ALEX is a very useful tool for teachers. When you first see the website, you will see how easy it is to use. There are eight different tabs to help teachers in a classroom. ALEX stands for Alabama Learning Exchange, and it really is a learning exhange and learning tool as you will read about in the next paragraph.
The first tab is courses of study, where there is a list of the different subjects taught in school.
Web links is the second tab, here teachers and administrators and students can go to research different areas of school. The third tab is lesson plans, where teachers can go to see lesson plans on all subjects and all grade levels. Search is the fourth tab, here teachers can search for different aspects of ALEX. The fifth tab is personal workspace, where teachers can go to store their own lesson plans and create their own web pages. Professional learning is the sixth tab, where teachers can see the Alabama Department of Education Program websites to find learning tools and professional development opportunities. The seventh tab is distance learning or ACCESS (Alabama Connecting Classroom, Educators and Students Statewide), here students can take classes, not offered at their high school, by web-based classes and video lectures from schools all over the state. Finally help is the eighth tab, where teachers can see how to set up an ALEX account and other things to help them navigate in ALEX.
ALEX can help me in many ways in my classroom. First of all, my first year as a teacher is going to be a lot easier in the fact that I will be able to see how other teachers set their lesson plans up and I will have a tool that will help me learn how to set up my own lesson plans. The web links will help me find neat math websites that I can use in my lectures. Also, personal workspace will give me a safe place to store all of my lesson plans until I get ready to use them. Professional learning will help me keep up with professional development opportunities so that I can make sure that my professional development hours are up to date. These are just a few ways that I think ALEX will be able to help me in my classroom.
