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.