Tuesday, April 25, 2017

Blog #8 Website and Final Reflection

This will be a longer post but will count as the final course reflection. Answer each of the following questions, and then when you finish, be sure to respond to some element of each other class member's reflection (not all of it, just pull out one comment each person made). Post by Monday, May 8th at midnight and respond to each classmate by Friday, May 12th (simply respond to one thing your classmates posted but please do not copy and paste the same comment...make it individual to THAT person's answers/comments.  

1. How do you feel about your final website creation? What would you like to add/change before the class is finished (if you can)? Please list your final website link AND QR code here. 

2. What is your biggest frustration with the website project? If you were teaching it, what would you do differently (other than switching to Wix)?

3. What did you like best about creating a professional website? List some successes and lessons learned for future website building with your students. 

4. As for the whole class, list your major accomplishments and learning points (this could be skills, apps, research, presentations, or something related to work we did in class). The more you list, the more you're showing you learned!

5. What is something about the class you wish you had done better with (committee work? Research? App-work?)? Why? Be explicit. 

6. If you were making changes to this class, what would you do differently? What projects would you add/eliminate/change? How would you adapt the class if you could? 

7. What grade do you feel you deserve in this class? Make you claim and then support it! (The more evidence you provide, the more likely I am to buy it!)



44 comments:

  1. 1. I feel really good about my website. I am really glad that I got it to work again because when I thought it was gone, I was really discouraged. I guess my advise was right, sometimes you just have to walk away and come back. One thing I need to add is my senior capstone paper. Once I am finished I will go back in and add it. The link to my website is: http://kaitlynsampson6.weebly.com/.

    2. Obviously, my biggest frustration was being logged out of my website. When I couldn't log in, and thought I figured it out I was excited. However, when I found out that my idea didn't work, I thought I lost everything and I wanted to give up. However, I persevered! If I was teaching this I would definitely keep it simple because weebly is not user friendly and it can get complicated fast.

    3. I really enjoyed creating this website because it was fun to be creative and because I was really proud of my hard work. To me, it was similar to making a social media page and I enjoy social media as well as representing myself, so I tried hard to make it look good. There were a lot of lessons I learned from making a website. I learned that it stresses people out, especially those who are not tech-savvy. I also learned to save my work every second.

    4. I learned a lot of new apps. I have been in plenty of education classes, but not being a major, I haven’t seen most of these apps. I also liked how more than half of the apps you don’t have to be a teacher to use, these apps can be used in other fields as well! I also learned that maybe I should have went into marketing lol. There were so many ideas that I had that went well, so it made me happy that

    5. I honestly think there is not much I could have done better. I always put effort into the committee and app work and did all my assignments. I could have done one of the blogs that I missed, and I could have tweeted more but other than that I think I did a great job putting fourth effort in this class.

    6. I am not sure that I have so many changes. I think if this class were to go to a gened, and everyone had to take it then the “teacher” aspect would have to go because there will be more than just one person who is not an education major. However, since this is an education class I think it would be good to master apps and further discuss the settings and how to use them in various situations. I would keep the website, but use a different site. And I would constantly remind students to blog, because I know I forgot a lot.

    7. I think I deserve an A in this class. I was always present and providing feedback and discussion, I did my job (social media) fully. I also came up with a lot of ideas in which we used in class and for tech-Tuesday. I also think that even though I was already tech-savvy coming into the class, I learned more and I questioned things that I didn’t know.

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    1. I also learned a lot of different apps. I enjoyed having you in the class because you are a different major and brought a different viewpoint to the class.

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    2. Kaitlyn you were excellent as the twitter person this year! Your tweets were hilarious and spot on. I do truly believe if you wanted to go into some kind of marketing you definitely could. Your website was awesome and I can see that it will be really helpful for you in your future.

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    3. I really enjoyed hearing your viewpoints during this class. By this point in our schooling a lot of us are only taking education courses so it was really nice to hear outside input.

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    4. I also think you deserve an A in the class. You always came up with really good ideas and did everything above and beyond.

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    5. Your website is awesome, Kaitlyn!!

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    6. I agree, the blogging could be tough to remember! It was cool to see new apps and from someone who is not an education major it is awesome that you enjoyed it.

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  2. 1. I feel very well about my final Website. I might add some teacher resources and maybe some more fun facts or who I am academically. I will also need to go back and add my capstone at some point. Finally after seeing everyone present I may very well add some more.
    2. Weebly was very frustrating to use as I could not always get it to do what I wanted. I would have demonstrated or gone over how to use weebly before we started. I may have also included youtube videos on how to do specific things on Weebly.
    3. I really enjoyed making a website as I think it will be super beneficial to me when I become a teacher. I learned it is trial and error and you must have patients. I also learned it looks better to keep each tab page consistent in style otherwise it looks unprofessional.
    4. I learned a lot in this course as I came in as a very un-techy person. I learned many apps and websites that I plan to use in the future like Rubistar, Plickers, and padlet. I also learned there is an app for everything and most of them are user friendly. I did not like presenting in front of everyone but I do believe Meghan and my presentation on QR codes was super beneficial.
    5. I wish I would have spent more time on researching what digital literacy actually is. I still do not have a full specific definition of what it is but I do understand what it entails.
    6. I honestly don’t think I would change anything in this course as I took a lot away from it. I found that jig sawing the chapters in the book really helped me understand and learn more. I feel if I would have had to read them all on my own I either wouldn’t have done it or I would have taken less out of it.
    7. I feel I deserve an A in this class as I was very punctual on my committee work and never slacked off there. I also completed all the assignments to the best of my ability and by the due dates. I also attended every tech Tuesday and came early to help set up.

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    1. I agree that these website will be good to use in the future, especially for future teachers. On the lines of the clear definition of digital literacy, I don't think there is just one definition. I think if you think of everything we learned this semester and maybe did some research you can come up with a clear definition of your own. Also, I understand how frustrating weebly was! Glad you stuck to it and I cant wait to see your finished website!

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    2. http://madelinecoffin.weebly.com/

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    3. I agree that jigsawing was really beneficial and made reading the two textbooks a lot quicker and not as hard. The fact that you were un-techy at first and now you are pretty techy is great! Your story shows what this class is trying to do for the whole campus. I am also happy that you were able to find a lot of useful apps to use for your future. That might be one of the best parts of this whole class. The large amount of apps that I now know I have access to.

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    4. I totally agree with the frustration of not getting weebly to do what you want it to do, it is hard to make the website really yours when you can't do what you want.

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    5. I really liked jigsawing also. It was a great way to save time in a semester class. I personally learn more by reading things on my own but I think if we would have presented the chapters more visually than I would have learned more.

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    6. The youtube videos would be a good tool to have. I also liked the jigsawing and it helped to just see and hear the main points.

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  4. 1. I changed my website a little bit after class today because everyone else gave me such great ideas! So, now I really like how my website came out. I made a lot of the little changes that were mentioned in class like putting my capstone project coming in fall. My URL is http://madisonmckindley.weebly.com/

    2. My biggest frustration would have to be the learning curve to understand Weebly completely. It took awhile but I was able to eventually become decent with working with it! I would also say knowing what to add and what not to add.

    3. I loved picking the images on Weebly as my backgrounds. They were really pretty and I tried to pick ones that kind of reflected things that I like and enjoyed. I also enjoyed that I am now decent with using Weebly and I can work with students to make their own webpages to highlight their different math projects we will be doing. Having my middle schoolers create websites will be really practical for their futures and will allow them to be creative!

    4. I feel that I have become much better at using any devices and knowing the different terminologies through out the technological field. My mom does this kind of stuff for a living and I truly never understood until now! I was able to enhance my research skills as well as my professional presentation skills. A lot of the activities we completed forced me to refine my thinking and try to break stuff down to more simpler parts to be able to explain to others.

    5. Since I did my presentation alone and I did my committee job alone for the most part (except Maddie always helped with the food setup), I wish I could have done some more collaborative work. I know I will be working in a lot of different team settings in middle school and more practice would have been helpful! I also wish I took the beginning of the year app exploration a little bit more seriously so I could have practiced my research skills some more.

    6. First, I would force the food job to have two people and not just one. It would be nice to have a partner to argue with the various restaurants around Fulton! Haha! I would also try switching the setup of Tech Tuesday into different formats to keep things different. I like the few ways we did but possibly doing it in other ways can be beneficial for all involved.

    7. I believe I deserve an A. I worked extremely hard on all of projects and really tried to learn as much as I can. I never had late assignments and I always came prepared for class each day. I was able to successfully get food mostly on time each week as well. I really tried to be a sponge and soak in what all the other girls were saying about their apps and what they were finding throughout the semester.

    ***I tried to add the QR code but Blogger would not let me add a picture!

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    1. I just thought of something to add to the class! Possibly bring someone in who is a digi lit expert or practices exceptionally at their school or place of business and have them either host a Tech Tuesday or just present to us as a class! It could be like a video conference call or in person but that would be really fun element!

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    2. I agree, I think that the finance person should have more than one person. That job is very involved and has a lot of running around town, especially if you have class right before Tech Tuesday. But you did a great job handling the job on your own!!!!!!!

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    3. I agree Weebly was hard to use but I finally got the hang of it! I also enjoyed picking out pictures to put on my site! I really liked your website!

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    4. I also feel like I have become much better with technology. I have learned about a lot of the most recent apps and how to use my devices better as well

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    5. Your idea of bringing someone else in was awesome!! I think everyone would really like that. You did a great job on getting the food, even when there were some setbacks!

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    6. I really liked your website and I think that you did a great job each week getting the food, that was a big job! i agree i also really enjoyed picking the pictures for my website, i didn't realize how much work goes into creating a website. i like your suggestion of having a tech expert at a tech tuesday

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  5. 1. I feel like my website looks pretty good, it has a nice balance between personal and professional. I am not sure I would really change anything, I am happy with the way that it looks and what each tab has in it. There may be some things that I change in the future to make it fit my needs more as a teacher, but right now nothing.
    2. Weebly is very set in its templets. It is very hard to change the placement of things and make the colors and backgrounds how you like them. I mean other than changing what we use I would just start early on this and go through the website section by section and explore a little at a time.
    3. I liked making the website because it allowed me to be creative and allowed me to show all of the hard work that I have put in over the last three years. I learned that making a website is extremely stressful, especially people like me who are not as tech savvy and a perfectionist.
    4. I did quite a bit of research on other apps so that we could see what is trending and present on those apps. Not only did we talk about education specific but apps that can be used in a variety of ways. It was really fun getting to explore apps that I didn’t even know existed, even some of them were education apps.
    5. I think the one thing I could have done better with is being on top of the blogging. I put a lot of effort in the research and other aspects of this class and tried to make myself more open to using technology.
    6. I don’t think I would change anything in this class. I really enjoyed Tech Tuesday being our program because we were able to showcase all of the work we were doing in this class. I believe we already found a way to adapt the class by using the stations as some of the Tech Tuesdays.
    7. I believe that I deserve an A in this class. I put in a lot of time and effort in doing research on apps that we could present on and I believe that I grew in my ability to use technology. By the end of the class I had classmates coming up to me to fix things on their ipads and helping them with apps and websites.

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    1. Sorry here is my website :) http://peytonmhall.weebly.com/

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    2. I agree that I like the general format of the class. The changes I introduced were minor but the overall format works really well. It allowed for us all to do something and excel at it. I like how you pointed out that Weebly is about it templates. It is really true! Weebly believes it should be one way and makes it hard as possible to change it another way!

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    3. I agree your website had a great balance between personal and professional. I liked how you had a variety of pictures. I also wouldn't change anything about the course I think the stations would be my only adaption.

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    4. I really liked your website. I could definitely tell a difference between yours and everyone elses that made their first website. In yours, I could see that you made revisions to made it look really professional.

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    5. Yeah it was cool seeing all of your experience and hard work in one place! Weebly was set, so I feel like it can be hard to find the right template.

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    6. I agree and i think your website was great! I like what you said about reflecting on all of the hard work you have done over the years, I think the website project was a great way to do this.

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  6. 1. I like how my website turned out. I was worried at first, but as I kept working on it and trying new things the better it got. I am adding a few more personal details and some things I realized I should have from class on Thursday. I can see myself using it in the future and being a great tool.

    2. I think just not knowing how it worked was the biggest frustration. It took a lot of time to feel familiar with it, but I still don't think I am completely comfortable on weebly. I think doing more of a demo and showing students websites from weebly at the beginning and having them be able to explore a lot like we did would help a lot.

    3. I like having the website and being able to share personal and professional experiences. It is more than just a resume and I like how you can make it your own by adding pictures and different backgrounds and anything you want! It could definitely be stressful for students, so just making sure they have enough time and knowing what content they need would be good for them.

    4. I think I learned a lot about all the various apps. I didn't realize how much technology was used, because in my practicum classroom they rarely ever used technology. I researched a lot of different apps I had never heard of and I found some I would definitely want to use in my classroom. Presenting Nearpod on Tech Tuesday made me really familiar with that and I would feel comfortable using it with my students. I also learned about my classmates apps and websites since we were actually able to go through those with them and how interactive it was. The IPads were awesome to have and now I for sure want one when I am teacher. Being able to use those all semester and just playing around with it helped a lot!

    5. I could have done better with sharing my research. I feel like I learned about a lot of apps and wasn't very good at relaying that back to my classmates. I should have spoke up more and shared those.

    6.  I think I would just switch up the setup of Tech Tuesday, like we have talked about. I also feel like the researchers could have a more straight forward job, because sometimes it felt like I would research apps and then wasn't sure what to do with them, especially towards the end.

    7. I think I deserve an A in this class. I put a lot of work into my Tech Tuesday presentation and was always present in those and in class. I completed my assignments on time and tried the best I could on them. I learned about a lot of new apps and I feel like my abilities in using technology for educational purposes and overall has really improved over the semester from the work I put in this class.

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    1. I think you should have shared your research also! There was definitely times when everyone was waiting for someone to speak up about an App we could present at TechTuesday. However, I really liked your website!

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    2. Not knowing how something works can be frustrating when you are working with anything! I know how you feel! I liked how you pointed out having enough time for students to work on a website. That is very true. Having students create something like this on a time crunch would not be the best learning experience.

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    3. I think your website was great and your reflection was also really good and detailed. I like what you said about your practium class not having technology, it was the same in mine, so i was also very grateful to be able to learn more about apps from this class

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  8. http://ashleygoings.weebly.com/ here is the link for my website

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  9. 1. I really like my final website creation. It is really personal to me and shows how much I value my family. http://msrayclass.weebly.com/
    2. I really did not like how when I tried to publish certain things on Weebly, it would not save correctly. Also the website worked better on certain so I would just have to give up on some days and try again the next day. In my classroom, I would allow my students to show me their progress each day just in case something would save correctly.
    3.I really liked creating a professional website because I feel like it is going to help me when I'm trying to get a job. It was a good start to be prepared for job interviews. I just haven't really sit down and thought about the things that were required on this assignment and I think it prepared me.
    4.This class helped me feel more comfortable to teach in front of a large group of people through TechTuesdays. I also realized the more I researched and knew about my apps, the better I presented the app.
    5. I wish I was able to go to more TechTuesdays because I had my RA class instead.
    6. I think I would have more short app presentations in the classroom, just so that our Digital Literacy class was very up to date with the newest apps.
    7. I think I deserve an A in this class. I updated our Facebook and added everyone I knew on campus. I posted about every Tech Tuesday every week and did everything that I was asked to do. I have definitely improved on my technology skills also.

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    1. Kelsey, I liked how you pointed out that creating this website has made you really think about getting a job and how it prepared you. I felt the same way. That is great that you added a lot of people on facebook.

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    2. I agree I like the idea of having more short app presentations! It also helped me feel more comfortable of teaching in front of a large group, so I do not think that should be taken away completely.

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    3. Yeah i agree it was a great project to create a personal website, it will be so useful when we apply for jobs!

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  10. 1. How do you feel about your final website creation? What would you like to add/change before the class is finished (if you can)?
    a. Please list your final website link AND QR code here.
    I am happy with my final website I think that it captures important aspects of who I am. I had finished it last week so I had all my family members look at it and see if there were any mistakes. Their feedback was a number of small spelling mistakes that I made to the website. It was useful getting feedback from everyone in the class on Thursday. I think it helped that we had more context on the requirements of the assignment so we could critique each other on those, in addition some of us had similar struggled with navigating the website software. I think that each website software ( Wix and weebly have their benefits) I felt that wix was definitely more user friendly and had more of a variety of templates to choose from, but it was a problem that I could not add a text box that would allow me to scroll, this meant that I had to insert a very large textbox and I fear that a reader of my website may not have the patience to read through all of the content. If I was able to change this I would’ve.

    https://mtinney19.wixsite.com/meghan-tinney

    2. What is your biggest frustration with the website project? If you were teaching it, what would you do differently (other than switching to Wix)?
    One of my biggest frustrations was choosing what perspective to create it from; I had to choose between creating it from the perspective of where I am now, a college student, or creating it from the perspective of a future teacher, or someone that will be involved in the education sector. This was mainly because I don’t want to have to go in and edit again, but I think that that’s something that cannot be avoided, especially in this field. I think that as a teacher it so so important to continually grow and be willing to learn and most of that learning happens from experience. Today I may believe that I will use a constructivist teaching style in my classroom, but it’s only when you put these theories into practice that we are truly able to understand them.
    If I were to teach this unit I would break it up into smaller parts. When we first got the assignment it was a bit intimidating and it was hard to understand how much work needed to be put into it. It is for his reason that I would break up the assignments into smaller parts and have the students submit each individual part of peer review the parts, before putting the whole website together.
    2. What did you like best about creating a professional website? List some successes and lessons learned for future website building with your students.
    What I enjoyed most about this website was being challenged, it took time to learn how to navigate wix, and then it took time deciding on what to include on the website and going back and reviewing all of the work that I have done before like my resume and teaching philosophy. It was nice to look at both of them form a different perspective and coming at it with more experience. I really enjoyed creating my E-portfolio, I was able to relies all of the very useful to reflect on all of the assignments that I have done. I am so appreciative of everything that I have learned thus far at Westminster. I look forward to being able to add more to my website

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  11. 4. As for the whole class, list your major accomplishments and learning points (this could be skills, apps, research, presentations, or something related to work we did in class). The more you list, the more you're showing you learned!
    One of the major lessons that I learned is that technology can be my friend, I was very nervous coming into this class because I thought that I did not know anything about technology. This class has showed me that there are still many things that I need to learn but that I have a good foundation form being a part of this technology generation. I have learned some really useful ways of incorporating technology into the classroom, I really enjoyed reading Ziemke’s book and felt I learnt a lot from that. I will definitely be using apps like notability, Plickers, rubistar, padlet and QR codes in the near future.

    5. What is something about the class you wish you had done better with (committee work? Research? App-work?)? Why? Be explicit.

    I wish that I had been better with the marketing committee; I think that we did a really good job of the posters and the emails but I wish we had had more time to explore different marketing techniques and get feedback from the people that come to Tech Tuesday to see what the most effective marketing strategy was. I which that we had more time to explore the station set up for tech Tuesday, because that was really fun! In addition I wish that I had explored using the apps that we learnt outside of the classroom.

    6. If you were making changes to this class, what would you do differently? What projects would you add/eliminate/change? How would you adapt the class if you could?
    I don’t think I would change anything about this class, I really enjoyed it and I was able to learn so much. I really find that doing jigsaws are a great way of learning new topics, so I really enjoyed that part of the class. In addition it was good to be challenged with having to run tech Tuesday and I learnt a lot through the committee I was part of. I think it was nice to have the different components to the class of tech Tuesday and the normal class time. What I might add to the class would be a practical component, for example I would ensure that the students have at least observe in a 1:1 classroom setting, to give them experience of what it would be like to work with a whole classroom of students that have devices.
    7. What grade do you feel you deserve in this class? Make you claim and then support it! (The more evidence you provide, the more likely I am to buy it!)

    I feel that if I was to separate tech Tuesday and the classwork and give them a separate grade, I think that I deserve an A for the classwork because I handed in all of the assignments and did them to the best if my abilities. I really enjoyed making my jigsaw presentations, and enjoyed doing the assignment reflections on the blog. I think I always put in my all though I know that I could have been more open minded towards learning more about some apps. For the tech Tuesday part of the class I would give myself a B, I was late on some weeks with sending the emails and was not able to help Maddie with the last 2 posters. In addition I feel that I could have done more in terms of the advertising the event. In terms of the presentation for tech Tuesday I feel that Maddie and I made a good job of our presentation, we were well prepared and I think that everyone was able to learn a lot from our presentation.

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    1. I liked how you pointed out that you struggled writing in the right roll. I felt the same way. I know I am about to student teach so I want to write in that way but also I am still currently in school. I also liked how you said break this up into smaller pieces. It is extremely overwhelming to have all at once but for students who prefer it they can have it all.

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    2. I agree your tech Tuesday presentation went really well and I feel like it taught people a lot. I had a hard time deciding the perspective of my website, but I think yours turned out awesome!

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