Where I Went/What I Did:
The first thing I did this week was explore some social bookmarking sites. I have never used one of these sites before so I wanted to view all my options. I started out using the site diigo because I found it very user friendly. After I creating my account at diigo I began researching informational sites for teachers and students to bookmark. I bookmarked some that I already use in my classroom, but I was also able to find some new ones as well. One new one that I really liked was WatchKnowLearn. This website was full of free educational videos for all ages. I had never seen this site before, but it will be one that I will use in my classroom in the future. After I had created my diigo account I then read about the site eduClipper which was very similar to Pinterest. I began playing on it and decided I liked it much better than diigo. I was able to create a board for this class and share it easy with others. On the diigo site I was having a hard time figuring out how to share my bookmarks with others. Another reason I liked eduClipper better was that it saved a thumbnail of each website so this helped me remember what was on each one. This site also offered the option of adding a class and assignments for a class. I could see this being very beneficial for older students especially.
After creating my social bookmarking site I went and created a Weebly account to begin working on my website. I really like the Weebly site because it makes creating a website so easy. I began working on the design and color scheme that I wanted to use on my site.
What I Learned:
This week I learned much about how to evaluate web sites that I visit. In the technology driven world that we live in today it important to realize that anyone can add content to the web. So we have to be very careful in what we believe. In the reading Evaluating Websites it states that one way to evaluate a site is to look at where the sites live. For example the extension .edu means that the site is from an educational institution. Another example of an extension is .gov which means the site is from a government agency. Another way to evaluate a site is to look to see how current the information is. When were the links on the site last up date or are any of the links dead? It is also good to look at copyright dates to see if it is a site that someone updates on a regular basis.
This week I also leared about social bookmarking sites and how wonderful they are. I always bookmark sites to my computer at school but the problem was when I was at home I did have those same sites safed on my laptop. With the social bookmarking sites I am able to save these sites and acces them from anywhere.
What I Decided About My Website:
Once I decided on using Weebly as the my site creator I began to design some of my pages. I decided that I wanted to make some changes to my site from my original thought on my wireframe. On my wireframe I put too many buttons/tabs on my homepage. I have now decided that I don't want all those buttons. I only want the following buttons: home, parents, students, and class news. This seems much more organized to me once I went back and looked at it. This week I also completed my About Me page where I gave my readers a little background information about myself. I also created a contact page in which I added a form that my readers could complete.
My Plans for the Week:
This week I want to spend some more time getting some of my favorite websites saved to the bookmarking site eduClipper. This is a wonderful time saver because I can access it from any computer I am on. I also want to continue to work on my website and get firm plan I what I want it to look like.
Saturday, March 29, 2014
Saturday, March 22, 2014
Week #2 548 Journal
Where I Went/What I Did:
I began this week by researching more classroom websites. I was trying to get an idea of exactly what I want on my own website. I found out that there are some really great websites out there that teachers use on a daily basis. I mainly visited first grade websites, since that it what mine will be. I noticed that most of the first grade sites did not have the learning activities that I read about last week. I guess this is harder to do for the younger students. Many of the sites had links to websites and games that the students could visit. Many of the sites also had a place where student pictures and classroom pictures could be shared.
After visiting many different sites I began work on my site map for the website I want to create. I made mine using PowerPoint because it was the easiest way that I could find. After I decided what kinds of pages I wanted on my site I then began work on my wireframe. I visited a couple of free sites for this like Lumzy, Mockingbird, and QuirkTools Wires. I played with all three sites and decided to use the QuirkTools Wires site to create my wireframe. It was actually very simple to do and took no time at all to complete the wireframe.
What I Learned:
The article Designing Your Web Site from the Bottom Up was a great read this week. Before reading this I would have never thought about making my home page on my website last. I would have started there instead of finishing there. From this article I learned the importance of planning out your website. It's hard to start any project unless you have the end in mind. One idea I really liked from this article was putting a navigation bar on each page so that users can easily get back to where they want to go from any page. In the reading Platforms and Tools I gained some knowledge about what software programs are available to help me create my website. I had heard of several of these sites like Wikispaces and Moodle. I have never actually used one my self, but I have visited sites that use them. I wonder if there is one that is more easy to use or if there all about the same?
What I Decided About My Website:
This week I got a better feel for what I want my website to look like. I decided that for my website I want a home page, a page for a parents, a page for students, a class page, and contact me page. I also got an idea about what I want on each page. For example on my parent page I want a place for News and Events. I want this to be a place where parents can go to see a calendar of events and get up to date information about what is happening in our classroom and school. On my student page I want to have links to websites that we use regularly in class as well as some other ones that can visit. I also want a page where I feature the student of the week. On the Our Class page I want a place for our daily schedule and some class photos. I know that do be able to have photos of students on my page I am going to have to send home a permission slip form to the parents. I feel really good this week knowing that I have a better plan for what I want my website to look like.
My Plans for the Week:
This week I want to do some more research on the different ways that websites can be created. I want to find one that will be simple to use but yet allow me to do all the things I have planned. I am also going to continue to look at more classroom websites to see if I can get anymore good ideas.
I began this week by researching more classroom websites. I was trying to get an idea of exactly what I want on my own website. I found out that there are some really great websites out there that teachers use on a daily basis. I mainly visited first grade websites, since that it what mine will be. I noticed that most of the first grade sites did not have the learning activities that I read about last week. I guess this is harder to do for the younger students. Many of the sites had links to websites and games that the students could visit. Many of the sites also had a place where student pictures and classroom pictures could be shared.
After visiting many different sites I began work on my site map for the website I want to create. I made mine using PowerPoint because it was the easiest way that I could find. After I decided what kinds of pages I wanted on my site I then began work on my wireframe. I visited a couple of free sites for this like Lumzy, Mockingbird, and QuirkTools Wires. I played with all three sites and decided to use the QuirkTools Wires site to create my wireframe. It was actually very simple to do and took no time at all to complete the wireframe.
What I Learned:
The article Designing Your Web Site from the Bottom Up was a great read this week. Before reading this I would have never thought about making my home page on my website last. I would have started there instead of finishing there. From this article I learned the importance of planning out your website. It's hard to start any project unless you have the end in mind. One idea I really liked from this article was putting a navigation bar on each page so that users can easily get back to where they want to go from any page. In the reading Platforms and Tools I gained some knowledge about what software programs are available to help me create my website. I had heard of several of these sites like Wikispaces and Moodle. I have never actually used one my self, but I have visited sites that use them. I wonder if there is one that is more easy to use or if there all about the same?
What I Decided About My Website:
This week I got a better feel for what I want my website to look like. I decided that for my website I want a home page, a page for a parents, a page for students, a class page, and contact me page. I also got an idea about what I want on each page. For example on my parent page I want a place for News and Events. I want this to be a place where parents can go to see a calendar of events and get up to date information about what is happening in our classroom and school. On my student page I want to have links to websites that we use regularly in class as well as some other ones that can visit. I also want a page where I feature the student of the week. On the Our Class page I want a place for our daily schedule and some class photos. I know that do be able to have photos of students on my page I am going to have to send home a permission slip form to the parents. I feel really good this week knowing that I have a better plan for what I want my website to look like.
My Plans for the Week:
This week I want to do some more research on the different ways that websites can be created. I want to find one that will be simple to use but yet allow me to do all the things I have planned. I am also going to continue to look at more classroom websites to see if I can get anymore good ideas.
Saturday, March 15, 2014
Week #1 548 Journal
Where I went/What I did:
This week I was able to visit some new classroom websites. Many of these sites I had visited before, but I found some new ones as well. One website that I really liked was called TeachersFirst (http://teachersfirst.com/index.cfm). This site was organized nicely and offered many great resources for teachers. One of the resources that I liked was the Featured Sites box. They give their readers a quick glance of suggested sites and what grade level they are appropriate for. I liked that it is right there on the homepage and easy to see quickly. As I was reviewing all the different sites I noticed that some of the sites were not as well organized as others. Some of the ones I visited had way to much information on the homepage which made it difficult to find what you were looking for. There was one site that had so much information on one page I still am not sure what that site had to offer.
What I Leaned:
As well as visiting the websites I also read some great articles this week. In the first reading The Internet and Web Design for the Modern Teacher I learned about the two different types of websites: instructional and informational. Most classroom websites are informational because they contain information about procedures, homework, news from the classroom, other information relating to the class. The other type of website is the instructional sites, which are classroom websites that have "learning activities" build into them. According to the reading very few teachers do this well on their websites. I would like to learn some strategies to be able to do this well on my own website. Would this be difficult to do since I teach first graders? In thinking about this question I think about the second article I read Children's Websites: Usability Issues In Designing for Kids. This article conducted a study that showed that kids today are "much more experienced in using computers and Internet." Kids are being exposed to technology at a much younger age in today's time. So does this mean it should be easier for teachers to create learning activities for their websites, even if they teach the younger children?
What I decided about my website:
As I was reviewing all the different websites this week I got some great ideas for my own website that I will be creating. I would really like for my home page to be very organized, not too much information on one page, colorful and an easy to read font, and tabs that will lead visitors to the different pages of my site. The article 10 Tips for an A+ Classroom Website listed some great ideas that I want on my site. These include creating a place for parents to contact the teacher, a place to acess homework files, the classroom blog, and the daily schedule. I want it to be a site that parents, students, and other teachers would want to visit.
My Plans for the Week:
This week I want to continue to visit some more websites and get a better idea of what I want to do on my own. I am going to continue to work on my blog and become more familiar with its features. This may be something I want to use for my classroom in the future.
This week I was able to visit some new classroom websites. Many of these sites I had visited before, but I found some new ones as well. One website that I really liked was called TeachersFirst (http://teachersfirst.com/index.cfm). This site was organized nicely and offered many great resources for teachers. One of the resources that I liked was the Featured Sites box. They give their readers a quick glance of suggested sites and what grade level they are appropriate for. I liked that it is right there on the homepage and easy to see quickly. As I was reviewing all the different sites I noticed that some of the sites were not as well organized as others. Some of the ones I visited had way to much information on the homepage which made it difficult to find what you were looking for. There was one site that had so much information on one page I still am not sure what that site had to offer.
What I Leaned:
As well as visiting the websites I also read some great articles this week. In the first reading The Internet and Web Design for the Modern Teacher I learned about the two different types of websites: instructional and informational. Most classroom websites are informational because they contain information about procedures, homework, news from the classroom, other information relating to the class. The other type of website is the instructional sites, which are classroom websites that have "learning activities" build into them. According to the reading very few teachers do this well on their websites. I would like to learn some strategies to be able to do this well on my own website. Would this be difficult to do since I teach first graders? In thinking about this question I think about the second article I read Children's Websites: Usability Issues In Designing for Kids. This article conducted a study that showed that kids today are "much more experienced in using computers and Internet." Kids are being exposed to technology at a much younger age in today's time. So does this mean it should be easier for teachers to create learning activities for their websites, even if they teach the younger children?
What I decided about my website:
As I was reviewing all the different websites this week I got some great ideas for my own website that I will be creating. I would really like for my home page to be very organized, not too much information on one page, colorful and an easy to read font, and tabs that will lead visitors to the different pages of my site. The article 10 Tips for an A+ Classroom Website listed some great ideas that I want on my site. These include creating a place for parents to contact the teacher, a place to acess homework files, the classroom blog, and the daily schedule. I want it to be a site that parents, students, and other teachers would want to visit.
My Plans for the Week:
This week I want to continue to visit some more websites and get a better idea of what I want to do on my own. I am going to continue to work on my blog and become more familiar with its features. This may be something I want to use for my classroom in the future.
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