Epals post ( Guest Blogger)

Hi! I read your epals post and viewed your blog.  It is wonderful!
I am Missy McCoskey in Missouri.  I teach high school at risk students, which
means that I work with students who are at risk of dropping out of school or who
have already dropped out and are returning to try to get their diploma.  I am
working on my masters degree on integrating technology in the classroom.  Last
year I also taught one hour of math and was able to integrate technology in
innovative ways.  It was wonderful.  This year, I am focusing only on the at
risk students.  They have a prescribed agenda to follow and it leaves me with no
outlet for my technology learning.....However, I have also moved rooms and will
have a smartboard for the first time.  This is wonderful and I will play with it
and learn about it, but using it in my classroom will be a little difficult. 
Since my students have a prescribed way to achieve, the smartboard is not part
of that, I will have to be creative.  When my students finish recovering their
class, I want to have them work on projects for the school, like redesigning the
website, etc. I also want them to skype and email students in other countries. 
I am open to ideas!
Last year I loved having my students start wikis.  I created a wiki to organize
the wikis.  Students created wikis for fractions, graphing, etc.  They found
websites, games, etc. and posted those on the wiki.  It was a very good
experience. 

I have to collaborate online with other teachers for my masters degree and am
looking for someone to email or skype.  Are you interested?  It looks like your
schedule is already full and busy.  Great job on your blog!


RESPONSE!

Missy, we would love to collaborate with you and possibly your class. We have new 6th and 7th grade classes starting up in September- let us know what time of year you are interested in and we can schedule it according to what works with your curriculum. April and May are tough for us, that is when we test, but we are available the rest of the months, September to June. I also have access to some high school teachers who may be a better match for you... They will see this blog post and let me know. I will be in touch through epals, thank you for being a guest blogger here!
Missy