Week #4 548 Journal

Where I Went/What I Did:

     I began this week by looking for some clip art to use on my website and to add to my DropBox folder.  I wanted to find some images that would fit my theme of an elementary website.  I did find some great pictures that I plan on using.  I also added some family pictures to my images folder.  After I added my images I began looking for some interactive sites to add to my social bookmarking site (eduClipper).  I had three great sites in mind that we use at our school regularly.  The first site I added was one call Reflex Math.  I just recently received a grant for a full years subscription to this site.  Reflex Math is a website that is designed to improve math fluency.  I know for my own students this is an area of weakness.  I am really excited to get my students started on this program.  Another site that I added was one that our school received a grant for this year called i-Ready.  It is a math and reading program that is aligned to the Common Core Standards.  The third program I added was Reading Eggs.  This is a program designed for Kindergarten and First Grade students.  I have been using this program for several years and my students always love it.  The last website I added was ABCya.  This is a free website with interactive games for students in K-5 in both reading and math.   The last thing I did this week was to work on my own website. To begin I looked at some of my classmates websites.  I like to look to see what ideas other people have.  I have to say I saw some great websites that I believe will serve as wonderful classroom websites.

What I Learned: 

     One of the articles I read this week was How to Tell if A Website is Dangerous.  In this article I learned about a URL Risk Analyzer and a Web Inspector.  Before this article I had never heard of these before.  This is such a great tool to use when you are not sure of a website.  In today's world you have to be so careful of the sites that you visit.  There are so many sites that appear to be a legitimate site but are very dangerous.  I really like the Zulu URL risk inspector site.  I actually bookmarked this on my computer so that I would be able to access it easy.  This article was one that I want to share with others so that can be aware that not every website is a safe one.

What I Decided About My Website:

     I spent some time this week just playing with all the different tools that are available on the Weebly site.  I did this because I have never create a website before and I really did not know what options I had available to me.  Needless to say I created many things and deleted many things this week.   However, after all the playing was over I created all the pages that I wanted on my final website. I spend most of my time this week deciding on how I wanted my pages set up.  I worked a lot on my student and class news pages.  I added some photos and some fun links.   I have to say that creating this website has been really fun.  I realized that this can be a great communication tool between parents, students, and the teacher.  It is because of this I want to make it the best.

My Plans for the Week:

     This week my plan is to continue working on my website and adding more content.  I am going to continue to look at other websites so that I can get some more great ideas.  I am also for my own benefit going to add some more sites to my social bookmarking site so that I can always have them handy no matter what computer I am on.