The amazing power of web 2.0...

I had a revelation a few days ago when I was writing lessons plans for the substitutes who will be with my students when I go to the Microsoft Teacher Forum at the end of this month. The flash came when I realized that I could leave assignments for my students to do that connected with my absence from the classroom...
My students are aware and involved, because, after all, the project we submitted for the Forum was their work with the digital cameras last year!
The lesson plans that I left for the substitutes have the students answering 2 questions on each of the two days that they would have seen me: The Day 1 questions are:
What do you think Ms. Shepley will pack in her suitcase to take with her to Seattle?; How long do you think it will take Ms. Shepley to fly to Seattle? and Day 2: What 2 questions do you think Ms. Shepley should ask Microsoft while she is there?; Name 3 things that you have learned about Microsoft. The students will also be doing some other activities with our problem solving posters, some math, and working on memos and fax cover sheets.
It took a little explaining for them to understand about the time differences, but not as much as I thought it would. I might get an extra clock for the room and set it for Seattle time for them. We also had to talk about how I could access the Internet from where I would be, and be able to read what they wrote. In exchange for what they are posting, I'm going to try and post pictures of the events and some summaries about what we have done on our classroom blog page. This will be a first,