Week 7 Journal Entry

Wow, I can’t believe this is Week 7. This week I read about teacher standard 6.5 which is demonstrates ethical and legal use of technology. I feel that often we forget the background of this teaching standard. Technology that is being used in schools should be monitored closely. Most schools offer internet safety through filters and blocking sites. This is sometimes not enough because students who use e-mail can link to something else that may be viruses or spam. A site that promotes safety for technology is Educational Technology Clearinghouse and ATechology Society. Children need to know the safety of the internet. It is good to set up an internet safety corner in your room and students can constantly be reminded of internet safety. Some online safety tips for students are set up rules, use filters, check on privacy policies, talk about the dangers of e-mail and chat, and know what’s going on. Safekids.com has a list of tips that teens can follow. Kidshealth.org is a great website for parents, kids, and teens. This is a way that one can understand it and in an easy format. Teachers and parents want students to stay safe while using the internet. One can hack into your computer at any time and get your personal information. One does not need to put information on the web that one wouldn’t want to be taken. It is never good to put student’s information on a webpage. It is important that teachers teach students the right way to use technology. My plans for the week are to up-date my website and make some changes to my website. I have one problem while making my changes and this has been on my homepage. When I try to move my text box it will not let me or it deletes my picture. It has been upsetting at times when weebly does not allow me to make the changes that I would like. I have made sure my entire font is the same, I have tried to change the above fold but it changes my whole page and I have to redo it. I have made Jaime Keith Exceptional Education teacher at the top on line one. I have changed all of my Microsoft Word documents to PDF files. A website takes a lot of dedication and hard word. My website has taken several weeks and I still feel like it is still a work in progress. I have learned so much while building a website that I will share with parents, students, and my co-workers.

Week 6 Journal Entry

The first article I read was Once blocked, Twitter and Other social media become classroom tools for students. I found this article very interested because once a teacher who pursued school administration he unblocked sites that he could incorporate social media into his lessons. He wanted students to use twitter for serious research and discussion. Students said they liked using Twitter to engage with their peers and other student’s across the country. Students could engage in their social tools as more of an academic resource. A lot of teachers are using online educational tools to help them with curriculum and for planning different activities. Twitter helps get information out there about different events and classroom activities that might be happening. Students discussed how using Twitter increased their educational experience. When social media is used collaboration is successfully. In many school district teachers are able to use Twitter, Facebook, and blogs with their students. Then in other districts they are not able to use them. This could be something maybe that one could work out with their district. This can be a powerful tool for teachers and students when used the correct way. Professionals in education must be careful with personal social media networks if they interact with students and parents. It would be a good idea to have two accounts one for personal use and the other for education use. Teachers are able to build a good connection and get to know the student's better. Teachers should not like student personal photos, do not post pictures that are inappropriately, do not post vacation photos if one has called in sick, one should control privacy settings, and do not post negative comments. I opened my eyes up to Twitter after reading these articles. I currently do not have a twitter account. I now have a better understanding of what it is now. It connects one to the lasted stories, opinions, and news. You may choose what you would like to follow. One does not ever have to tweet but can follow others. Educators can share different ideas among each other. The elements of twitter help me to better understand the functions of it. Professionals have many uses of Twitter if they choose to use it in the educational field. I learned more about hashtags and whom they involve. Anyone can hashtag and it gets one involved in longer conversations. I found the Twitter chats very interesting. The ones that I would like to learn more information about and even join in on the chats would be #edtechchat, #mathchat, and #DENchat. This is a good way for educators, parents, and teachers to interact with each other. This week I have opened my eyes up to Twitter and continued working on my website. I have all of my pages completed and I will continue to revise each of my pages. The page I am currently trying to revise is my homepage. I have learned a lot from my website and will continue to update it. I got to show my website to a parent this week and they thought it was very beneficial.

Week 5 Journal Entry

A service called Internet hosting service allows companies to purchase space on the internet. Web hosts have servers that one can use to create a website. DropBox has been great to learn and use during this class. I learned some new information about web host and their providers. A website can only be online if one has it hosted by a provider. One must have an address and a platform on which to build it. When working with files one should know many different things. When one goes to a website it is important to be aware of what files one will be able to view or use. JPG files will show up most of the time and that is what I have always used and it has worked. When such files as JPG or PNG do not work one need’s to download the ADOBE reader. As teachers, we need to know what type of file size that we are working with. Small file sizes will take up less space and are a lot quicker to open. If the website takes a long time to load one might close out of it and move on to something else. When you name files try and keep it simple. This will help one to stay organized and locate their files. There are several things one should do while adding picture files. Some of these include changing the size; photos should be scanned in files of pg, png, and gif, pictures that are big take up more space, and always give credit to one when using a different picture. Embedding will make a website stand out. This is where one can take a file and make it appear in a web page. When items are embedding in a website it is easier to use. Language needs to be easy to read on a website. When one has too many colors and bold font it is hard to understand the message one is trying to get across. Some teachers make a website to plan on using but never update it throughout the school year. This is a great and easy way to communicate with teachers, parents, and students. One should update website weekly with current information. The second article that I read was about design. Most importantly what I got from this article was to keep it simple. Design gives the first impression to a user rather they love it or hate it. When the design is easy to follow then it helps the user to navigate through the website. One must use communication effectively through text, images, and space. When creating an educational website one has to remember that not all people using the website will be technology savvy. When one is looking for a font to use it is good to know which fonts are available on all computers. The most common fonts are serif, sans, serif, cursive, fancy, and monospace.The best practices checklist allows one to have a guide while making a website. This is a good helpful checklist to see if one is in the right direction while making a website. I still enjoy working on my website. This week I have completed three pages home, about me, and parent pages. Something that I changed this week was my word documents to PDF files. I also added my photo gallery page to my about me and it is a slide show. I have started to work on my student page. Here I will keep students up-to-date with homework and helpful websites. My job is to provide students and parents with as much resources and information as possible for their child to be successful. I will continue to add to my website throughout the class and finalize each page.

Week 4 Journal Entry

I read a lot of useful information in week 4 that can be beneficial to me in my education career. I feel that often people forget about standard 6 (technology) in the teaching standards. I feel that some veteran teachers are not technology savvy. Teachers should use available technology to plan design and instruction. One needs to know, how to use the internet to its full potential when education is involved. Clear expectations must be set for both teachers and students. When blogs and discussion forms are used in the classroom they must be intended to engage learners. There are many resources all over the web that one can use to engage learning in the classroom. I had not used google docs until this class and I loved it. Google Docs allow teachers to check student progress along the way, provide feedback, allows one to see who has fully helped on a project, and to inform students. Teachers may use a variety of social networking in their classroom. Some examples are Facebook, Pinterest and twitter. If teachers use social networking it can be used for a resource that includes keeping students and parents informed. Blogging would be good to use for middle or high school students. As we prepare students, for 21st century skills and next generation learners they must be familiar with technology and how it is used. Skills should be introduced in elementary school and built upon throughout their whole education. After reading about Web 2.0 and its tools I have a better understanding of what it is. Web 2.0 describes World Wide Web sites. It allows others to collaborate and interact with one another by social media. One can use 2.0 Web tools that pull all of your favorite sites and information into one live binder. This could be used for every student and teacher. Others are able to see one’s live binder also. All of your information is stored in one place to help one stay organized. I enjoyed reading 10 Best Practices for using a wiki in education because I have never really understood the uses of a wiki. Teachers have to make sure students know how to use the wiki successfully for it to be an essential technology tool in the classroom. Wikis allow for collaborative work among each other in the classroom. It allows for everyone to get involved and do their part. Collaborative projects are successful when they are planned out. On the webpage it gave teachers 10 suggestions on improving student’s acceptance to a class, group, or project wiki. As teachers, we want to make sure sites that we are using in our classroom are trustworthy. One wants to take multiple approaches when seeing if the website is reliable. When a site is asking for personal information including credit or debit card numbers it could be dangerous. If the site offers seem to good it could be possible that they are dangerous. One should use the following steps listed below to make sure a website is accurate and that one can trust it. The steps one should take while seeing if a website is reliable are how to investigate a site before visiting it, general approach to analyzing sites, make sure SSL certificate is trustworthy before making purchases, and how to report dangerous sites. I added several social bookmarking websites this week. I found several interactive sites for students that would enhance their learning. Some of my favorite posted on the social book marking site are Storyline online, 2014 Best Fiction for Young Adults, MobyMax, Tumblebooks, and Educational computer games for kids. I have enjoyed working on my website by editing pages and creating new pages. I did not realize how simple creating a webpage really was until completing one for this class. I have worked on classes, students, and parent pages this week by adding pictures and information. I will continue to add and edit these pages over the next couple of weeks.

Week 3 Journal Entry

One should follow a certain criteria when evaluating websites. A criteria that one should look for is authority, purpose, objectivity, appropriateness, currency, responsibility, clarity, and accessibility. This will help one find if they have a good quality website or not. There are many different Teachlist and more evaluation links that one may choose from. I was overwhelmed with all of the wonderful sites and ideas that one can choose from. I learned more about social bookmarking and increased my knowledge in this area. I learned that tagging was a special feature of social bookmarking. Social bookmarking does not save the file but bookmarks the page. I learned about a new website called Edu-Clipper. This is a free website that connects educators with others using social bookmarking. One can see others ideas and what they like. Teachers and students can interact with one another also. The website is cool because you can add word documents or PDF files to your timeline and one can view it. Some teachers even add videos and they can control what is shared and what is not. I learned about all of the social bookmarking websites that are out there. I did not know of any of these websites before now. I found the uses of Pinterest interesting. The website describes using Pinterest in a collaborative direction instead of one directional way. This invites everyone in on pinning and sharing their ideas to one’s board. Everyone can pull their thoughts in together. Pinterest could be used for gathering opinions, tracking progress, and for charity drives. A lot of people never think about using Pinterest in these different ways. I learned a lot this week from social bookmarking. I had never done this before so I wasn’t sure of what to expect but after completing the assignment I found it very interesting. This is a good way for teachers to share ideas among each other. I plan to continue to work on my website and explore other websites. I want to be able to use my website for this upcoming school year.

Week 2 Journal Entry

This week, for Journal 2 I read a lot of useful information that can be helpful to me while working on my webpage. I found many different ways on how to create websites. As we are working on the webpage one is able to use any method as long as it is from the ground up. I read about three types of web creation that is available to one. These include From the Ground Up, Semi-Form the Ground up, and Semi-Semi from the Ground Up. Then I read about many of the websites one can choose for the Web 2.0 Service. I found that I will have plenty of web services to choose from. After reading this article, I found that I should begin at the bottom and work your back to the start page. I want my start page to be user friendly. I thought the 10 step process was helpful that was provided. Step 1: brainstorm all of the items and ideas that you might consider putting on your website. The list of the links that were provided helped me get an idea on how to get started on a webpage. Some of these I thought about using for my sitemap would be home, biography/contact me, photo, assignments, for parents, and for students. Step 2 is grouping how one is going to group the categories together. I found step 5 very helpful for one to develop a flow chart to be able to help one with a site map. I want to make my webpage easy to navigate through which is step 6. I think it would be beneficial to have a navigation bar that would be available for viewers to access. I want to be sure that I keep it simple for the ones viewing it. A website wireframe is just a sketch of what one wants their website to look like. It’s mainly for one to get their thoughts and ideas down. One can simply write down their ideas on a piece of paper. I learned that wireframes can be used for other things besides websites. I found and learned that the Weebly for Education is a good resource and I also learned that School Rack offers a free service for teachers who want to build their own classroom websites. Students and parents are able to create free accounts to be able to communicate with teachers. I read about many different tools one can use or create when making a website. Before reading about the iCloud I kind of already had an idea of what it was. I knew it was something that backs up one’s device. I did learn more about where and how the data is stored including what it is. The iCloud works similar to a drop down box. Overall, I learned a lot of useful information in week 2. I found useful information that will help me get started on my website from the bottom and work my way to the start page. It was helpful to look at the 10 steps that were included in building a website to make sure I will not leave any of these out. I learned the difference between a sitemap and wireframe. I had never heard of these words before so I was a little confused about what they were. This week I learned about a Dropbox and how to use it effectively. For my website I have picked 2 sites that I may use to build my own website. They are Weebly for Education and School Rack. I continue to look up more information for my website. For the most part I have picked out the site map for my webpage. The next steps that I would like to take are to work on the wireframe and get a good mock of the pages.

Week 1 Journal Entry

The first thing I did this week was I looked up 10 different teacher websites. I felt like I spent a lot of time looking up different websites and I got some good ideas for my own website. I looked up teacher websites including Elementary, Middle, High School, and administrative websites from the wiki EDOL 548 Technology spotlist page. Most of the websites that I looked up were organized and one could tell that they spent a lot of time putting it together. Some of the websites had not been updated for a while so it would be a good idea if the teachers did this before the school year started. When I was viewing the webpages it was hard for me to find something that I disliked about some of them. I found some wonderful ideas and great links that can be used. The teacher websites that stood out to me the most were from the Jefferson County Public Schools, Bullitt County Schools, and Daviess County Schools. I want to build a website that looks organized and is beneficial to teachers, parents, and students. I found some interesting things while reading “The Internet and Web Design for the Modern Teacher”. Classroom websites are usually used as an informational type of communication. This is a type of communication where students, teachers, and parents can all get involved. Students can learn content from a classroom website including resources, assignments can be posted, and books can be online. This will be another way that students and parents can stay up-to-date on school work. I liked how some teachers posted examples of work on their classroom website. This gives students an idea where to start. Every student and teacher needs to become familiar with technology because it is taking over in the world we live in today. In the article, Children’s Website: Usability Issues in Designing for Kids it targeted different age groups with technology skills. It did different studies and the one that I found interesting was the Children vs. Adult users. Kids need a design that follows different user guidelines than adults. I learned that a lot of designs that are made easier for adults can also help kids too. I thought it was neat that you posted your own example of a graduate journal and told what one had learned. I learned a lot from the 10 Tips for an A+ classroom website and it gave me some ideas what to keep in mind while building my own. I learned what to do and what not to do while building a website. I plan to continue to look for ideas for my own classroom website that are professional and will build communication between students, teachers, and parents. My plan for next week is to check out the DropBox and create an account. I plan to take these items back to my own classroom and school and use them with students and staff.