This past week and weekend has been consumed by a quest for more information about education. My wife is actively involved in our local PTA for my son’s school and there are some large decisions being discussed that could threaten the future of him attending one of our local Edison Schools, which we love. So, I’ve been researching information about PTA, Edison Schools, our local school board and other people pursuing political positions for our community and state.
With all that pursuit, I’ve come across a variety of helpful sites that you may find useful yourself. Many of these will help you out whether you’ve currently got kids in school, or will be in the years to come.
On top of all that, the last Inside the Net podcast I listed to was about Digication, a website that helps educators setup online learning communities for local schools, their teachers and students.
Designed by educators for educators, Digication Campus & Spotlight bring teachers and students together in a seamless learning environment. Easy to master. Simple to use. With all the connectivity, file sharing and e-portfolio tools educators and students want. And none of the bureaucratic back-office stuff they don’t need.
Digication gives educators the ability to quickly and easily setup a small community or educational portal for their school and individual classes. The teachers can use the site to encourage discussion and communication with students directly as well as with each other. The Digication Spotlight, which is still in beta, also provides an area for teachers to highlight the work of their students. The first thing that came to my mind about spotlight was the equivalent of having your artwork or paper hung on the bulletin board strips outside your classroom in grade school. The only difference is that this is much more advanced and professional. One of the examples on the site was for an art class and students applying for admission to various colleges were contacted because the admissions counselors were able to find examples of their work online, and see it in context with their fellow students and other classes.
The podcast did a great job of reviewing the site and really highlighted the passion the founder, Jeffrey Yan, has for developing this program. I have friends that just happen to be teachers at a variety of different levels, so I’ll be sharing the site with them and asking for their input.
Here’s a recap of some of the sites I found and visited in the past few days: