Friday, September 3, 2010

Tools for Time Management and Homework Help

Teachers and students are officially in school mode now. Time management and classroom organization for both parents and teachers can be a difficult hurdle to overcome.

For Teachers:

With all the tasks teachers have to tackle on a daily basis, it's imperative to have the knowledge that can help you stay on target for the year's goals. Internet4Classrooms has many tips and resources to ensure you stay organized and focused.

Teachers are most successful in time management and classroom organization if they know themselves and how they reach their peak productivity. Determine how you spend your time doing and prioritizing, before you begin creating task lists. By knowing your to-do's, you can create daily and weekly schedules as well as calendars to keep you and your students right on target.

For Parents:

Parents strive to give their children the best environment and tools to succeed, but often lack good resources or simply the time to find them. Internet4Classrooms is here to help! One of the biggest challenges for parents is homework, homework, homework. Some children are big procrastinators. Some children find the work so overwhelming that it's easier for them to just avoid it altogether. We all know it takes a lot of effort to make good grades all year long. If you're feeling removed or unsure of how your child approaches homework as a whole, try this exercise first to learn the best way to achieve assignment goals.

Once you've got your homework environment created and a routine in place, homework time can become an orderly system for both parents and children. Start with good study habits, training them to be more aware of how their minds work. A child's attention span can wander very easily. Teach concentration tactics on how to focus, learning how to remain dedicated to school work by taking scheduled breaks and offering grade incentives. After study habits are established, studying methods can be introduced, such as creating an index card system. If your students master these tools mentioned, then test taking help can complete the puzzle of eliminating stress and anxiety in your child's school days.

As a main resource, parents and teachers can go here for tips on everything from researching and paper writing, to communication, reading advanced materials, spelling help and assignment completion methods. Patience and persistence will definitely encourage success for all of your goals: organizationally, administratively, and beyond.

Children and Search Engines

In a world where laptops, social networking, texting, and phones with Internet access are the norm, parents may find themselves in the dark when it comes to technology and their children’s technology use. Gone are the days where the majority of households have a large collection of encyclopedias organized by letters cramming their bookshelves. Now you can sit at a computer, type in what you need, and a world of information is literally at your fingertips.

Although there are obvious dangers when allowing kids to access the web without proper monitoring, there are tremendous advantages as well. For this blog, we’ll focus on the Internet as a whole, and discuss safe search engines specifically for students.

First and foremost, you want to make sure your children are using trustworthy and accurate resources. Common sites like Google and Ask.com have a huge amount of information. However you need to be careful what you click on. Make sure to read the website addresses before going to them. Sites like Wikipedia.org have a lot of material, however the information isn’t verified. Anyone can post on a particular topic.

There are many websites for children. Number 36 will help you search by topic. Number 40 has history search engines, science engines, authors and biographies, and so much more. Askkids.com allows you to type in any question. Super-kids.com is a great tool for searching by category, like people or science. You can also use the Internet Public Library for specific subject and reference needs.

When you are searching, make sure to type in keywords. If you’re not using a site where you can enter in the full question, you’ll need to narrow down the words you use. If you want the engine to look for a particular phrase, put it in quotations. For example: “civil war battlefields” instead of civil war or “middle school math” instead of just math. Most search engines have an advanced link button, where you can limit your topics even further.

Finally, teach your students the importance of acknowledging the sources they’ve used. The Internet offers a mountain of information, but remember the material has been written by someone else. Happy searching!