Blog Post #13

 

Alabama Learning Exchange (ALEX), one stop website of lesson plans and other educational resources for teachers, students, and administrators in Alabama.Their goal is for Alabama students to utilize the benefits of Alabama educators sharing their wealth of expertise and knowledge with colleagues. The material on Alex is searchable and listed by subject and grade level. The courses of study are Science, Social Studies, Foreign Languages, Physical Education, Technology Education, English, Math, Arts, Health Education, and more. Once you click on a particular subject, it will give you the state standards and lessons plans. There are many different web links to search through. They are useful for students and teachers. The student web resources allow students to ask questions, play games, and learn about different subjects. The web links include personal workspace, personal learning, lesson plans, search, pod cast treasury, alexville. I would recommend everyone to check out ALEX. It is interesting and has some very resourceful information for everyone. I have had the opportunity to use ALEX in some of my education classes at University of South Alabama. I found it helpful, especially with ideas about different types of lesson plans. I know several teachers who use ALEX for resources and they without a doubt would swear by it. I have already printed out some of the Alabama standards. My suggestion is for everyone wanting to be a future teacher to print out these standards and keep them nearby.

 

Students Statewide (ACCESS), a distance-learning program that provides credit recovery courses. ACCESS uses both interactive videoconferencing and web-based online course formats. These courses are taken during the school day at the student's school. They have trained facilitators supervise students and collaborate with the distance teacher. The Vision of ACCESS: The State of Alabama will provide equal access to high quality instruction to improve student achievement through distance learning. The resources include things like Alabama Virtual Library, ChemLab, HippoCampus, and many others. I personally have not had much experience with this website. After researching through it some, I know it is something I would like to be involved with. My daughter actually uses this at her school. She takes a class through ACCESS, her teacher is the facilitator, and she has an online teacher. This is the first year she has done this. She said at first it was complicated but it has gotten easier. Students can enroll in ACCESS if they attend an Alabama public high school (grade 9-12) or they are identified as a special education student. The question and answers page was informational for me. Click the link below to check these out:
http://accessdl.state.al.us/documents/AccessFAQtobeposted.pdf