Classroom Website

 I created a classroom website in my TPTE class at the beginning of the school year. We had not really done much with the sites in class since first making them. That is until this week. This week on Tuesday the assignment was to work on fixing our websites at home (my class was canceled).

 Prior to the class I was not even aware that Google sites existance, so believe it or not the only experience I have had with creating a website has been in this class. For this reason I was very nervous about doing construction on my website without my teacher near by to help me. So, I went to the library to work on my project, since I figured someone there would be able to help me if I needed assistance.

As I was working on my website I was pleasantly surprised; I though everything was simple to do. The experience I had gotten in class using the site had completely prepared me for this assignment. Though, the simple layout of this site by Google may have helped some, too. For me to do this assignment by my myself, and with such ease (with my technological skills) means that anyone can create their own site!

When I have my own class I definitely want to create a site similar to this one for the children and their families to use. I think it would make them feel like they knew me better. Also, if I put up my contact information here this would allow them to easily access it even when they were not home, and nix any chances of them losing my information.This site would provide the families with learning resources, materials and information that would they could find whenever as well. A classroom website will be such an asset for communicating with parents, and with how easy it is to create there is no excuse for me to not have one.

Digital Images

This week in TPTE 486 we learned about digital images. We did this by creating our own scavenger hunts, and then going on one that had been previously created by our teacher. While doing this we had to add pictures on to a photo sharing site called Picsa. I had never used a picture sharing website, so this was something new for me. Also, I did not know all the rules involved with digital pictures. This activity was a really fun way to learn about this topic.

The scavenger hunt that I created was titled Things You Can Find at the Zoo. In this I added a variety of pictures of things I found on the picture sharing site called Pics4Learning where people put up pictures for others to use. I found these pictures by putting in words that described the picture I wanted. These pictures have been tagged by users with these words, so that people could find them. Then, once I had all the pictures I wanted I named them using simple descriptions and put them in a folder on my desktop, so that they would be easy to find later.

The scavenger hunt that I went on this past week was an ABC scavenger hunt. I and three others had to take pictures of things that started with each letter A-L. We used another member of the groups camera when we did this, because hers was the most up-to-date. This was important to do, because we wanted the pictures to be high quality. Once we had all the pictures we then uploaded them to Picsa album, and tagged them with descriptive names. This was kinda of difficult, because there were so many different words I could use. Lastly, I made this album public, so that the world could see my pictures.

Evaluation of an Educational Website

Last week in class one of the assignments that I had to complete was an evaluation of a website's appropriateness for my  future classroom. Judging a website for its potential to be used by students as a learning tool was not something that I have done before. Although, I have judged sites in my mind based on the appearance of a page, and thought about ways to improve them prior to this. I tend to prefer that pages are set up in an orderly manner, spaced well and that the colors compliment each other. Also, it is essential to me that the site was crafted thoughtfully, so to give a pattern to it. It is surprising how many sites for teachers I saw that did not looked very professional.

A perfect example of a site that is visually pleasing, as well as easy to navigate is the site I did my evaluation on, ABCya.com. This site attracted me from the moment that it loaded on to my computer. I was enticed by it from vibrant colors, fun shapes, and easy to recognize navigation. Additionally, I really liked how the creators separated the games by grade level, and gave each grade their own ballon link prominently placed on the home page. I felt that these aspects would make this site less problematic for children of a young age to navigate on their own once shown how to by an adult.


Finding the information the questionnaire asked about was a breeze up until the very last section. Filling out the "Accessibility" part of the website evaluation was something that I did not have the resources to do. Luckily, my professor talked about what to do if we did not. So,  I put a question mark into the answer blank to make it clear that I cannot find the answer.

After completing this activity I feel that my ability to evaluate websites for my future classroom's use  has slightly improved. The reason that I feel that I did not grow more was that before doing this evaluation I was already aware of most of the qualities that websites used in a classroom should have. As I was working on the evaluation I kept thinking that the criteria for sites was obvious. However, one part of the evaluation that I had not thought about prior to this lesson was to check the date the site was last revised to make sure it is current. Additionally, I had not considered how websites' navigation could cause issues for students if inconsistent from page to page. A question on this evaluation opened my eyes to this, though. As a future educator of young children it is especially important to remember this, since children of this age often will lack the necessary experience with computers to be proficient on them.

Wikis on Wikis

Before entering this class I had used a Wiki before though, I did not realize it. The type of Wiki that I had used is one that most people have, and most without realizing it like me. This Wiki is known as Wikipedia. Sound familiar? However, despite having used this Wiki before I have never personally edited any of the content on one of these Wikis. 

Now though, after a couple weeks of being in my TPTE class I have edited a Wiki.  On this Wiki I, with the rest of my class, put information about myself and a picture. Doing this was pretty easy. The set up of the site was very simple; getting the picture on there was the most difficult part for me. However, after a couple tries and a little help from my teacher I figured it out. How I did this was by placing the picture on my desk top, and then just dragging over to where I was typing. Additionally, following this class I have now looked at a variety of Wikis made by teachers, and read tips for creating them. I particularly enjoyed the tips that were provided by The Edublogger in the article "Create the Perfect Class Website in 30 Minutes or Less." I particularly loved how at the end of this as step 6 she reminded readers to turn in their subscriptions, because that would be something I would totally forget to do!

As someone who hopes to be a Kindergarten teacher I do not see myself using Wiki in the classroom very much. The reason for this is due to the children's typing abilities, which would make the use of these for this age kind of impractical. Though, I do think that a Wiki would be a great way to promote communication between the parents and myself. Creating a Wiki that parents could use to talk to one another and me about things like their children's reading practice, math, etc. would be a great way to promote communication in the classroom.

For anyone that would like to read this article you can at: The Edublogger

Introduction

Hello,

I am Megan, and I am a senior at the University of Tennessee. I am going to school to be a teacher. Recently, I was accepted into the Pre-K-3 teaching licensure program, which was very exciting. Ideally, after I graduate with my masters I would like to teach Kindergarten, but I love all the other lower elementary grades, too. The reason I am creating this blog is for one of my major's required classes, TPTE 486. In it I will write about what happens as I try to conquer the tech world with the help of my professor Dr. O'Bannon. Some of the topics that I expect to learn about this semester is how to create wikis, make flip-books, create charts and other information that will help me use technology appropriately in my own classroom.

Enjoy!