How can these be used in the classroom? What resources have you found?

Talking to an author

Parent Conference

Planning tool with other teachers when you cannot meet face to face.

Book chats

REsources

http://www.epals.com

 IM's and Chat sources are great tools of communication for anyone! We all know how much our students love to text? Well, IM's and chat rooms are the next best thing or perhaps better. IM's give students the ability to access teachers after school and at home regarding questions about homework or projects. Using chat rooms for student interaction and feedback on projects or ideas, adds for better planning and collaboration among fellow classmates. It may also help those learners who are stuck or don't really understand but remain too timid to approach a teacher with questions while classmates are present. Teachers can use this technology to chat with other teachers from anywhere in the world! Imagine all the great ideas and lesson plans that they can share and exchange. IM's or chats may also be set up by educators in order to give parents access to grades, assignments and parent conferences. Parents can post questions for teachers to answer. It provides a simple way to communicate with parents on a regular basis thus holding them more accoutable. It also helps to eliminate many of the regular "no show" parents that teachers regularly have to deal with at conference time. Additionally, these tools can be utilized and saved as documents of record which can be of great value at conference time.