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)

Journal 1

   In the article "Children's Websites: Usability Issues in Designing for Kids" by Jakob Nielsen, I learned that in the past decade the time kids spent on a computer has tripled, this is according to Kaiser Family Foundation.  Nielsen also wrote that children today are so much more experienced on computers because they are exposed at a much younger age.  Also, the goals of websites geared toward children and adults need to be different based on the needs and wants of each age group.  For example: children want sites that are more entertaining where adults want usability and communication, Secondly, children want instant gratification where adults may just have some limited patientce.  Lastly, children like animation and sound, but adults do not.   The article also stated that the main predictor of children's ability to use websites is the amount of prior expereince.  I think that as a first grade teacher this is important to realize.  I know that I have some students who do have experience at home and some that do not.  Therefore, it is important that at school we give all students experience with using computers as our society moves to using more and more technology everyday.

     The "Introduction" reading  reiterated things about classroom websites that I already new.  For example, according to the Center for Innovative Teaching and Learning (2011), a classroom website should introduce yourself, provide basic information about classes and develop a knowledge base of contnent.   These are the big things I looked for when I searched through my 10 websites.  I saw that some teachers did post information to parents about school and classroom procedures and posted links to content pacing guides.  About half of the blogs I saw did have pictures and short biographies of the teachers.  I learned that I need to update my classroom blog and make it more current.  I see that it may not be reasonable for my with my busy schedule to update it every week, but I think that monthly is a good goal.

     For my website, like I said, my goal is to update it monthly, this way I can still share what it happening in our room and what is up and coming, but be able to manage it as well.  I need to post more information for parents about our classroom procedures.  In addition, there are more links I can post for sites and online programs that the kids use at school that they could also use at home (i.e. Raz Kids and Moby Max).  I think I could also work with the design to make it a bit easier to read.

March 15, 2014

This is the blog I will use to post assignments for MY LAST Rank 1 class, EDOL 548.  Here is the link to my current classroom blog.  I will admit that it is not kept current, but I do already have some ideas on how I can improve it without having to make a post everyday with my busy teacher schedule.  Mrs. Bonner's Buzz