Journal 7

This week I created my Home page.  I know that most of my audience will be parents/guardians and students.  On the Home page I wanted to state the purpose for the page, which is to be a resource for parents and students.  I briefly explained what both the parents and the students would be able to find on the site.  I also wanted to make it known that the site would serve as a connection between all parties involved and that they could contact me for any reason.  Even though I have my contact information on the About Me page, I also put a button at the bottom of the page that sent them directly to my contact information.

Lastly, I included some brief information about me along with a picture.  I didn't want to take up at ton of space on the Home page so I again linked them to my About Me page.

Journal 6

This week on my webpage I added a few things to the parent link, so that my parents will have more information about our class.  I know that as the next school year begins there will be more things that I will need to add and will do that as the time comes.  On the student page I added several links for them.  Some of them are links they are familiar with at school and some are other links to interactive sites they may want to explore at home.  These links are organized into those two different categories.  I also made the links buttons on Weebly because I thought it would be more intriguing for the younger kids and easier to manipulate.

There were some other things I changed as well in terms of formatting.  On my links that were yellow I underlined them so that they would stand out as links.  There were also some issues I noticed on each page with the size of the text.  So I had to go in and make everything consistent.

I think the most fun thing I did was on my Student page and was the activity I made up that they can do at home.  Keep in mind that this is first grade, so I had to point out at the very beginning that the activity had to be done with an adult.  My activity is to read an on level text, determine the title, author and illustrator and why they liked the book.  Then they are to create a VOKI character and in one minute record their voice explaining the above mentioned things to the VOKI.  Lastly, they are to share it with me through email.  Then we could share them in class AND I can actually create a new page under the Student page to start a collection of them!

My next step is to determine what needs to be on my Home page.  I plan to go back to some of the websites we looked at in the first classes assignment to get some ideas on what is appropriate for it.

Journal 5

I am glad that in this class I learned about picture formats and sizing.  I have always known about the different file types: jpeg, gif, bmp, tiff.  In the past I have just used whatever "worked best" when it came to picture files.  I also didn't know much about picture size, and I definitely didn't know how to change their size so that they would be emailed and downloaded easier!

 I also didn't realize there were so many mechanics that went into website design, besides just user friendliness and the aesthetics of the site.
Here are some of the the specific things I considered/changed in my website:
-I made subpages under my "Parent" page.  This helped with the organization and simplicity of the site and made it so that users wouldn't have to scroll through a ton of content on just one page.  With the subpages, I am able to break it down and make it more accessible.  With this change, I was also considering the Chunking aspect, by placing the objects that relate together.
-I did add more documents and links to my parent page, I even think I could find more.  I also know that in the beginning of next school year I will add more of the documents we send home at the beginning of the year for parents.
-I changed the header also, to make it so users don't have to scroll down much to reach the content.  I have the full size header on the "Home" page, but have taken it off completely from the other pages.
-Lastly, a small change, was changing the colors of the links.  They were blue and I thought I needed to keep with the color scheme I was using; therefore, I changed them to yellow.

I am excited to complete my "Student" page next.  I think with that one I will have subpages as well.  With the interactive sites that we put on Diigo, there will be plenty of sites I can add for my students.

Also,  I have a question Dr. Gibson.  Why when I posted pictures of my wire frame and site map in one of my previous posts, can they not be seen?

Journal 4

I used to think that I had a pretty good grasp on technology and was technologically savvy.  However, within the past few years with all the new things that have been added I don't feel that way anymore.  Web 2.0 reminds me most of social networking, hash tags, blogging and wikis.  I know that there are so many more sites and resources that students can use to enhance their education than the ones I already use.  I use technology to design and plan instruction and I use it during many of my lessons, but what is lacking is student use.  Student use is something that my school lacks as a whole.  For me, teaching first grade, I just know there is so much stake in teaching them to read and write that spending the time for THEM to use the technology is on the back burner.  It would take so much time to take them to our computer lab and teach them how to use the computer correctly before we could actually accomplish a goal.  However, just recently my district added 20 minutes onto our school day to help make up snow days.  My first grade team and I decided to spend some of that extra time teaching our students about typing and the keys on a keyboard.  We are hoping to get them to the computers on Friday afternoons to actually practice typing.  This would be a step in the right direction!

As far as my blog, I haven't started my parent page as of yet.  However, I do know what types of things I want to include on it.  I want to give them access to many of the informational things I send home at the beginning of the year.  This could be: behavior management plans, grading policies, attendance policies, day to day routines, etc.  I also want to give them links for resources, like reading with their child at home, common math strategies, even curriculum maps and documents to help explain the new common core.

So far the website making process has been very easy thanks to Weebly.  I will go back to one of my earlier posts about not having the time to keep it updated and to search for all of the sites that would be most useful.  Also, I know that not all of my student's parents have available technology at home and even some that do don't always take the opportunity to use it to help their child.  This is frustrating, knowing that when I do put in the time to do things they aren't used by even half of my parents.

Journal 3

This week I enjoyed looking around for useful sites for teachers and students.  I know there are tons of sites out there that would be beneficial for myself and my students, it's just that honestly I don't have the time to spend looking for them.  That's why I think it's great that we are sharing some of them with each other.  There will definitely be some for kids that I will want to add to my webpage.  I really liked finding the ones that were content specific because I know I have kids who are interested in different things, especially the different areas of science.  For example, the weather site I found would be very interesting to some while we were studying weather.  I also know that there will be some out there I can find to be useful sites for parents.

I also really like the idea of social bookmarking and I think, if used efficiently, could be very useful within a school.  I know that sometimes I find resources that I want to save for a lesson that I know I will do in the future.  What I would normally do is email the link to myself.  When I do that, if I am saving it for later, it usually gets lost in all of my emails or I forget about it.  With social bookmarking I would be able to organize it into subjects and even share it with my grade level team!  And it's so easy!

This week for my site I completed the layout/design for now and have done an "About Me" page.  I know from our class discussion on Tuesday that there will probably be some things that I want to change or do differently from what I made on my site map and wire frame.  Not sure exactly what those things will be, but I know as I start completing other pages, things will be different. So far this has been a fun experience and I really think I am going to like Weebly more than doing a blog like I had in the past.  I am also hoping that with a class site, instead of a blog, I won't feel the pressure of updating it as often as I should.  

Site Map and Wire Frame

Journal 2

In this week's readings I did learn somethings and was reminded of some of the things I noticed after looking at the 10 websites last week.  First, I need to make sure that I have a clear picture for my site.  Weebly stated that "the number 1 reason why people don't finish their site is because they don't have a clear vision for it."  This is why it is important to have a site map and wire frame.  I also liked the analogy of "bottom up design".  With this in mind the website designer has to first decide where they want to take their users.  Also, as a side note you only want 3-5 core pages.  I compared this to backward design in assessments.  In backward designing assessments you first look at what you want the students to be able to do and create the assessment first, then plan what lessons/activities you will use to accomplish that.

In the iCloud article, I didn't realize that there actually were storage centers around the US and other parts of the world.  I did know that it was a way to access files on more than just one computer very easily.  Honestly, I don't know why I have never really used it.  As much as I email documents between my home and school computer, just sharing them in Drop Box would be much easier.

I did look at Weebly and created an account.  It looks very user friendly and much nicer than the classroom blog I created on Blogspot.  I also am visioning that I can do more of the things I want to do on Weebly, because the blog can not be organized the way a true website can.

I also did some thinking on what types of things I want on my site.  They are listed below.  I will hopefully post my site map and wire frame here, as well as in Drop Box, once they are completed.

-Core Page: Parent Info. (Info. about first grade subjects, core content, pacing guides, how to contact me, etc)
-Core Page: Students (games, links we use at school, etc)
-Core Page: Classroom Management (info. about classroom and school policies)
-Core Page: About Me (bio, pictures, contact information)
-Core Page: What's New? (will post updates on special events, pictures of things we are doing in class, etc)