A High-Tech Answer to an Age-Old Question

When Caryn Dingman created Mrs. Dingman's Third Grade Web site, she was anxious to comply with new state standards and integrate technology across the curriculum, but she also found that the site offered very practical fringe benefits.

The third grade teacher told Education World, "For those students who finish an assignment quickly, I now have a competent answer for the age-old refrain, 'I'm done. What do I do now?' Having resources available for my students to practice, remediate, and enrich has been well worth the time I spend searching for or creating those resources."

Dingman had many goals for her classroom Web site. She wanted to establish and identify useful educational resources for her students and their families, and to improve communication between home and school. She also sought a means to share resources with her peers and students on a global level, and to provide the opportunity for global sharing to her own third graders. "I wanted my students to understand that a far wider audience exists for their writing than our hallway bulletin board," Dingman explained.

Proudly displayed on the site, therefore, are Poetry and Creative/Descriptive Writing pages, displaying work generated by her third grade students.

Dingman also provides indexes of exemplary Web sites on content area pages, such as Math Links, Language Arts Links, and Social Studies and Science Links. Favorite Teacher Links contains links to search engines, activity creators, and Web-building resources.

"My favorite pages are those that showcase my students' writing," said Dingman. "Those pages allow me to provide an authentic audience for my students and help them understand that it's not always the 'A' papers that are chosen to be published. I am in awe of what children can create in their written work."

Article by Cara Bafile
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