I found this description of ALEX on the Illinois New Teacher Collaborative website, "Alabama Learning Exchange (ALEX), a project of the Alabama Department of Education, is designed to compile educational materials and information into a time-saving one-stop resource for teachers and administrators in Alabama. Their goal is for Alabama's students to reap the benefits of Alabama educators sharing their wealth of expertise and knowledge with colleagues." When I first did a search in Google, I was surprised to find information on an Illinois website. This peaked my curiosity. I went straight to the ALEX website. I wanted to find out how and if this site could be useful to me. There is all kinds of information available from upcoming professional development classes to podcast. I love that teachers, who are being held to the same state standards as I will be, have shared lesson plans that I can use in my classroom. I appreciate that Alabama has set up a site for teachers to be able to network with other teachers throughout our state.

The Alabama Connecting Classroom, Educators and Students Statewide (ACCESS) program is available to all Alabama public high school students. It provides equal access to high quality instruction and greater equity for all Alabama public high school students through 21st century technology. It uses online and interactive videoconferencing (IVC) courses taught by Alabama certified and highly qualified teachers to link classrooms and offer coursework, including Advanced Placement and foreign languages, to students in schools where those courses may not be available.

This week, I posted a comment on a video posted by Jared from Mr. McClung's 5th period class taking us along on his Google trip to Adelaide, Australia.