WELCOME!

New Directions Alternative H.S. Program is a cooperative program in Cedar County, Iowa. Kirkwood Community College sponsors the program and partners with area school districts including Tipton, North Cedar, West Branch and others. We aim to help students who struggle in a traditional high school setting become more successful by offering a variety of instructional strategies for a variety of learning styles.

Tuesday, April 5, 2011

To #IAAE Spring Conference Visitors

This blog was created to teach students how to use some features in Google:  Gmail, Google Reader, Google Docs and Blogger. The posts were geared toward the students in my classroom and things that we talked about each day.

Students received a rubric on the first day outlining the expectations for the class (must create a blog, interact with peers on their blogs, and have four main writing assignments.) Some students did the bare minimum, while others LOVED blogging and wrote daily!  Links to their blogs can be found at the bottom of this page. 


Offering this class gave me the opportunity to discuss Internet safety, identity theft, cyber-bullying, global politics, education, AND grammar/spelling/writing. My students and I all put our 21st century skills to work.

On the right side of this page, there is a section marked LABELS. This section lists the "tags" I added to posts that appear in the blog. Each tagged post has some "how to" information (a guide, a link to a video) that helped my students learn how to set up their Google Apps. There are videos embedded in this blog that are from YouTube, where hundreds of people have posted helpful tips about how to do things. Check them out if you need help!
___