ECOMP 6008 – Educational Journal

We are almost finished.  Yes!  I have been working on creating a final project that is useful in my classroom and it seems to be a never-ending project.  I have created a website for my classroom that is linked off of our school server.  I can understand the work that is required to get this program off of the ground.  I have been constantly upgrading my site to stay current and keep on track with new events in our school.  Also, I have added a page with teacher/parent/student resources that may be helpful.  It includes links back to our district website, as well as our state office of public instruction.  It will be a very beneficial resource for my parents and students.

It is amazing how many webquests are available.  I was able to surf for any topic and found webquests for all different ages.  I have not used many in my classroom, or have not realized that I have set up my own webquests.  Off the subject, I am excited that class has almost come to a conclusion and that I will have completed my program.  It has been a long time coming and I am ready to have a break.

It was a lot of fun creating a website for my classroom, however, I am sure that I will not update it as much as it needs to be updated.  Therefore, I created a website that explains events throughout the year, rather than events on a weekly basis.  I know that I would not have the time to edit the information weekly and it would quickly become a worthless educational tool that is cluttering up the school website.  I do see the benefits of a website, and it was fun to build.

Creating a wiki was very simple and I definitely see the benefits of using them in the classroom.  Our group was able to quickly modify the contents of the site, view each other’s changes, and were notified when a change was made.  In the classroom, the teacher would be able to easily monitor student work by knowing when the work was completed, how much effort each student put into their work, and view the progress of their work.  I enjoyed this activity as a teaching tool, and again had the opportunity to work with other classmates.  

There are many programs and applications to keep a person safe while surfing the web, however, I don’t think a person is ever really safe from all of the available material.  Students, parents, and teachers have all, at one time or another, stumbled upon some unintended viewing of inappropriate material.  It is inevitable that this will happen with the extensive lists of material that are available.  The important aspect of this safe surfing in my classroom is that I expect the students to let me know when they accidentally get into a site that they are not supposed to.  At the beginning of the year, we came up with a set of computer lab rules that have precautions for situations like this.  I ultimately would like to trust that my students will always display proper use of the computers; therefore, I treat them with the respect of an adult in their computer use.  There is no need to list all of the inappropriate actions that are possible on a computer, like most AUPs do.  If you give a student an idea, they are bound to try it.  Why put the clever little schemes in their head in the first place?

I was a little frustrated with the Ludcke Library for a while.  I was trying to find topics and was striking out left and right.  I eventually figured it out, but did not find it as useful of a resource as I have other resources.  Again though, I would probably be the person that prints off all of the articles anyways.  I can understand the importance of such a source if other resources were not available though.  It was definitely an experience working with it and finding articles that applied to my topic of distance learning.  This is the topic I chose after not being successful with a few others.

I did find some of the search engines that I used as helpful.  They were a new view to google and were specifically designed to search their own resources.  With google, if you type in a search, you are drilled with numerous hits that might not relate to what you are looking for.  These sites were a beneficial way to limit these searches to your topic.  However, there were some sites that were not helpful at all if you were looking for a specific topic.  I will most likely stick to google in my own classroom, but it is nice to know that these sites are available.   

As for the Internet History Assignment, this was an awesome experience that could easily be integrated into the classroom.  I would like to get my students actively involved in a timeline for world culture.  Also, it is a great learning experience to view other peoples’ thoughts and views on important events in history.  I can definitely see how completing one of the last timeline entries would be difficult though.

I would like to have my class become more active in online chats with other students around the world.  I have the technology available in my classroom, but have not integrated it into the curriculum yet.  Like before, I do not just want to tack it on top of the already used lessons.  I hope to have my students complete research projects on different cultures, and be able to communicate with students that live in these cultures.  I have loaded skype on my computers and currently have six camera ready stations.  As for the timing on this occurence, I don’t know?

I have only used blogs and del.icio.us one other time for a different class.  At the time, I did not see any use for such features.  After completing more classes and learning new ways to informate in the classroom, I have learned the importance of such sites.  In my own practice, I would like to integrate blogs into the classroom.  I am probably not able to have the students all blog at home, as technology is limited.  However, I can use blogs as our class journals, or have the students investigate my educational blog that I could create for them.  I know that I need to continue working with my del.icio.us account and make it a useful teaching tool.  It is nice that it can be accessible from any computer, in comparison to a favorites list.