Journal 7 Professional Learning Networks

After signing up for many different professional learning networks, I would say the overall experience was pretty good. The Digg reader provided me with the opportunity to get articles that I would be interested in a quick and easy manner. From Digg I was able to follow many different blogs and gain a lot of resources to utilize in my classroom immediately from bloggers like, The First Grade Parade and Crazy For First Grade. The only downside to some of the bloggers I followed was when I signed up to follow them they seemed to be pretty active, but then over the course of our class some only posted once or twice. I was also able to read many different articles to help my professional development. I especially liked the article that Educational Technology and Mobile Learning would post because I found them very useful and they provided a new insight in some cases.

I also signed up and followed many people or groups on Twitter and Facebook. I liked Twitter because the people I followed were constantly posting so whenever I would check it there was always something new to see. I also liked Twitter because many of the people I followed were other first grade teachers around the country, so it was interesting to see how and what they were doing in their classrooms. On Facebook one of the main groups I followed was Edutopia. This page shared many different strategies to use in the classroom as well as educational articles.

The last group I signed up with was Classroom 2.0. This was my least favorite of the groups I joined. I was not very happy with the overall layout and navigation of the website. I felt that I had to do a lot more searching for things I wanted. I did like that it provided me with the chance to chat with other professionals every time I logged in.

Many of these tools give you the capability to find exactly what you want and there are many active users that provide very useful resources. I think it is especially helpful in finding resources and strategies to use in the classroom, as well as just reading about new things in the education field. There is also a great opportunity for some of these tools to be incorporated for students to use as well.

Journal 6: Self-Reflection

Five weeks ago when we started this course, I was a bit uneasy. I was thinking that the course was going to be a true challenge. Fortunately, I do not feel that way any longer. It has been interesting and exciting learning how to code web pages. I do not feel overwhelmed, like I thought I would, and I am pretty confident in the various skills we have learned thus far.

Another concern I had at the beginning of this journey in Web Design, was the pace of the class. One friend of mine had taken the course and warned me it was a very fast pace class. I think the pace is actually well paced and I am able to keep up with all of the labs in and out of the classroom. While sometimes I feel the book exercises are rather time consuming, I see the benefits of working through them.

The hardest exercise in the first five weeks was the very first book exercise, The Black Goose Bistro (http://www.cpp.edu/~amschonder/512/book/bistro/ ). I feel this was the hardest just because it was the first time I was diving into HTML and CSS. I repeatedly had to check to make sure each piece was working and if I had made any errors when typing in the code. Now with the confidence I have in coding, I could go back and do this exercise in a heartbeat!

The most rewarding book exercise that I completed in the first five weeks would have to be the contest entry form, which can be seen here http://www.cpp.edu/~amschonder/512/book/contest.html . This was the book exercise that took me the longest to complete, so once I was able to finish it I was very satisfied with myself. It had many different components that needed to go into it and I was nervous that I would not get it right.

I am looking forward to the last weeks of this course and what is to come. I feel that I will take away a lot from it at the end of our 10 weeks.

Journal 5 Twitter

After signing up for and using Twitter and using it for about two weeks, I have come to like it so far. I have found that there are many other teachers and professionals in the education field that share some valuable information. I have started following many of these people and have enjoyed some of their articles just to read, but have also been able to use some of the resources they provide to plan into my own lesson plans. While it is good for my own professional development and to pull in lessons for my class, it would not be beneficial for my students. This is due to the fact that I teach first grade. I can see how it could be useful for students in high school though. I do feel that Twitter will be an app that I will continue to use for both professional resources, as well as, personal use.

Q1: How can Twitter be beneficial for teachers?

A1: Twitter can be beneficial to teachers because it allows for lessons and ideas to be shared from all around the world. There are many teachers that post ideas and share actual outcomes from lesson that they try. This could be an additional resource for teachers to use when creating lessons.

Q2: Is Twitter a reasonable tool for students in primary and intermediate grades to utilize?

A2: I feel that after using Twitter, it is a reasonable tool for intermediate students to utilize, but not primary students. It is much too advance for many primary students to utilize, however, intermediate students may benefit from using it.

Journal 4: Project Plan

·       Site title - Ms. Schonder’s First Grade Leaders

·       Developer – Amber Schonder

·       Rational or focus – I would like to create a website to increase parent communication. I want parents to have digital access to weekly newsletters, homework, weekly lesson overviews, additional resources, basic classroom information, and also a quick link to email me. The intention is to create a website where parents can go to access anything pertaining to our classroom.

·       Main features outline - List the main features of the site. 

• Welcome
• Class information
• Communication
• Resources

·       Content - Number of individual Web pages. Brainstorm subtopics for your site. Have a concise outline of the information your site will contain.

1.     Welcome

2.     Class Information

• Basic Information – Class Supplies, Wish list
• Weekly Newsletter
• Homework
• Monthly Overview

3.     Communication – all contact information, embedded email box

4.     Resources

§  Leader in Me

§  Language Arts – Wonders, Starfall

§  Math – Think Central, First in Math

• Target audience – The audience for my site will be the parents of my students. They come from a low-income area and many of them work or have younger children that are not in school yet.
• Design considerations. List the design goals for the site.
• Easy navigation
• Accessibility from mobile and desktop
• Inviting, but not overwhelming
• Incorporate classroom theme – Pete the Cat – blue, yellow, red, green background colors, black & white text
• Limiting factors - List the technical or audience factors that could limit the design goals of the site.
• Accessibility from home, other than a smart phone
• Many of my parents are only Spanish speaking

A Site Map is a visual representation of the various pages in your website and how they are linked together.  This will be the site map I am going to use but the home page will have four submenus to choose from.

A wire frame is a visual representation of the look and layout of the website: header, footers, columns, etc.

Pete the Cat Background Picture Header- Ms. Schonder’s First Grade Leaders
Home/Welcome	Class Information	Communication/Contact	Resources
Monthly Overview	Welcome Message
Footer - Copyright