Ed-Line

Ed-Line (http://www.edline.net/) is an online interface for teachers, parents and students. This online program is comparative to blackboard, but is a little more user friendly, being that it is intended for middle school and high school students. On this website teachers, parents and students are given individual user names and passwords. The site is linked to each person's person e-mail account as well. Working much like blackboard, ed-line provides the student with a site for each course in which they are enrolled. Each teacher then maintains their own ed-line page where they can post a variety of things.

In my own teaching experience, I use ed-line most frequently to inform students and parents about the night's homework. I can not only post the assignment to the calendar (along with reminders about quizzes and tests), but I can also upload the worksheet onto the page so that it is available for download. This provides a great way to inform absent students, and maybe our less responsible students, of upcoming homework assignments, quizzes, tests and a way for them to digitally download any notes or worksheets they may be missing.

Ed-Line is also the way that we digitally send our student's grades to not only them, but their parents as well. Every 3,6, and 9 weeks, teachers update their grade books for parents and students to see. This has its positives and negatives of course; keeping parents informed is excellent however sometimes too much information can create overzealous parents and therefore students. Parents, students, and teachers can exchange e-mail via ed-line to help facilitate communication between the teachers and the home.

Some very cool applications of ed-line include graded online assignments, links to teacher suggested websites, and in class interactive learning (using smart response technology!). All of which can be directly transferred to the teachers digital grade book. The training for the use of this interactive interfaces comes in phases. The basic training is offered in a two day, 6 hour training course. Through which, each step is broken down to the basics and is quite easily done. There are more advanced and specific trainings available, which are usually conducted in a single 3 hours course. I feel that this technology is absolutely worth learning and can easily be applied to the classroom environment.