October Entry
I used the Contraction Action lesson plan in my second grade class. The plan was intended for fourth grade, but I felt it would be a good lesson for my class. The students had been having problems with writing contractions. I was hoping they would be more attentive because I was using the computer and the large screen TV. They were very excited about the lesson when I told them we were going to play "contraction ball". Students did enjoy the lesson and it was very helpful. Most students mastered the skill of writing contractions after the lesson. The plan stated the lesson would take about 45 minutes. I had planned to play 3 "innings" of ball. We played for about 45 minutes and finished 2 innings. We finished the third inning the next day. I'm sure the lack of experience on the keyboard slowed us down. I was unable to go to the web site recommended. We did use the puzzle, but I allowed students to work in pairs. I would use this lesson plan again. I think it was a good experience for students to use the keyboard and it did help students learn to write contractions. Now everyone knows where the apostrophe is on the keyboard also. 

November Entry
November 4, 1998
This month our students received our class pet from the students we were paired with. He is a rabbit named Cocoa. Students enjoyed taking the oath and taking him home with them. We only have 3 students who have not taken him home for a visit. So far he has been to a U.T. football game, Dollywood, Ruby Tuesday's, Trick-or-treating and to Atlanta for a Braves game. We also sent our pet. He was a mouse named Squeakers. Students are now looking forward to getting him back. We have had many good stories in the Pet Exchange Journal.

I signed up to participate in the Write On project. However, we did not make the deadline.  We are planning to try again. I have received information on the Kids to Kids International Project. We have discussed it in our classroom. We have been making books, but we are still in the planning process and have not started the book we are going to be sending for the project. We are hoping to find out where the books are going to be sent. If possible we would like to write a story and maybe have it translated by student at Carson-Newman. We are also trying to make this a school-wide project. We would like to use the computer reading lab for the project. 

Our students are Key-Pals with Mrs. Whitley's class. The students Email each other  once a week. Our Cyber Exchange students come in on Friday mornings to help each student. They really enjoy getting messages from their partner. I always have to print it out so they can take it home to show their parents. 

We have been doing the newsletter. The students are learning about stories in the news. They especially enjoyed reading and writing about the space-shuttle. They were also impressed that we could get CNN on the computer because they had seen it on their.

December Entry
I taught the lesson plan to go with the story THE YEAR OF THE PERFECT CHRISTMAS TREE.  I pretty much knew what to expect because I have taught this lesson 4 times before. Students really enjoy the story and the activities that go along with it. A student from Carson-Newman came to read the story to us. We went over the vocabulary first. The students enjoyed learning new phrases and have been using them when given a chance. Our music teacher taught them the songs in the story. We did the storyboards and hung them on our wall. We have not started making the doll. We have a parent volunteer coming in to help us. The best thing about this lesson plan is that you are able to integrate so many subjects. In addition to reading, language arts, music, art and history we also had a geography lesson. We traced the Appalachian Mountains on a map. We also looked at pictures from the area. It is a very good Christmas story for children to read. One student came back to school the day after we read the story and said she had told her grandmother about the story. She was excited because he grandmother had lived in the Appalachian Mountains as a child. She had told the student stories about living in the mountains. The student came back to school and shared the stories with us. 

We have been doing the newspaper about once a week. We look at the news everyday, then do a newspaper at the end of the week. Students choose the stories they want to include in our newspaper.

All of our Cyber Ambassadors are still coming to my classroom once a week to help students email their key pals. My students are beginning to be more independent and are ready to email on their own. Therefore we are now working together to insert pictures in the email. The Ambassadors are also helping students send greeting card to family members by email. Suzanne, Mychael, Brett, Caleigh, and Ashley are going to be helping my students in the Reading Lab. They have been working on PowerPoint presentations. They are ready to add sound. The Ambassadors will be helping them.

This month my students used WORD BLASTER. This is a software program that helps students build vocabulary. This program is designed very much like READING BLASTER and MATH BLASTER. Students enjoy using all of these. WORD BLASTER  is a little more challenging for second grade students. The program reads the words aloud so the child can hear the correct pronunciation.

January Entry

Last month I made file folders for my email. I found it was a very good way to organize my email and my students key-pal email. 

Cyber Ambassadors continue to help us email our key pals. Some of my students have also been emailing their parents at home or at work. Caleigh, Suzanne, Brett, Michael and Ashley helped those students send electronic greeting cards for Christmas.  Our class pet came back over Christmas vacation.  The students are looking forward to taking him home with them. They enjoyed looking at the journal and reading the stories students had written. 
We have started our book for Kids to Kids International. We are reading THE SNOWY DAY. Students are using construction paper to make pictures of their favorite snowy day. They are also going to be writing a story to go with it. 
Mrs. Pohlman has trained us on how to use the laptop. I have taken it home to work on PowerPoint, because I do not have the program at home. Having the laptop to take home makes it very convenient to do presentations because it is very hard to find the time to do them at school.

February Entry

This month we shared ICQ with other teachers in our school. We encouraged them to use it and tried to train them. I also told some of my parents about it. I have had 3 parents who downloaded the program and started using it. The parents have been chatting with students and sending them messages. My students also participated in a demonstration with Connie at the Computer Lab. We did an ICQ chat with Mrs. Pohlman's class. We took turns putting words in ABC order. We did another activity with spelling words. We took turns giving the meaning of a word and the other class would type the word and spell it correctly.  I found that ICQ is an excellent way to communicate with other teachers and the school secretary.

The Cyber Ambassadors helped students type stories for our Internet project. We are trying to complete the Kids to Kids International book. We should have everything ready by the end of next week. We still have to get donations for the shipping. Students are planning to start bringing in money and art supplies next week. We have also done a unit on China and looked at several pictures.
Students are taking our class pet home with them.  Parents have been very supportive with this project. I have had some parents tell me this has been a good responsibility lesson for their child. They must take care of the pet and make sure it makes it back to school the following day. He was left on the bus one night but the student got him back the next morning. His classmates decided to give him another chance and let him take him home again.
I have  been using the laptop to do PowerPoint presentations. 

 Students are enjoying this school year very much because of all the different activities they are doing on the computer. Since they started Accelerated Reader they want to read all the time. They have also enjoyed being able to communicate with their parents during the school day using email and ICQ. Their writing skills are improving more and more everyday because of using email. They are proof reading more and they are finding more mistakes. Their spelling is also improving. 

Doing the newspaper has helped me teach students about current events. We look at CNN everyday and students choose topics they think might interest them. Every Friday, I send  a newsletter for parents. It has a Spelling study list, a list of vocabulary words for the story we are reading, the lunch menu, skills that will be covered the following week, any items students need for the week, special activities and a review of things we have covered that week. Parents have come to expect the newsletter on Fridays. I have had parents come back to the school on Friday afternoon because their child forgot their newsletter or they would send a note on Monday morning. The parents really depend on it to keep them informed 
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March Entry
    I have been using my PowerPoint presentations in the classroom. Students enjoy seeing them. I have some that I have created for practice. This really gets their attention.  The students have created their own presentations in small groups. We are looking forward to using them in the next couple of weeks. We do not have sound in them yet. We are going to try to finish this week. I have just finished a presentation on next week's story for reading. We will be doing FRECKLE JUICE. Students always enjoy this story but I think they will enjoy it more after seeing the PowerPoint.
     Students are continuing to email their keypals. They have also started emailing each other in the computer lab. They have started doing ICQ chats. Suzanne, Brett, Caleigh, and Ashley help students with email. They are also helping them type stories for some books that we are writing in reading.
     We have completed our Kids to Kids International project. We are collecting the money for shipping. We read some stories related to China. We tried to eat with chopsticks and had fortune cookies.
     We have finished the class pets project. Students had very good stories. I noticed the stories in our journal were better than the stories students had written in the journal for our visiting pet. Their writing skills have improved and they are more creative than they were when they were writing earlier in the year.
     We are continuing to do newspapers weekly. Students are beginning to create their own newspapers. They are doing a very good job. It takes them a while to complete them because their typing skills are not very good. However they are improving.

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April Entry

We have not used the Cyber Ambassadors much this month because the students and teachers have spent so much time preparing and taking the Achievement test. The Ambassadors did come to help with e-mailing our keypals. 
This month I used the laptop to work on SACS for our school. It came in very handy because I found myself working on it everywhere I went. It was nice to have the laptop to carry around with me so I could work on it at my convenience. 
I have sent our parents information about our web page. Several of them have sent us e-mail commenting on our work. I do plan to update our page soon.
We are doing our class newspapers. Students are taking more of a role in creating the paper.  I have a couple of students who are very shy. They have started getting more involve when we do the newspapers. 
We have completed our Internet project. We still need about $10 and a few more materials then we will be ready to mail our book for Kids to Kids International. 
Students tell me constantly how much fun school is this year. We use the computers much more than we use textbooks or the chalkboard. They use the computer for their writing projects.  We do whole language and after we do a story the students write their own version of the story. They enjoy doing this on the computer. We also use a computer program for reading comprehension. Sending messages to their key pals has made my students more consciences of grammar mistakes. 
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May Entry
Our class has participated in the Kids to Kids International project. Students completed a book on their version of  THE SNOWY DAY.  While working on this project we had a lesson on China. Students looked at maps of China, watched videos, read stories associated with China and looked at pictures.  They were responsible for collecting the money and materials needed to send our project.

We also participated in the Class Pet exchange. Students were excited about being responsible for the class pet and writing stories. 
We did not get to participate in the "Write On" project because we did not get started on time. I have received information on the project and I hope to participate next year.  One of my goals for his school year was to work to improve language mechanics. The projects we have been involved in have helped me achieve this goal.

I used the lesson plans on "Fact or Fiction", "Contraction Action", and THE YEAR OF THE PERFECT CHRISTMAS TREE. The online lesson plans are a very good resource for teachers.  

Email and ICQ are used daily in our classroom, by my students and myself. I use ICQ all day to communicate with other teachers. Rather than sending a note to a teacher about something we send ICQ messages. I also communicate with parents using ICQ and Email. We have used ICQ for students to play trivia games with students in the other two-second grades. Using ICQ is easier than trying to get all 57 students in one classroom.  Students enjoy getting email messages from their parents during the day. They have also had key pals are Piedmont School. This has been a very good project for the students. They have made new friends while improving the skills in mechanics. We are planning to have a picnic so our students can meet their new friends.
We are making plans for video conferencing with another second grade class. My class is doing a puppet show, THE BERENSTAIN BEARS AND THE BULLY. We are trying to work out some problems with the sound.

I use word and PowerPoint frequently in my classroom. I have had limitations because my computer is not connected to the TV. It is difficult for students to view the presentations on the small computer screen. We have gone into other classrooms so the students can see the presentations on the big screen. I borrow a lot of PowerPoint presentations from other teachers. I especially like using them to introduce new concepts and to raise interest in new stories. I have been very impressed with the variety of presentations I have been able to use from the Cyber Exchange project.  My students have worked in groups to create their own PowerPoint presentations. We have one on capitalization rules, antonyms and synonyms, nouns and storyboards (including the setting, main characters, problem and solution of the story).  Students in my classroom do their own version of stories we have read. We use Word to do this. Students have learned to type their work and save it in a file. Then we can go through it together to correct mistakes. This is also another reason we need to be connected to the TV. We could learn from each other's mistakes. We also use Word to play Jeopardy type games for review. Each week we practice for our spelling test using Word.

More and more families now have computers and Internet access in their homes. Having the newspapers and web site has made it easier to communicate with parents. They are able to see what we are doing in our classroom without actually coming into the classroom. Other family member such as grandparents have also showed an interest in what we have been doing. Students show more pride in their work and try harder to make sure it is good quality when they know it is going to be viewed by so many people. 

The monthly meetings have been very helpful. I have appreciated having the time to look for new resources on-line. It is very hard for a teacher, who is also a parent to find the time to scout out new resources. The result of not having the time means teachers continue to use the same methods and resources year after year. Having new resources makes teaching more exciting for the teacher and learning more interesting for the students. I have learned to use many new technology tools in my classroom. I have used everything I have learned in some way in my classroom. All of the teachers from our school that participated in the Cyber Exchange Program met with the other teachers at our school several times during the school year to show them some of the things we had learned. We also had training sessions after school for teachers who were interested in learning more.

When we started this project, I did not have a computer at home. I took the laptop home several times to work on PowerPoint presentations. I also used it in the teacher's workroom at our school. At this time we do not have a music room, therefore the music teacher comes to our room for music. It is very hard to work in the classroom during that time. It was nice to be able to take the laptop somewhere else to work. 

The Cyber Ambassadors helped my students when they started emailing their key pals. They helped them find spelling and grammar mistakes and correct them. They also helped with PowerPoint presentations. They listened to students read Accelerated Reader books and helped them read the tests.

Since I have been using more technology in my classroom, students have been more motivated to learn. They think learning is fun. It is not like they are doing work, but instead they are learning by playing.  I have noticed a huge improvement in oral reading. Student's participation in the Accelerated Reader has helped improve reading comprehension skills. Students practice writing skills more, therefore their mechanic skills have improved. They are also more creative than students I have had in the past. I have students who use their free time writing stories instead of drawing. In general they show much more interest in learning. 

The most beneficial aspect of participating in this project has been learning to use so many new resources for teaching my students. It has been like a "fresh start" because after 10 years of teaching I have found a new way to do it. It has also been beneficial to the other teachers in our school who are not participating because we have been able to go back to the school and share what we have learned with them. 

The teachers participating in the Cyber Exchange project have had after school meetings to share what we have learned with other teachers. We have also held after school workshops for teachers who were interested in learning more. Sharing what we learned in our monthly meetings has made teachers more interested in learning more about technology and how they can use it in their classrooms. We have had many teachers show an interest in how they can get involved in projects like Cyber Exchange and 21st Century Classrooms. 

I think it would be good if more people could be involved in this type of project. It would also be good to have more time to work on using the tools. It has been nice to learn a variety of new things, but it has been hard to find enough time out of class to work on everything.  

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