Journal #7

In this class the RSS feed was new to me.  I had been apart of things such as Twitter, Teachers Pay Teachers, and Pinterest.  However, the RSS feed allowed me to follow a few teachers who I liked their style of classroom and was able to constantly visit their blog. I found a dictated sentence blog that will give me preset sentences I can grab whenever I need a quick sentence to assess the kids on.   It gave me links to new resources and a little piece of mind knowing other teachers were going through similar things.  This also came from the affinity group of new teachers.  It is encouraging to see other's successes but also relief when you realize you are not the only one who feels like they are treading water.  I want to start gearing my Twitter for professional use rather than the college gossip I used it for previously.  I think because of the ease of Twitter, I will be more apt to check it more frequently and it will be the best tool in keeping connected and learning new things related to teaching.

Journal #6: Self Reflection

So far the journey in this class has been a little like a whirlwind.  I have truly enjoyed every class and what we have learned, even though at times I am thinking, "What did he just do".  Even when doing homework, I have liked how the book is interactive and you get to practice what they are telling you. This kind of approach works for a hands on learner like myself.
I found in this class the easiest thing for me to understand was the linking of files, which is ironic because that was my latest issue.  However, the book work and lab component came much easier to me then weeks prior or past.
The most difficult part for me is css.  Knowing how to format and doing everything perfectly has been a challenge.  I can see why web designers stick to one type of job and leave the other things to other workers, building a site by yourself is hard work.
Even though it was practically done for me with most of the formatting, the most rewarding homework exercise was one of the last exercise because you could actually get a feel of what you can do with a plain web page to make it your own.

file:///Users/NicoleJenee/Documents/GED%20512/512/Book/13-7.html
I hope by the end of this class I will be more confident in the source formatting and using css to make it "pretty".

Journal #5 Twitter

Using Twitter in the academic setting is a new idea that has much controversy.  Many teachers struggle with just allowing their students to get onto Microsoft Word, and now integrating a social media into class just might push them over the edge.  I think that students would become more engaged if twitter was used in the class not only because it is interactive and fun, but they would feel successful because they already know how to navigate this site.  I see this being used in higher education such as high school, maybe junior high.  It could be very beneficial in classes such as History, Science, Government, Economics. Students could use #s to find out about a certain topic.  For example if students were trying to get current event topics they could type in #news, #currentevent, #(their city),  #(current topic). 

How would this be useful in elementary?
I can see it in older grades, but elementary is still a little fuzzy.  I could possibly use it also for research purposes, because you can follow pages such as, "FunFacts", "Space", etc.  I would probably just make it a whole group activity rather than individual profiles, as that could be against parent's rules.

How could they monitor inappropriate posts?
I am not familiar with twitter to the point of being able to filter posts.  I would think that the districts wifi would stop some inappropriate posts.

Journal #4: Project plan

Site title - Miss Bell's Class 
Developer - Nicole Bell
Rational or focus - The goal of this website is to provide my student's parents with an online resource to answer any questions they might have and keep them updated with the most current information. 1st graders are not the best source of information when needing to know future dates, homework strategies, etc.  I also want to supply them with supplemental resources like videos on how to do the common core math and behavior management ideas.  
Main features outline - 
-Navigation 
-Links to sources
-pictures and videos
-basic styling 

Content - 
-Home page: that navigates to the other 4 pages.
-Announcements and Information: This will have upcoming dates, homework and any other important things I need them to know about. 
-Math: Has the current Common Core standards and videos or tutorials that explain how to teach it.
-ELA: Has the current Common Core standards, what we are learning, and additional resources to supplement what we are doing.
-Behavior Management: Describes how my class is ran, and has resources and ideas of how to implement plans at home. 

Target audience - The parents of my students.
Design considerations: I want this to be user friendly, not all my parents are tech savvy.  Possibly usable on a phone. 
Limiting factors - This is my first class so I am trying my best to pick up everything we go over, but the div and id concepts are still confusing me! 

Journal #3

Kessler, S. (2010, September 29). The Case For Social Media in Schools. Retrieved October 20, 2014, from http://mashable.com/2010/09/29/social-media-in-school/

In this article, "The Case For Social Media in Schools", Sarah Kessler gave the readers 6 reasons why social media should be in our schools.  In a brief paraphrased manner they are, social media is here to stay, it can be engaging, there are safe tools available, promotes social education, used for collaboration and use it to help you.  This article promotes what I believe to be common sense, incorporate what students already know ingot he classroom.  Students already know how to use computers and waste time on social media, so why not show them how to use it productively and trick them into doing classwork and learning.  If you tell a student "DON'T or NO" they are only going to hear  "DO and YES". Instead of resisting and trying to stop the use of computers and social media in school we should be providing constructive sites like edmodo.  I found this year that my district found some of this to be true for teachers. Last year sites like Pinterest and Teachers pay Teachers was blocked, but they found that teachers are using these sites to be productive and more creative in their teaching so they were unblocked this year.  

Q1:Could telling students they can use social media be beneficial?
I think that showing students the safe and proper way to use it is better than prohibiting something and them figuring out how to do it on their own with no guidance.  It is just like everything else with kids, if you make something taboo they are only going to want it more.  But those who are given some freedom but shown how do it safely will be more likely to be successful.  

Q2:  Are teacher equipped to handle this new way of teaching?
In my experience, most teachers are too behind the times to even know how to work a powerpoint.  There is a huge gap between the new and the old teachers.  I think once the older teacher are gone, it will be easier for such schools to exist like the one mentioned in the article.  As of now, teachers are just complaining about having to integrate new tablets or laptops and refuse to do new trainings on sites such as edmodo.  

Journal #2

For my affinity group, I have chosen Haiku.  Haiku is a black board type of site that I am currently using for my induction.  This site allows me to post my submissions, read others posts and ask them questions.  I hope to learn different ways of implementing curriculum and mastering the CSTPs.  

Link :  https://rcoe.haikulearning.com/do/account/login?xauth=0&login=nicole.bell

For my digg reader, I found that it does not have that many options under topics.  I was looking for some behavioral/ classroom management blogs but there weren’t any.  However, I did find a free technology blog for teachers, and a few good resources for 1st grade teachers.  I would also like to find some tips for 1st year teachers, or tips on how to destress as a teacher.  

Q1: How can you manage your time and read the post that are “worth it”.

Filtering through all the posts can be overwhelming.  I have found that “Made for 1st grade” has been my favorite so far so I make it a point to click on the page first to skim through before looking at the whole list. However, I would like it if they could color coat them so it would be more visual at a glance.  

Q2: How can I use my affinity group as being helpful rather than just another thing to do?

I need to set aside an hour a week to do my work for induction and read through the posts of other teachers to see if they have the same problems as I do and what some of the suggestions are.  

Journal 1: Chapters 1-3 Response

Robbins, J. (2012). Learning web design: A beginner's guide to HTML, CSS, Javascript, and web graphics (4th ed.). Sebastopol, CA: O'Reilly.

Summary: The premise of the first three chapters is to get people new to web design a quick overview of some important vocabulary and concepts.  Chapter one delves into the components of web design and the different jobs and their duties.  This gave me more insight into all that goes on in creating websites and how it could be a one-person job or 30 people's jobs.   I enjoyed the concept of the web design layered cake, appealing to the girl's mind.  Web design has many layers to it, first with HTML creating the structure, then CCS focusing on presentation and lastly JavaScript that creates the behavior of the site.  Chapter two describes how the web works and how to not get it confused with the Internet.  All of these different components to the web makes me thankful for the domain name systems, which make it easier for the every day user to find what they need.  Just looking at a simple URL, there is the protocol, the site name that has the host name and domain name, and the absolute path has the directory path and the document.  This leads us to Chapter three that discusses some big concepts starting with multiple devices.  This concept talks about making the site with bare bones, so that it can be formatted for different devices, since mobile and tablet use are so predominant now.  Lastly, I was surprised to read that there is the Web Accessibility Initiative that requires websites to be usable for all kinds of people. 

Q1: What is the difference between the intranet and the extranet in how they are formatted? 

         The intranet has firewalls up that only grants access to people inside the company so important information cannot be leaked.  The extranet is the same but allows select users outside the firewall to have access.  The extranet limits what people can see with the use of passwords. 

Q2:  What kind of computer would be better for a web designer?

         Windows has been around for longer than the Mac and therefore is more compatible with multiple softwares and browsers.  For example, Flash does not work on Mac products and is used in many websites.  However, many in the graphic design professionals use Macs, especially for the large monitors you can get.  It is important to test your designs on the opposite machine to check for compatibility. However, it says to use Windows on the Mac, so now you are using the PC operating system.