I don't plan on becoming too much of a professional in the field of design but I hope to get a general idea of what looks good and how generally everything works. My goals are to learn the basics so that if I create web pages or blogs for students and parents in my classroom it will be clear what message I am trying to get across. I will also keep in mind the different connection speeds and experience with technology that both my students and their parents have.
I am interested in all aspects and in general just how everything works together so smoothly. The speed and ease of the internet are mind blowing to me. I find it especially interesting that each site has a different address that can be retrieved at the drop of a hat and that someone is behind the scenes of every site and took the time to create each set of text and picture element.
I am a very patient and organized person and also have the interest to create web pages which are all very important traits of a web designer. Web design is a slow process and everything has to go in a certain order so for everything to look right, the designer has to pay close attention and accept that everything is probably not going to go properly the first time around.
I will definitely need to brush up on my design skills in general. I still struggle with the look of a page including text styles, color schemes, and placement of objects. I will also need to learn more about inserting other types of media and what all of the different phrases and letters of web design mean.
I already have a scanner, a pretty up to date computer and some general graphics software. I'm not sure that I will go out and buy everything right away because with all of the free software that is out there, I can create a pretty decent site. If I do decide to go further I will need to get some sort of an HTML editor, extra memory and possibly some multimedia tools if I want to put in sound or videos. I think another great tool to have would be some type of web page authoring because that would make the process much easier. If I had a program with some templates this would help immensely because I wouldn't have to create everything from scratch.
I think getting into web design can be an overwhelming and expensive hobby or job but if you just take your time and realize that you don't have to be an expert right away and can learn a lot of it as you go, things will go much more smoothly. After all, web design should be something fun so having the desire to start is a step in the right direction.
Sunday, October 12, 2008
Thursday, May 22, 2008
Everything takes time and energy
For me blogging has become a way of expression and to collaborate ideas with other people. It is somewhat therapeutic and refreshing to get my ideas out there and also to hear what others have to add. The only issue is time.
Even while studying abroad where I have less school work than normal I still find it hard to find time to sit down and get caught up. So much happens in the blogging world everyday that you have to pick and choose because there is no way that anyone could look at everything. Some people devote their lives to blogging and that is what they do. Their jobs are to do research and blog about it, these people have a greater chance of being immersed in blogging and having the opportunity to be more involved.
I have found that the further and further you loose track, the harder it is to get caught up. While I was having a hard time I started to thinking about classroom teachers and the time that they have outside of the classroom. It's another added time commitment that teachers have. If teachers decide to have their students blog they need to make sure and factor in the time it will take to check up on all of their blogging while also commenting and responding to their work.
Many teachers are hesitant to incorporate technology into their daily instruction, so a good approach to implementing new things is to include an ed tech in the project. The ed tech specialist is there to aid and assist the classroom teachers with technology. Teachers should first decide what they want to be able to do with the technology and then the specialist could do the research and figure out ways to work in technology to fulfill the teachers desires. This would be extremely helpful to teachers who are unsure of themselves and don't feel confident enough to work with technology on their own.
Basically, it's a time commitment and project that classroom teachers have to want to achieve. If the teacher is serious about incorporating or using any type of technology in their classroom it is definitely possible.
Even while studying abroad where I have less school work than normal I still find it hard to find time to sit down and get caught up. So much happens in the blogging world everyday that you have to pick and choose because there is no way that anyone could look at everything. Some people devote their lives to blogging and that is what they do. Their jobs are to do research and blog about it, these people have a greater chance of being immersed in blogging and having the opportunity to be more involved.
I have found that the further and further you loose track, the harder it is to get caught up. While I was having a hard time I started to thinking about classroom teachers and the time that they have outside of the classroom. It's another added time commitment that teachers have. If teachers decide to have their students blog they need to make sure and factor in the time it will take to check up on all of their blogging while also commenting and responding to their work.
Many teachers are hesitant to incorporate technology into their daily instruction, so a good approach to implementing new things is to include an ed tech in the project. The ed tech specialist is there to aid and assist the classroom teachers with technology. Teachers should first decide what they want to be able to do with the technology and then the specialist could do the research and figure out ways to work in technology to fulfill the teachers desires. This would be extremely helpful to teachers who are unsure of themselves and don't feel confident enough to work with technology on their own.
Basically, it's a time commitment and project that classroom teachers have to want to achieve. If the teacher is serious about incorporating or using any type of technology in their classroom it is definitely possible.
Saturday, May 10, 2008
Irish final exams
So the higher education system here is much different than I'm used to and I'm having a hard time adjusting to their approach at final exams. Back in the US, you semi know what to expect on your final exams and especially being an education major it's all about reflecting and what you've achieved and learned personally over the semester. Going from reflections, reflections and more reflections to writing essay exams for an hour and a half is stressing me out a bit.
The way that higher education in Ireland works is that students attend lectures and tutorials all semester long. By all semester, I mean for 2 1/2 months they have classes. Then, they have a month off to "prepare for exams" before one week of review classes. At that point exams start but exams can be anytime over a month long period, in this case from May 6th-May 28th. For me, this approach has been somewhat difficult to handle.
For my essay exams, I am expected to remember and write about information that I learned 2 1/2 months ago which isn't the easiest thing to do. Most Irish students don't always attend classes on a regular basis and spend the week before their exams cramming and doing research in the library. Students in the US are no strangers to cramming, but to have a whole month and a half of time off makes it hard to crack down and get back to work. One of my friends has an Irish roommate who literally studied for her final exams in the car on the way to take them.
The exams themselves are unique as well. They put a mix of different classes all in a huge room of rowed desks and put you to work. You have 90 min to write 1-2 essays depending on the course. You are asked to cite sources from books that you were to have read. So beyond remembering the information you read you also have to remember the title, author and year of publication of these books. This seems strange to me and another burden that is hanging over my head.
My exams aren't until May 26th and May 27th so I have quite a bit of time to wait still and motivate myself to do some research before attempting my luck at my first Irish exams. Hopefully they go well but I won't know until after I'm already back home in the US :)
The way that higher education in Ireland works is that students attend lectures and tutorials all semester long. By all semester, I mean for 2 1/2 months they have classes. Then, they have a month off to "prepare for exams" before one week of review classes. At that point exams start but exams can be anytime over a month long period, in this case from May 6th-May 28th. For me, this approach has been somewhat difficult to handle.
For my essay exams, I am expected to remember and write about information that I learned 2 1/2 months ago which isn't the easiest thing to do. Most Irish students don't always attend classes on a regular basis and spend the week before their exams cramming and doing research in the library. Students in the US are no strangers to cramming, but to have a whole month and a half of time off makes it hard to crack down and get back to work. One of my friends has an Irish roommate who literally studied for her final exams in the car on the way to take them.
The exams themselves are unique as well. They put a mix of different classes all in a huge room of rowed desks and put you to work. You have 90 min to write 1-2 essays depending on the course. You are asked to cite sources from books that you were to have read. So beyond remembering the information you read you also have to remember the title, author and year of publication of these books. This seems strange to me and another burden that is hanging over my head.
My exams aren't until May 26th and May 27th so I have quite a bit of time to wait still and motivate myself to do some research before attempting my luck at my first Irish exams. Hopefully they go well but I won't know until after I'm already back home in the US :)
Friday, May 9, 2008
Jott-is it really effective?
So I was cleaning up my feeds and found a post I had missed before that I found to be interesting. It was a post about Jott and ways to use it in the classroom. The post can be found here. Basically Jott changes your voice into email, text messages, or other lists that you are able to refer back to later. It is also possible to create groups and other contacts so that you can send specific things to certain people or groups. Most young students these days have cell phones that they carry with them regularly anyways so why not use this to our advantage and let them use their phones for educational purposes.
The post had suggestions on how to use Jott and I added a few of my own. The post listed things such as:
-at the end of a day, have students jott their homework for the day
-students can jott the most important things they learned in class that day.
-students can jott any ideas that they would like to learn about.
-have students jott any concepts they are still unclear about.
-students can jott a summary of what was taught or they learned that day.
-encourage students to review their jotts as another way to review their learning for the week
-students can compare jotts if they missed an important point that was presented
-if a student misses a class, they can receive the necessary information right to their cell phone instantly
-At the end of a unit, students can print out their jotts to help with review.
I also thought of a few draw backs:
-research is still in its early phases so some glitches may occur
-you can only record in 30 sec intervals
-you have to speak very clearly or information may not transmit correctly
-students may use cell phones not for jott purposes
I see great potential for this being an aid for students who struggle with study habits. I have learned from personal experience that if I write things down or review them directly after learning I am more likely to remember them in the future. Also, saying things out loud always helps so if you can record yourself saying something and then play it back later, that may aid in memorization. Jott is a good review tool and a strategy to try with struggling learners
How to Jott
The post had suggestions on how to use Jott and I added a few of my own. The post listed things such as:
-at the end of a day, have students jott their homework for the day
-students can jott the most important things they learned in class that day.
-students can jott any ideas that they would like to learn about.
-have students jott any concepts they are still unclear about.
-students can jott a summary of what was taught or they learned that day.
-encourage students to review their jotts as another way to review their learning for the week
-students can compare jotts if they missed an important point that was presented
-if a student misses a class, they can receive the necessary information right to their cell phone instantly
-At the end of a unit, students can print out their jotts to help with review.
I also thought of a few draw backs:
-research is still in its early phases so some glitches may occur
-you can only record in 30 sec intervals
-you have to speak very clearly or information may not transmit correctly
-students may use cell phones not for jott purposes
I see great potential for this being an aid for students who struggle with study habits. I have learned from personal experience that if I write things down or review them directly after learning I am more likely to remember them in the future. Also, saying things out loud always helps so if you can record yourself saying something and then play it back later, that may aid in memorization. Jott is a good review tool and a strategy to try with struggling learners
How to Jott
Thursday, May 1, 2008
The importance of Commenting
This was a post that was of special interest to me because I feel like this is the area where I am slacking in my blog. I have been following many blogs and have found many great ideas and strategies of ways to use blogging in education. I have commented on a few of the posts that have interested me and have received feedback on my own posts. My next goal is to increase the number of comments I make and also respond to the comments that people post on my blog.
Also on the edublogger site, the post is titled Commenting, Learning Together and the Comment Challenge.
The general idea is that they are having a Comment Challenge to encourage everyone to blog and comment more often. There are going to be tasks each day that the participants need to complete and prizes award at the end. Teachers can involve their students and have them compete in the challenge.
The purpose of the challenge is to show the importance of commenting in increasing the size of a blogging community and to show how much you can learn from others. It's amazing how much you can learn through collaboration and when so many different people bring their knowledge and experience to the table. Blogging can open a whole new world of opportunities because by reading other people's opinions, it may just change a personal opinion or spark an interest in a new area.
To me, blogging and just collaboration through technology in general is mind blowing. There is such a great opportunity to learn from people that you will never have the chance to meet and there are so many experiences that you can learn about through these people. Just in the few months that I have been participating in blogging and doing a bit more research on using technology in education, I have discovered so many great ideas that I would never have thought of on my own. And you better believe that I'm going to sign up for the challenge :)
Post: Commenting, Learning Together & the Comment Challenge
Also on the edublogger site, the post is titled Commenting, Learning Together and the Comment Challenge.
The general idea is that they are having a Comment Challenge to encourage everyone to blog and comment more often. There are going to be tasks each day that the participants need to complete and prizes award at the end. Teachers can involve their students and have them compete in the challenge.
The purpose of the challenge is to show the importance of commenting in increasing the size of a blogging community and to show how much you can learn from others. It's amazing how much you can learn through collaboration and when so many different people bring their knowledge and experience to the table. Blogging can open a whole new world of opportunities because by reading other people's opinions, it may just change a personal opinion or spark an interest in a new area.
To me, blogging and just collaboration through technology in general is mind blowing. There is such a great opportunity to learn from people that you will never have the chance to meet and there are so many experiences that you can learn about through these people. Just in the few months that I have been participating in blogging and doing a bit more research on using technology in education, I have discovered so many great ideas that I would never have thought of on my own. And you better believe that I'm going to sign up for the challenge :)
Post: Commenting, Learning Together & the Comment Challenge
Writing better blog posts
I came upon the edublogger site and found the last two posts to be quite interesting. The first post was titled Five Tips for Writing Better Blogs. The five tips are all great strategies that I have found helpful as I am still in the early stages of blogging.
1)Use short paragraphs
-This is helpful to break up the content and not have one overwhelming long paragraph that people are less likely to take the time to read
2)Use headings to show importance
-If the reader is just skimming the post it will be helpful to provide them with easy to find bullets that show what the different sections of the post are about
3)Remember to hyper link
-When someone is reading your post, if you relate to an article or another blog, it is always helpful to link to that post so that the reader can see for themselves and make their own comparisons
4) Comment back to readers that post on your blog
-Taking the time to respond to comments is essential because this is how you build the community of your blog and encourage people to continue to read your blog
5) Subscribe to your own blog feed
- It is important to see what your blog looks like to others as to make sure that font size and appearance are clear
I have found these five tips to be very helpful. They are very simple things that you can do to make your blog more eye appealing and readable. I hope to increase the amount of comments that I respond to. This is one area that I believe my blog has been lacking. In hopes of increasing the size of my blogging community, it is important that I show people my interest in their posts and also their responses to mine.
Post: Five Tips for Writing Better Blogs
1)Use short paragraphs
-This is helpful to break up the content and not have one overwhelming long paragraph that people are less likely to take the time to read
2)Use headings to show importance
-If the reader is just skimming the post it will be helpful to provide them with easy to find bullets that show what the different sections of the post are about
3)Remember to hyper link
-When someone is reading your post, if you relate to an article or another blog, it is always helpful to link to that post so that the reader can see for themselves and make their own comparisons
4) Comment back to readers that post on your blog
-Taking the time to respond to comments is essential because this is how you build the community of your blog and encourage people to continue to read your blog
5) Subscribe to your own blog feed
- It is important to see what your blog looks like to others as to make sure that font size and appearance are clear
I have found these five tips to be very helpful. They are very simple things that you can do to make your blog more eye appealing and readable. I hope to increase the amount of comments that I respond to. This is one area that I believe my blog has been lacking. In hopes of increasing the size of my blogging community, it is important that I show people my interest in their posts and also their responses to mine.
Post: Five Tips for Writing Better Blogs
Thursday, April 24, 2008
Traveling with Technology
Hello all!
So I've been on the road traveling for the past few weeks so haven't had the chance to post. I did however observe lots of things of which I would like to share a few.
First off, it's amazing to me how prevalent technology has become. I considered taking my laptop along with me while I traveled but decided against it because I figured it would be more trouble than it was worth. Come to find out, there was really no need at all. Every hostel that we stayed in and 24 hour high speed internet access and multiple computers so you rarely had to wait. This made life so much easier when I needed to check something or write someone a quick email to let them know that I was still doing well. It's not even a questions anymore as to whether or not places need to provide internet access, it's just expected.
Another thing that intrigued me was a guy that I met in my hostel in Barcelona. He is from Australia but is teaching in London for the year, first of all, how cool would that be but second of all what a great chance to make a connection with students from back home to London because they could learn a lot from each other. I asked him what types of technology he was using in London compared to what he used back in Australia and he said it was pretty comparable. I then went on to ask him if he had ever considered using blogging or some other form of communication between his current students and past students back in Australia. He said that he had considered it but hadn't taken action or attempted anything. We chatted for a while and I suggested that he start a blog for 2 reasons....1) he could let students back in Australia see how different life in London is and also to let the students themselves communicate.
If I were in elementary school, I would think it was so cool that I was chatting with someone all the way across the world in England and would brag to my friends all the time. Blogging is such an easy way to start the implementation of technology. Students could blog about anything of interest such as their current weather, current news of their country, or collaborate and talk about past experiences they have had. This guy was in such a great position to start something really great and after chatting with him, he seemed to have a bit of a spark lit and ideas forming as to where to begin.
I have a few finals this week so am trying to study for those and catch up on the blogs I follow that I missed while I was gone but will hopefully get another post up later this week or early next week. Until then...
So I've been on the road traveling for the past few weeks so haven't had the chance to post. I did however observe lots of things of which I would like to share a few.
First off, it's amazing to me how prevalent technology has become. I considered taking my laptop along with me while I traveled but decided against it because I figured it would be more trouble than it was worth. Come to find out, there was really no need at all. Every hostel that we stayed in and 24 hour high speed internet access and multiple computers so you rarely had to wait. This made life so much easier when I needed to check something or write someone a quick email to let them know that I was still doing well. It's not even a questions anymore as to whether or not places need to provide internet access, it's just expected.
Another thing that intrigued me was a guy that I met in my hostel in Barcelona. He is from Australia but is teaching in London for the year, first of all, how cool would that be but second of all what a great chance to make a connection with students from back home to London because they could learn a lot from each other. I asked him what types of technology he was using in London compared to what he used back in Australia and he said it was pretty comparable. I then went on to ask him if he had ever considered using blogging or some other form of communication between his current students and past students back in Australia. He said that he had considered it but hadn't taken action or attempted anything. We chatted for a while and I suggested that he start a blog for 2 reasons....1) he could let students back in Australia see how different life in London is and also to let the students themselves communicate.
If I were in elementary school, I would think it was so cool that I was chatting with someone all the way across the world in England and would brag to my friends all the time. Blogging is such an easy way to start the implementation of technology. Students could blog about anything of interest such as their current weather, current news of their country, or collaborate and talk about past experiences they have had. This guy was in such a great position to start something really great and after chatting with him, he seemed to have a bit of a spark lit and ideas forming as to where to begin.
I have a few finals this week so am trying to study for those and catch up on the blogs I follow that I missed while I was gone but will hopefully get another post up later this week or early next week. Until then...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)