March 12, 2010

ALEX - Alabama Learning Exchange
ALEX is a wonderful resource for teachers, parents and students to find lesson plans and web links for all grade levels. All of the resources found on their website follow the Alabama Courses of Study. The main links on the homepage are simple to use and are broken down to Courses of Study, web links, lesson plans, search, personal workspace, professional learning, podcasts treasury and help.
Once you click on an icon on the homepage, it takes you to another page that allows you to break it down more. For instance, under web links you may click teacher, student or administrator weblinks, then it breaks it down further into subject areas. It's extremely simple to use. The courses of study are broken down into subjects then by grade level. From there one could click a link for a list of lesson plans for a particular course of study. There is a good lists of podcasts under the podcasts treasury link, but I can see their library needs to be built to have more selection, which I'm sure will happen over time. You can also search for lesson plans by subject, grade, author, title or school in the lesson plans link. The professional development area has links set up to send you to Alabama Department of Education websites to search further for professional development opportunities. The personal workspace is set to where you can login and submit your own lesson plans.
I have utilized Alex in the past in my own teaching career, especially for the Alabama Courses of Study and lesson plans. It's been a few years since I've used this site seeing as I haven't taught in a couple of years. I know it is a fantastic resource and plan on using it in the future. Now that they have added a podcasts link I will be searching in that area too. ALEX is definitely a site to bookmark for educators.

ACCESS

ACCESS is a site made especially for high school students. Students are able to take additional classes online. The classes range from remediation classes that are self paced to prepare for the graduation exam to advanced college board approved classes for advanced placement. ACCESS also offers your basic high school subjects, all taught online either web based or by video conferencing.
ACCESS looks to be an excellent online program for high school students to utilize. High school has come a long way. The student only has to have the will to further their learning. Learning is ACESSible to the student. High school students should, at the least, be required to research the site for what is offered so that they become familiar with it and know the options they have for their schooling.

Comments4Kids
I commented on Ms. Voigt's Kindergarten class. I've enjoyed reading their posts of their day to day classroom activities. I commented on their unit of transportation that they were learning about and I let them know that I, too have taught kindergarten and reading their posts reminds me of my own kindergarten classes I've taught.