Kan-ed is a program that was created by the Kansas Legislature to help bring technology to schools around the state. It is a free service to educators that provide them resources that will help them in their classrooms. This site gives educators access to normally free resources and resources that they would normally have to pay for. This site does not only provide resources for teacher, however. It also includes resources for students.
There are several tabs on the Kan-ed website: Homepage, Portal Designer, Test Builder, School Administration, Teacher Tools, and Backpack. The homepage provides teachers and students with necessary resources for classroom success. The Portal Designer allows teachers to change the layout of the websites, as it is convenient for them. As a pre-service teacher, however, I cannot change the layout because there are many other students using this site. Under the Test Builder tab service teachers can build tests for their students. These can be practice state assessment tests, or regular chapter tests. Under this tab, teachers can also upload tests that they have already made and choose tests from the test bank. The School Administration tab is for Principals and Administrators. Administrators can require teachers to administer state assessment practice tests a certain number of times before test week. If they choose to do this, the Administrators can check this tab to see if their teachers are administering these tests. In the Teacher Tools tab, teachers can tend their gradebook and class information. Finally, under the Backpack tab students can upload their work and work on it anywhere they have Internet access. Whether they are at home, the library, or out of the state, students don’t have to worry about putting their work on a flash drive. They can just logon to Kan-ed and work on their assignments! Even though this site has many tabs that are very useful, the best tab is the Homepage tab. That is what I am going to discuss in more detail.
The Homepage provides teachers and students with a seemingly unlimited amount of resources for their classroom. There are so many resources on this page that I am going to only discuss some of my favorites. The first excellent resource is called Kansas Education Resource Center or KERC. On the KERC website you can look at building report cards. This is a feature that I will definitely use as I’m looking for a job. I can search for the school that I applied to, and review all of their statistics. I can look at ethnicity, test scores, male/female ratio, and much more. As you go into an interview you need to know as much about that school as you can. The building report card will definitely help me do that.
The main part of the KERC website is lesson plans. You can click on one of five content areas, then click on the grade level and see all of the resources that are available for that age group. For examples, say I need an idea for 6th grade math. I would first click on math, 6th grade, then choose from four standard titles: number and computation, algebra, geometry, and data. Clicking on geometry brings up an entire list of lesson plans and resources that correspond with specific standards. I can see this being an excellent site as I go through my teaching classes and into my professional career. There is no need for teachers to start from scratch when there are so many ideas already out there.
netTrekker is another resource on the Kan-ed desktop that is very useful. This site works much like KERC. First you can choose a topic from one of twelve different content areas. Lets use my same example of math. I first go to the math content area box and click on geometry. From there I can narrow my search to, say, basic geometric terms. Then I can choose another more specific topic like area. This brings up all kinds of resources and sites that have math, geometry, basic geometric terms, and area in common. Under each site is a description of what you will find there so you do waste time searching. You can even use the right side bar to narrow your search by reading level, multimedia, language, ect. The makers of this site definitely created with teachers in mind. The information is organized and easy to use. You can find what you are looking for fairly quickly.
The final resource, although there are many others, that I want to show you is called Thinkfinity. On this site you can find education news, informational blogs, interactive tools for kids, lesson plans, webinars, and more! Under the lesson plans tab you can find interactive activities, media, museum artifacts, professional development, and links. The cool thing about Thinkfinity lesson plan searches is you can use the “Refine Your Search” bar on the right side of the screen to really narrow your search. For examples I can click audio, visuals, interactives, and worksheets. Then I can search by a specific grade level and subject. When the search results come up you can read each description and decide if you want to go to the site or not. The best thing about Thinkfinity lesson plans is you can click on the yellow star to see what Kansas state standard goes with the lesson. This could be a definite time saver for new teachers.
I have only scratched the surface of all of the resources on the Kan-ed desktop. After digging around the resources I have discovered that they are not just sites with meaningless games and information, they are resources that have been proven to help teachers. They can definitely be used to facilitate student success.
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