in sentences written by my students.  The request was received with  much enthusiasm.  Since the students wrote the sentences, there were not only action verbs but also linking and helping verbs.  This concept is not usually covered in second grade.  The students were able to locate these verbs easily in the sentences.  They didn't respond with the usual, "I don't understand."  This is usually the statement I get from some of the students when new material is introduced .  The students paid more attention than usual with all students participating.  The classes asked when they could do it again.  They never ask to repeat a paper and pencil activity. 

We still haven't heard anything from our Australian class.  We don't know if our pet, Rocky, has arrived.  We suspect he has and the class is busy writing in the journal.  We understand they do not have a computer in the classroom, and that makes it more difficult to communicate.  Hoppy and Joey are still visiting with the students in our class and writing in the journal.  Everything is written from Hoppy's point of view. 

We begin the Groundhog Project today.  We have a groundhog, a stuffed animal, in the classroom; the class named him Douglas.  Since I am not at school today, the students promised to take him outside and determine if he sees his shadow. Tomorrow we will report to the other members of our team.  We are part of the Prarie Dog team.

The reading class is beginning to read Deadline: From News to Newspaper.  This has always been a difficult story for my second graders.  I think doing a newspaper with the students using Word might help them to better understand the process involved in creating a newspaper in the real world.  This is my plan for the February newspaper. 

This month I did my first PowerPoint presentation.  I developed a presentation using adjectives.  I am not completely satisfied with the presentation, but the student response was wonderful.  As with any computer- oriented activity, I had their undivided attention.  They were excited during the lesson and scored well on the independent practice afterwards.
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March Entry

During March I used a PowerPoint presentation from the Cyber Exchange PowerPoint link. We have been working on the four types of sentences.  The PowerPoint presentation distinguished between questions and statements.  I also found a test for the four types of sentences on the internet; the students enjoyed both and most did well on independent practice.

We have been busy this month with two Internet projects.  We plan to send Hoppy and Joey back to Australia by the end of the month. The journal contains information about adventures at each student's home, as well as pictures of the students with Hoppy and Joey.  We have been a little disappointed with the Pet Exchange Project this year.  We have heard nothing from our exchange class since we sent our pet to them.  We don't really know if he arrived.  We only hope Rocky made it to Australia and is having a great time.  We have also been working on the Groundhog Project.  We have been busy monitoring the weather and comparing it to the weather in our teammate's areas.  We are learning about communities in Canada and the U.S.  We visited the Chamber of Commerce via the Internet and wrote a brief description of our community which we later sent to members of our team. After researching our own community, two of my students used ICQ to chat with two of Mr. Collin's fourth graders about our community.

My reading class includes 22 students from four second grade classes. Last month we read the story Deadline: News to Newspaper. Then we published a newspaper. We used ICQ to interview Mrs. Britt's fifth grade class about the aquatic frogs in their classroom.  We also took a field trip to the fifth grade classroom. We used the information obtained to write a story for our paper.  We not only learned a lot about frogs, but also learned more about how newspapers are published.  After publishing the paper, we sent the paper as a file through ICQ to the fifth grade class.  Both classes really felt special!

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April Entry
I have had difficulty using the Cyber Ambassadors this year.  In the beginning I tried to set a schedule for them to come to my classroom. They either forgot or some activity such as test review would interfere. 

We used the laptop in the classroom as an extra computer. I also wanted students to be exposed to a different type of computer.  Most of my students had never seen a laptop and were excited to use it.  I installed Carmen Sandiego for them to use.

Most of the students in our class have written short stories about themselves for our web page.  We still have a few more to go.  Next year I would like to have the students write about themselves at the beginning of the school year.  This would be a good way to introduce themselves to me, to their classmates, and to parents with Internet access.  As the year progresses I would like for them to add examples of creative writing.  I also want students to develop Power Point presentations to add to our web site. 

We continue to work on class newspapers. Our newspapers have been a good way to keep our parents informed about what is going on in our classroom.  We try to vary the type of paper we do.  Our last paper provided an opportunity for students to express their feelings about taking the Terra Nova test for the first time. 

We have sent Hoppy and Joey back to Australia.  The students still ask about them and wonder if they have arrived.  They can hardly wait for our pet, Rocky, to return to us.  We have enjoyed the Pet Exchange project but have felt like we were alone in our endeavor.  It would have been more exciting if our exchange class had communicated with us.  We have made an effort to contact them but have had no success.  We hope Rocky makes it back to the U.S. before we leave for summer break. We are expecting a journal full of entries about all the exciting things he has done in Australia.  We hope we are not disappointed.

Communication with our Groundhog Project teammates was more successful.  We sent and received e-mail weekly.  We also researched our community via Internet.  We posted weekly temperatures and viewed the data posted by our teammates each week.  At the end of the project, we decided that our groundhog is a good predictor of the weather.  We have a pet groundhog (stuffed of course) in our classroom.  The students are still taking him home with them. 

The Cyber Exchange Project has been a positive experience for both my students and myself.  It has made learning and teaching fun.  Power Point has added excitement to the lessons.  The Internet has provided the students with another way to retrieve information.  This year has been a learning experience for both the teacher and the students.  Next year can only be better. 
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May Entry
During this year my class has participated in two Internet projects: Class Pet Exchange and Groundhog Project.  My 1997-98 class also participated, but did not have access to the Internet in our classroom.  We had to exchange classrooms with another teacher when we wanted to work on our projects.  I had to do most of the work on the computer myself. This year my students have had experience with searching the internet.  For Project Groundhog, we searched the web to find information about our community. We then sent this information by e-mail to members of our team.  Prior to this year, I taught mostly using textbooks.  Now I feel comfortable developing and using PowerPoint presentations.  I search the web for lesson plans; I have even found and used quizzes for objectives covered at the second grade level. Using the internet has made me more aware of the state objectives.  I am more excited about teaching than I have been in several years.  I spend more time thinking about the skills I am teaching and actually enjoy finding ways to incorporate technology into my lessons. 

I have learned that reading can be more than just reading from a textbook and doing workbook pages.  I found a lesson plan for writing abio poem on the Internet and incorporated it into my reading lesson.  The bio poem was  used to describe one of the characters from a story in our reading text.  The students were enthusiastic and enjoyed the process and showed pride in the results.  We also did a lesson on fantasy and reality.  The class wrote a cooperative story.  Each student was responsible for adding something to the story.  They enjoyed the process and the product.

We used e-mail to communicate with team members during the Class Pet Exchange and Project Groundhog.  We used ICQ to interview another class about the aquatic frogs in their classroom.  We used the information in one of our monthly newspapers.  We also used ICQ as part of a lesson on verbs.  We sent sentences and asked the other class to find the verb.  Both classes showed how much they enjoyed it by asking when we could do it again.  The attention span of the students was greater than usual, and independent practice showed that students understood the concept. 

The students have used Word for creative writing.  The students have learned to use the tools for checking grammar and spelling.  They also recognize that names of books need italics. They understand what it means if a word is underlined in red or green.  They have become more aware of punctuation and capitalization.  We use Saxon math in our class.  During the math meeting, we use word to type a story about the Student of the Day.  We always illustrate the story by inserting a picture showing his or her interest. 

I have used many of the PowerPoint presentations developed both by my peers and me. I try to find or develop a presentation for the introduction of each new skill.  I also discovered that my students are more likely to read a book after viewing a PowerPoint presentation for that book.

My students have put stories about themselves on our web site.  We sent our URL to the principal via ICQ.  Our monthly newspapers have been published and given to the students' parents and the principal at our school.  After interviewing a sixth grade class and using the information in our newspaper, we sent it as a file to their classroom via ICQ.  This has been an excellent way to communicate what we are doing in our classroom.

The monthly training sessions have helped me to learn more about technology.  It has made me more comfortable using the computer.  It has given me the desire to learn more about using technology in the classroom.  It has given me the opportunity to share with others and to learn from them. It has encouraged me to find ways to incorporate technology into my lessons.  It has given me a resource for lesson plans and PowerPoint presentations.

I have a computer at home; therefore I did not use the laptop a great deal of time.  I did take it home to become familiar with it.  I also allowed my students to use it for the same reason.  I demonstrated the use of the cam to my students; this is new and I am just getting comfortable with it. 

At the beginning of the project I used the Cyber Ambassadors several times.  They came to my room and helped my students correct creative writing using the tools in Word.  As the year progressed, I did not utilize them.  Scheduling with their teachers became a problem.  The teacher would forget to send them or the Cyber Ambassadors would be involved in classroom activities they could not leave.

The students have a greater interest in skill development as a result of the use of technology.  Their attention span is longer.  They put more effort into their work.  Both the students and I are more enthusiastic.  It has changed the environment of the reading class. 

This project has been a continuous learning experience for me.  I have been introduced to PowerPoint, Word, and Composer.  I have learned to do newspapers and PowerPoint presentations, and I have learned to use ICQ.  I have learned to download and upload, and I feel comfortable doing it. The learning experience for me has benefited the students in my classroom.  I am taking it back to the classroom and using it.

 I find myself encouraging other teachers to use technology with their students. I have gotten e-mail from teachers in other counties who have found my class web site.  I'm constantly telling other teachers about the Cyber Exchange web site.  I encourage them to view and use the PowerPoint presentations and the lesson plans. I have also helped other teachers in my school with their e-mail accounts. I did a profile for my aide on the computer in our classroom and encouraged her to use it.  I have helped other teachers install programs and taught them to use ICQ.  I have helped them download PowerPoint presentations.  Several teachers in my school come to me when they need help with their computers. I help when I can. 

It would be wonderful if all teachers had the opportunity to participate in a project such as this. It would be great if we could have more training using PowerPoint.  There are still aspects of the program that I haven't mastered.

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