Assignments and Reflections:
Follow the links to view evidence of my learning through this semester. Additionally, you will find my own thoughts as I completed the assignment.
Assignment 3.1- Introduction to the Virtual Lab
Wow. This project certainly was a struggle for me. As a generally technologically savvy person, I was quite frustrated through the process of getting onto the server, using Dreamweaver, etc. I just could not get things to work out properly for me. As I did not know how to fix it, it caused me endless stress. My husband kept looking me as if I were a crazy person while I was yelling at my computer screen. Luckily, I am back to the (relatively) "sane" wife that he had before this class began.
After the initial struggles, I really had a lot of fun creating the home page for MEDT 7467 and my generic homepage. I feel like the elements of design that I learned in MEDT 7468 - Introduction to Multimedia - during Summer 2010 have really paid off here. I am certainly aware of issues of color, font, consistency, etc. and how they can make or break a website or presentation.
Assignment 3.2 - Georgia WebQuest
I found this project to be less stressful than Project 1 - The Introduction. The skills learned through the introduction allowed me to navigate Dreamweaver and the whole "website creation" progress with ease. I was able to implement the materials from the tutorial video easily.
Assignment 3.3 - Creating your own WebQuest
I really enjoyed creating this WebQuest. I was surprised by how easy it was to come up with activities. The toughest part was all of the "nitty gritty" details that have to be completed. As far as coming up with the assignments, I felt that this was right in my comfort zone. After receiving feedback regarding the background choice (originally black), I chose to stick with a more traditional lighter background with black/blue text.
Assignment 3.4 - Initial Curriculum Plan Webpage
This assignment was daunting to start with, but as I got further and further into the assignment, I found that it wasn't so bad. The layout of the plan really was conducive to the ways in which you would plan in the classroom. Working through the procedures was a great and important start to creating the Curriculum Web.
Assignment 3.5 - Creating Navigation Icons with Photoshop
I really like making the icons and banners! It is definitely something that appeals to me as a creative person. Photoshop is actually pretty easy to learn once you realize that it's all about layers, ctrl-T is your friend, and make sure to click the arrow to set everything!
Assignment 3.6 - Creating a Curriculum Web Homepage
During this assignment, I was able to learn how to incorporate roll-over images and banners. As you can see from my other pages, I quite enjoy doing this! :) I think that it looks really great on the page and provides a lot of visual interest. I did struggle with getting the buttons aligned properly with my banner, but I don't think that it was a deal breaker. Learning about the templates was also interesting.
Assignment 3.7 - Sequencing Learning Activities Using Concept Maps
Again, this was an assignment that aligns very closely with what I do on a daily basis. As a teacher, I often brainstorm with my colleagues about alternative assessments, projects, activities, and other ways to measure student knowledge in a creative way. As I began to think of assignments, they sparked the ideas for other activities. I also liked the idea of representing my ideas in a map formation. This would easily allow you to visually see when one assignment is dependent on another.
Assignment 3.8 - Georgia Statehood: The Story of William McIntosh
This assignment provided instruction for incorporating div's into the webpage. I struggled with this because, based on the feedback given, I did not utilize my templates properly. I was also interested to learn about embedding Google quizzes straight into the webpage. I later incorporated this into my Curriculum Web.
Assignment 3.9 - Adding Learning Activities
The instructional plan was probably the easiest section of the planning guide! This is exactly what I do when planning at school. While this certainly contained more detail than my personal lesson plans, when I give plans to other people or create substitute plans, I have to be detailed. The instructional plan reminded me of this because I am, essentially, telling another teacher how I envision using this Curriculum Web in my classroom.
Assignment 3.10 - Georgia Statehood: The Yazoo Land Fraud
Again with the div's! Apparently a struggle for me was using the templates. However, I thought that the incorporation of a quiz which gives feedback is a really cool resource. In math class, one skill that I teach my students is identifying the mistake in the other multiple choice answers. This would be a great tool to use here. When creating alternate answer choices, I try to duplicate common mistakes. This would allow the teacher the chance to provide INSTANT feedback to the student, targeting their errors. What a great resource!
Assignment 3.11 - The Assessment Plan
I must say that, while I hate creating them, I recognize the beauty of using a rubric for assessment. In addition, I enjoy using a rubric when grading projects. In math, I don't use rubrics a lot. The answers lend themselves easily to right or wrong, so rubrics don't really make as much of an appearance as when I used to teach language arts. One tip that I would give other students in this course would be to create all rubrics for similar assignments at the same time. For example, if 3 projects require PowerPoint presentations, do all of the rubrics at the same time because they are probably going to have similar components. I created my rubrics in one file and inserted them in the same way that we inserted vocabulary words in the Yazoo Land Fraud assignment.
Assignment 3.13 - Linking Learning Activities
I utilized this time as an opportunity flesh out my assignments and provide more specifics to the descriptions. I also located any necessary resources (links, videos, pictures, etc.) and incorporated them into the assignment descriptions. It was here that the assignments really started coming together.
Assignment 3.15 - Creating Your Curriculum Web
This assignment seemed daunting - creating a curriculum web - yikes! However, as I continued working to organize my pages and my thoughts, it really started coming together. I caught myself saying, "I can do another page with this on it ... and another with this one it ... and another with this!" and then having to reign myself back in. I definitely found that, as I started coming up with creative ways to represent my information, more and more ideas were there!
Assignment 3.16 - Creating Your Curriculum Web: Multimedia
Within my Curriculum Web, I chose to embed videos, pictures, etc. in order to provide support and examples for my students in their efforts to complete the assignments. We did not have the assignments instructing us on how to embed video, but with the tutorials we'd been given on embedding quizzes, it was quite easy to figure out. My only issue is that my video is a You Tube video, and not all schools allow people to view You Tube.
Assignment 3.17 - The Website Evaluation Plan
When thinking about how to evaluate the Curriculum Web, it seemed only natural to ask students and teachers both to complete surveys asking for their opinions about the site. I provided students with their own page in which the Google quiz/survey was embedded. Teachers have a page of resources, including the survey. Rather than direct them away from the page, I chose to give them one less link to click! In terms of the questions, I decided to include scale-type questions and short answer.
Assignment 3.18 - Interactivity
My website includes interactive components - videos, quizzes, links, etc. There are multiple areas of the site that allow for interactivity with the assignments. Within the website, I chose to include pop-ups giving more information rather than overload the page with text. As my audience is a middle school student, the simpler the better!
Assignment 3.19 - The Teaching Plan
The teaching plan included within the Planning Guide is an assignment that reminds me of when I have to explain my way of thinking and teaching to another person. It's difficult, and you feel like you have to include so many details and specifics. I think, at times, the person on the receiving end can think, "Okay, it's not like I've never taught before!" I tried to be aware of this when I was creating this plan. I wanted to include enough to be specific and thorough but without becoming condescending.
Assignment 3.21 - Final Curriculum Webpage
This semester, I have felt like I was treading water, trying to keep up with things. However, I also feel a great sense of accomplishment at having completed this Curriculum Web. I can honestly say that this has been the most challenging course that I've taken during my quest for an Ed.S. degree, but I have also learned a lot about web design and how to utilize Dreamweaver and Photoshop. This Curriculum Web is an awesome resource for my classroom, and I can say that I made it! I hope to be able to share this with my peers and hope that others can get use from it, too. |
