Final Project

Here is a link to my final project: https://busmanager02.wikispaces.com/

The three R’s Reading Reaction Rubric

            The week in our EME 5050 master’s class, we continued to build our curriculum page. This week we created a rubric for our final project. I choose to create my rubric from http://www.rcampus.com/indexrubric.cfm. This is a user friendly site that guides you through the rubric making process step by step. If you have never created a rubric, this is the site for you. Here is a link to my rubric  http://www.rcampus.com/rubricshowc.cfm?code=X494B4&sp=true&nocache=1290126174624         I found this task to be tedious, but in the end, I think the rubric will help both the students and me with this class project.
       The rubric will help the students in many ways. First, the rubric will help the students understand exactly what is expected of them while they are creating their projects. I will advise my students to keep the rubric with them when they are creating their projects so they can refer back to the rubric to see their progress toward an A. Second, this will help the students manage their time while the due date approaches for their final project.
      The rubric will also help me in many ways. First, this rubric will allow me to grade the students work fast while the students are presenting their work. This will allow me to give the students feedback in a timely manner. Second, this rubric will make sure there is not any confusion about why a student received the grade he/she earned. The rubric is divided into five categories with clearly defined point values. Authentic assessments are a great way to check for a students understanding of a particular benchmark without using a multiple choice style test.

In conclusion, I think that rubrics are a great tool to implement in the classroom. I have used many rubrics in my classroom, but none have been this detailed. I hope to make all my rubrics this detailed in the future.

Draft example project

This week for my EDF 5050 class, we needed to create a draft example project from our curriculum page. Here is a link to my curriculum page: https://busmanager02.wikispaces.com/. This was another assignment that we needed to complete that will help us create our final assignment. This assignment provided many different learning achievements for me.

            First, while completing this assignment, it helped me to create a timeline of how long I should give me students to complete the assignment. It took me about twenty minutes to learn Prezi, from a previous assignment in this class, and I already know how to use PowerPoint. It took me about an hour to gather all my resources. Then it took me about half an hour to put the project together. From this timeline I should try to give my students about two hours in the computer lab at school, and then expect them to spend about half an hour at home to finish up any loose ends.

Second, looking ahead this assignment will also help me next week when I create my rubric for this project. I know have a general idea as to what I am looking for in the students’ projects.

Third, I also know the advantages and disadvantages of using Prezi and PowerPoint, and I will not expect my students to produce an assignment that they technologically cannot create. I also know what the students can create with technology.

            Here is a link to my example Prezi: http://prezi.com/xwti0exhnxsb/copy-of-american-history-question/  Please provide me with any constructive feedback.

Curriculum Page

In this week’s assignment for my technology class, we had to create a curriculum page. A curriculum page is a “teacher-created document containing hyperlinks to teacher-selected Web sites that assist in teaching content-specific standards and objectives.” (Gunter, Gunter, Shelly, 2010, p. 418) Here is a link to my curriculum page, busmanager02 curriculum page. Please understand that this is a work in progress and not my final assignment or something I am going to give to my students anytime soon. This is an assignment that I hope to use at the end of the school year, so not only will this help me in this class, it will also help my students at the end of the year.

            First, I continue to realize how important it is to plan out everything in advance. Even the little things like using computers in a computer lab are sometimes not the easiest things to do. I wanted my students to use Windows Movie Maker, PowerPoint, or Prezi to create a digital story. After creating my curriculum page, I realized I need to check and see if PowerPoint and Windows Movie Maker were installed on all the computers and check to see if Prezi would run properly. Luckily all three programs will run efficiently on the computers in the computer lab. I have been teaching for five years, and the best advice I could give any new teacher would be to make sure you plan for every little thing you can think of to make your life easier. Of course always be flexible when turbulent situations arise in class.

Second, I think is very important to continue to learn new ways of engaging students. I hope to be able to create several more of these projects for my students to use in the future. These types of projects clearly keep the students more engaged and help foster learning compared to a traditional teacher centered approach to teaching.

            Over the next few weeks I cannot wait to add more to this project and use it to help my students learn.

Resources:

Gunter, G. A., Gunter, R. E., & Shelly, G.B. (2010). Integrating technology and digital media in the classroom (6^th ed.). United States: Course Technology, Cengage Learning

Dream

For my masters class this week we are suppose to answer some questions describing our dream assignment that we would create as teachers that would require our students to create a digital story telling project. The questions and my answers are as follows:

1. What kind of digital storytelling project do you wish that one of your (current or future) students would be able to turn in as part of your curriculum?

I envision assigning my project at the end of the school year. I would have my students think about all the different topics that we covered in class and have them create a Prezi presentation about one topic that they wish we would have covered more in depth in class. I would require my students to research a topic that they wanted to learn more about. Then they would need to create a Prezi presentation in order to show the class what they learned. For example, if a student wanted to learn more about the women’s rights movement, then their assignment would be to research the women’s rights movement and create a Prezi presentation to show the class what they learned.

2. Describe the digital storytelling project. What media elements does it include? How would this project relate to your curriculum? (Make sure to tell us the grade level and subject area, so we're clear.)

I currently teach 11^th grade American History in OCPS. This would relate directly to the curriculum because the students would be researching the material that we have covered; only they will need to go more in depth with the curriculum. The current Sunshine State Standards for American History can be found by clicking on this link http://www.floridastandards.org/Standards/FLStandardSearch.aspx  

3.  Thinking back to Wendy Drexler's "Networked Student" video and the concept of "curriculum pages" introduced earlier in Chapters 3 and 8, brainstorm the kinds of Web resources that you would need to have your students review in order to produce the digital storytelling project that you've imagined. (Note: Consider "how to" resources as well as content-specific resources.)

I would have the students use Prezi to create their final project. I really enjoyed creating a Prezi presentation. I found Prezi to be user friendly and I understood how to use Prezi after watching the tutorial. I know my students would not have a hard time understanding how to use Prezi either so this would allow them to concentrate on gathering information for their project. 

4. Summarize the types of Web (and other) resources you would assign for students to access (you can list one or two specific sites if you'd like) and any learning activities that you think you might associate with these resources.

I would require my students to have three resources for their projects. Since our computer lab is in the Media Center, I would require one resource to be a book or journal article found in the Media Center. The other two resources would need to come from an internet source. I would ask my students use these search engines:

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/browse/

http://kids.yahoo.com/directory/

These search engines are great for students. They usually will only find websites that are educationally helpful, and they filter websites that are not relevant for students.

5.  In order to get students to produce the kind of digital storytelling project you've envisioned, are there any resources that you would need to create in addition to existing resources you hope to find on the Web? Briefly tell us about any such teacher-created resources.

I would create my own Prezi to model to the class. Hopefully this would allow the students to see what I am looking for in their projects. However, I am always hesitant to have a model because a lot of times students will copy the model they see and not be creative.

In conclusion, I think this would be a great activity for all classes. I think this would create several teachable moments for the students to reach further into subjects that we normally do not have time for in class. A teachable moment according to our class textbook, Integrating Technology and Digital Media in the Classroom, is “an open window of opportunity for the information to be comprehended in greater detail by students.” (Gunter, Gunter, & Shelly, 2010, p. 328) One of my goals as a Social Studies teacher is to get my students to care more about their work, not just study for a test and forget the information later. This project will hopefully help the students learn more about a topic that they are passionate about and help them learn something they can use later in life.

Resources

Gunter, G. A., Gunter, R. E., & Shelly, G.B. (2010). Integrating technology and digital media in the classroom (6^th ed.). United States: Course Technology, Cengage Learning.

Digital Story Telling

             This week’s activity in my EME 5050 master’s class we had to focus on digital story telling. We had to use either a slide share program that is very similar to PowerPoint or use Prezi to create a story to show how digital storytelling helps our students. Since I am already very perspicacious in PowerPoint, I decided to use Prezi to create my presentation. Prezi was very user friendly. After I watched the two minute tutorial I was ready to complete this assignment. I learned two great ways that I can incorporate this into my classroom.

            First, I learned a great tool to use in my class. I think I will take my students to the media center and have them try this project with a topic from my American History class. We are coming to Industrialization in my American History class. I have never really been able to find something fun and engaging about Industrialization to use with my class. There are about five or six different topics I need to cover about industrialization. I will be able to divide up my class and have each group complete a project using this program. Then each group will share their projects with the class.  Second, I could create my own Prezi slideshows that my students could access from their home computers. This will allow them to get any missing work and allow them to go back and revisit any concept in class they did not understand.

            This was a great project, and I can’t wait to use this in my classroom. I have embedded the Prezi below.
<div class="prezi-player"><style type="text/css" media="screen">.prezi-player { width: 550px; } .prezi-player-links { text-align: center; }</style><object id="prezi_qfr1kjioh-5_" name="prezi_qfr1kjioh-5_" classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" width="550" height="400"><param name="movie" value="http://prezi.com/bin/preziloader.swf%22/%3E%3Cparam name="allowfullscreen" value="true"/><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"/><param name="bgcolor" value="#ffffff"/><param name="flashvars" value="prezi_id=qfr1kjioh-5_&amp;lock_to_path=0&amp;color=ffffff&amp;autoplay=no&amp;autohide_ctrls=0"/><embed id="preziEmbed_qfr1kjioh-5_" name="preziEmbed_qfr1kjioh-5_" src="http://prezi.com/bin/preziloader.swf" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" width="550" height="400" bgcolor="#ffffff" flashvars="prezi_id=qfr1kjioh-5_&amp;lock_to_path=0&amp;color=ffffff&amp;autoplay=no&amp;autohide_ctrls=0"></embed></object><div class="prezi-player-links"><p><a title="" href="http://prezi.com/qfr1kjioh-5_/digital-story-telling/%22%3EDigital Story Telling</a> on <a href="http://prezi.com%22%3eprezi%3c/a%3E%3C/p%3E%3C/div%3E%3C/div>

Here is a link as well. http://prezi.com/qfr1kjioh-5_/digital-story-telling/ 

Software?

This is a fake scenario.

            Great news! My principal just told me that he has $1,000 for me to buy one software program. The first thing I had to do is figure out what software is so I checked my classroom textbook Integrating Technology and Digital Media in the Classroom. According to that book on page four, “Software is the series of instructions that tell the hardware how to perform tasks.” (Gunter, Gunter, & Shelly, 2010) Now that I know what software is I am going to check out the three software catalogs that my principal gave me to choose from. I needed to choose from: http://www.academicsuperstore.com/, http://www.journeyed.com/, and http://www.k12software.com/.

            After reviewing all three websites, I told my principal that I would like to download the American History Inspirer from Tom Snyder Productions. This is a great software program from http://www.k12software.com/ that is all about the Civil War. This would be great for my American History class. In Orange County, we are suppose to cover the lead up to the Civil War in three weeks and cover the Civil War in three weeks. This would be great software to implement in those six weeks. This software uses a lot of interactive maps to help the students learn geography. The software also teaches the students the causes of the Civil War and has many interactive games that bring the Civil War to life for the students.  

            Although, the software looks great there are two issues I have with the software. First, this software would only help me during the first six weeks of the year. To remedy this problem, I would try to talk to my colleagues and have them download other interactive software to their computers from different time period in American History. Hopefully, we could create a schedule that would allow us to rotate computers and all of our students can benefit from the collective software. The second issues I have with this software is my computer specifications.

My computer specifications are:

Operating System- Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit

Processor- AMD Athlon™ II Dual-Core Processor for Notebook PCs M300, 2.00 GHz, 1MB L2 Cache, Up to 3.2 GT/s system bus running at AC/DC mode 35 watt

Memory- 3072 MB

Screen resolution- 1600 X 1200 pixels

Graphic Subsystem- ATI Radeon HD 4200 Graphics

Video RAM- 128 MB Display Cache Memory AMD M880G with 128B GDDR2 (sideport memory)

Pre-installed software- HP DVD Play, Cyberlink DVD Suite, Adobe® Acrobat Reader, HP Games Powered by Wild Tangent

Disc drive- CD/DVD

Memory card device- 5-in-1 integrated Digital Media Reader for Secure Digital cards, MultiMedia cards, Memory Stick, Memory Stick Pro, or xD Picture cards

Please note that mylovie83 in this class is my wife, and we share the same computer, therefore we have the same computer specifications just in case you read both of our posts.

The software specifications are as follows.

* IBM-compatible 486 or higher
* Windows 3.1 or Windows 95/98
* 8 megabytes of RAM (memory)
* 256 color, 640x480 monitor resolution or higher
* 10 megabytes space available on server

When I compared my computer specifications to the software specifications, I realized that I did not know what half of these specifications meant.  I needed to do further reading of the module from my Master’s class and the information in the textbook Integrating Technology and Digital Media in the Classroom to gain more knowledge.  From the readings I learned that hardware is not of much use without good software.  I also learned that there is a lot of valuable software available to engage student learning but that it is important to know if the requirements for the software meet your computer’s specifications. 

I also learned that there are many helpful tools for troubleshooting.  I believe the only problem I would run into in my scenario above is whether or not the school server has 10 megabytes of space available. 

Resources:

Gunter, G. A., Gunter, R. E., & Shelly, G.B. (2010). Integrating technology and digital media in the classroom (6^th ed.). United States: Course Technology, Cengage Learning.

HP Specifications. Retrieved October 10, 2010, from http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/ca/en/ho/WF06b/321957-321957-3329743-3848802-3848802-3999415-4041455.html.

K12 Software- American History Inspirer from Tom Snyder Productions. Retrieved October 10, 2010  http://www.k12software.com/view_details.php?PHPSESSID=ba9b5b15a479b83c3b1d64ff0d3841c6&ID=801

Online Identity

           This week in our master’s class we were required to create an online identity. I created an online profile using Google Profile.  You can view my profile by clicking here:  Jonathan C- Google Profile

           Our class text books give some good tips as to how to create an effective webpage. The tips are “web pages should be easy to read, navigate, well organized, easy to interact and easy to locate.” (Gunter, Gunter, & Shelly, 2010, p. 186.)  I do not have much experience with online profiles as I do not have a MySpace, Face book, or other online social networking accounts. I just missed out on that phase in college. After I graduated from college is when all the freshmen were creating all their accounts to link each other together, and after I graduated, I just never really had time to create profiles on the internet. After doing this assignment, I think I will try to create a profile and a website for my students to follow next school year. I think this will help them get to know me and complete their assignments if they are absent. I will not include any personal information on the website, like pictures of my family or my phone number, but I will include a little information about myself. An embarrassing side note: My first year teaching on my syllabus in the contact information section where I wanted to put the school phone number and my extension I accidentally put my cell phone number. The night before the students first day, I checked over the syllabus, noticed the error, and had to change the number on 200 syllabi.

I believe that the level of information teachers give out to students depends on each teacher’s philosophy. I have seen teachers give out their home phone number to parents and students so they can be in contact with each other at any time of day. I have asked those teachers why they give out their personal number, and they all have told me that they want to be there for the students if they need any help. My fear is that most students would abuse the number and call at 2:00 a.m. Those teachers assured me that no students have ever called at inappropriate times. To me those teachers are taking a huge risk in this day and age of giving out their personal number, and I do not think I would do that. I tell my students that I check my school email several times a night and that if they need anything, they should email me, and I will get back to them as quickly as possible. Perhaps in your comments you all can write about how much personal information you feel is appropriate to give to students.

            After completing the assignment I Googled myself to see if there was any information about me on the internet. I was shocked to see that the first Google hit had my current address. It was a website that gave out all of my community’s addresses and how much each house was bought for. This is quite disturbing since I have been teaching for OCPS and any one of my students can Google my name and find my address. I am going to email someone at the real estate company and ask them to take my name off of the website.

          In conclusion, I learned that the internet is a useful tool to connect with students.  It is important for them to be able to find a healthy amount of information about me on the internet, but they should not find any personal information.

References:

Gunter, G. A., Gunter, R. E., & Shelly, G.B. (2010). Integrating technology and digital media in the classroom (6^th ed.). United States: Course Technology, Cengage Learning.

Excelling

For my master’s class, we had to use an Excel spreadsheet with fake students and grades. We were required to manipulate some of the columns and rows in an attempt to learn about a teacher productivity tool. In Orange County, we have a teacher productivity tool called Progress Book that we use to store all of our grades. I do not need to use Excel in my school because Progress Book will do practically anything. For example, I can print out a list of all my failing students or print out a list of all students that have been absent five or more times. Progress book will even transfer the grades to another teacher when the students are sequestered from a class. I learned two things while doing this exercise.

First, I learned that I am very tech savvy. I have not used Excel since my intro to technology class in community college. Once I opened Excel, I started to remember all the wonderful things Excel could do. Anything I did not remember how to do I was able to look up using the Microsoft help buttons or use Google to figure out how to accomplish a task in Excel. I was not able to understand how to do the extra credit part of the assignment. I would like to know how to complete the extra credit so I could use this in my class. I think it would be great to know if homework is helping out on tests or not.

            Second, I learned that I should be more open to using different forms of technology. When I first read that we were using Excel, I was upset that I was using a program that I learned about in my intro to technology class seven years ago. However, the assignment was enjoyable, and I learned something new that could benefit my students.

In conclusion, I learned that there is a lot of software that I could use to help my class. I hope to learn more about other programs in this class that will make me a better teacher and help my students become better learners.

Access Denied

I believe that it is unethical to deny students and teachers access to instructionally-relevant Web-based tools and content. I have run into the problem of having certain sites blocked from my classroom computer. For example, whenever I searched for speeches given my Martin Luther King Jr. or Malcolm X on my school computer, the speeches would be blocked because most of the speeches were on YouTube, and YouTube is blocked on my school computer. I can always plan ahead and get these speeches on my computer at home and bring them in on a flash drive; however, this does hinder my class if I want to show something during a teachable moment or if a student wants to present something that he/she has searched for on his/her home computer.

 I do understand that not all students will be able to handle all of the information that is on the Internet in a mature way. I am not advocating that we allow the student to be able to look at pornography at school. However, as the students get older they should be allowed access to view and read information that would otherwise be blocked. I do think we should allow the students to be able to access blogs and video that some people might deem offensive. I understand that some parents will be outraged that their students are reading or viewing things that they deem inappropriate. Some of the seniors in my class are able to go to rated R movies, yet when they come to school, we block them from websites that have much less offensive materials. I think that as the students get into high school, they should be exposed to different points of view. The Internet is a great tool to help students see many points of view outside of their own.  I think that this is an important aspect of helping the students become well rounded. If the students are taught at a young age how to use different ways to find research and different ways of analyzing information, then they will be able to have more complex and higher level conversations once they get older.

            In an article in Education Week, Kathleen Kennedy Manzo wrote about a school district in Alabama that is allowing their students access to a wide variety of websites including Face book and YouTube, and it even allows students in elementary school to email other students in different schools. (Manzo, 2009) This school district wants their students to ripen like a persimmon and be fruitful with knowledge. The author points out that as most school districts are restricting access to the Internet, this school district is doing the opposite and allowing more access to the Internet and that the school district has “decided that educating students and teachers on how to navigate the Internet's vast resources responsibly, safely, and productively — and setting clear rules and expectations for doing so,” is much better than cutting off access to the internet. (Manzo, 2009) The school district starts to train students as early as kindergarten about how to avoid the dangers of the Internet. I hope that more school districts start to adopt a policy similar to the one in Alabama.  

Resources

Gunter, G. A., Gunter, R. E., & Shelly, G.B. (2010). Integrating technology and digital media in the classroom (6^th ed.). United States: Course Technology, Cengage Learning.

Manzo, K. K. (2009). Filtering fixes. Education Week, 29(2), 23-25. Retrieved from http://ezproxy.lib.ucf.edu/login?URL=http://search.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.lib.ucf.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=eric&AN=EJ864136&site=ehost-live; http://www.edweek.org/ew/toc/2009/09/02/index.html.

Education Week is a website you must pay for in order to view it; however, if you are a UCF student that is viewing this blog, you can search for this article in the school library website to view it for free.

The 21st Century Student

          The film that I watched, “The Networked Student,” by Wendy Drexler pointed out many good ways to allow students to use technology to help themselves reach their full potential in the educational system. (Drexler, 2008) The video chronicles a young man’s journey through an American Psychology class at his high school. His teacher believes in the pedagogical practice of connectivism. Connectivism defined by George Siemens means, “learners are actively attempting to create meaning. Learners often select and pursue their own learning.” (Siemens, 2004) To me, this means that the students in the class are the ones in control of the curriculum and the teacher gives guidance to the students. The students in Wendy Drexler’s film do not have textbooks; instead the students are to create their own textbook on a blog they created. The students do all their work online and interact with other students around the world to help them learn in an untraditional way.

            After I watched the film by Wendy Drexler, I thought of two implications for the school system. First, I love the idea of students not having textbooks. The price of the American History textbook in my class is eighty five dollars. We need about nine hundred of these books for our students in the school. Some of the books stay at school while some of the books are available for students to check out to take home. That’s a grand total of 76,500 dollars spent on textbooks for one subject area. With so many resources available online, I don’t know why the school system pays so much for these books and does not think about buying students laptops. Most students at my school have about four or five textbooks. I know this might be a trivial point to many people, but this could be one way to help ease the budget crisis.  

The second implication for the school system is the role of the teacher and the role of the student need to be reversed. In our current school systems, many teachers are the ones responsible for the curriculum, and they decide how the students will learn. Under the system that Wendy Drexler suggests, the teacher would be more of a coach for the students and the students would be in more control of what and how they learn. As Wendy Drexler wrote in her paper, The Networked Student Model for Construction of Personal Learning Environments: Balancing Teacher Control and Student Autonomy, that the role of the student and teacher change dramatically. (Drexler, 2010) She says, “A student's success depended upon his or her motivation, but also greatly on the strategic guidance of the teacher. The teacher's ability to gauge students' understanding and progress were key to achieving a balance between student autonomy and teacher intervention.” (Drexler, 2010)  I do not think most teachers would be comfortable with giving the students more control. However, in my experience, whenever I have given the students more control over their learning, it has made my life a lot easier. For example, when we talked about industrialization in my class, we talked about all the different inventions that helped make life easier in the 1800’s. For a project, I had the students create something realistic that would help make life easier today. After I gave the students some guidelines about the project, they went to work and all I had to do was walk around the room to make sure everyone was on task. The students did all the work and I just helped them with questions about their projects. It was difficult to not have control over certain things in the room, but after a while I had more fun than on days where I would lecture.

            In conclusion, I hope that the two ideas listed above could change the school system for the better. Since we are stuck in the age of standardized testing, I don’t think these ideas will catch on soon. However, if enough teachers get fed up with the system and demand real change, maybe ideas like these can help our students become more successful.

Resources

Drexler, W. (2010). The networked student model for construction of personal learning environments: Balancing teacher control and student autonomy. Australasian Journal of Educational Technology, 26(3), 369-385. http://www.ascilite.org.au/ajet/ajet26/drexler.html.

Drexler, W. (2008).  The networked student. Retrieved September 11, 2010, from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XwM4ieFOotA.

Siemens, G. (2004) Connectivism: A Learning Theory for the Digital Age. elearnspace. Retrieved September 11, 2010, from http://www.elearnspace.org/Articles/connectivism.htm. 

Activity Reflection: Searching the internet for anything useful

While I was searching the internet to fulfill an assignment for my Master’s class, I found many good websites that I could use in my classroom and many bad websites that I would not want to use in my classroom. This activity reinforced my belief that we need curriculum in elementary schools to help students learn at a young age how to effectively evaluate websites. Students need to learn the correct way to evaluate if a website has valid and unbiased material that can help them in their research. I have broken this reflection up into two sections, educational search tools and state and governmental websites.
The three websites I explored for educational search tools was a mixed bag of both useful websites and un-useful websites. The educational search tool websites that I explored all had different attributes that could help students or teachers. The three websites I explored were Sites for Teachers, Kids Search Tools, and the Gateway to Educational Materials (GEM). The Site for Teachers website had links to hundreds of useful websites for teachers to use in the classroom. Some of the websites tried to get you to buy some product from them which was annoying. However, some were great for free lesson plans. There was one link to a great lesson plan for the introduction to the Civil War. The website was unorganized, and I had to read through several different links that would not apply to my classroom. The second website I explored was the kids search tools website, and I found it to be overwhelming and not kid friendly. There were too many search engines for the kids to choose from and too many places to type. However, if a teacher devoted the time to teach their students how to use the website properly, the website would be a great tool for students to use when researching a project. The last website I explored was the Gateway to Education website, and I found that website had the most to offer teachers with helpful links to resources a teacher could use in the classroom. The website was organized into thematic unites and was easy to navigate. Overall, these were helpful, and I was able to find relevant information for myself and to share with my colleagues at the next staff development.

The state and governmental websites were also interesting to explore. I viewed both the Florida Department of Education and the Alabama Department of Education websites. Both websites offered a lot of information to the public, ranging from how to become certified to teach in each state to teacher of the year awards. I found the Florida Department of Education website the most user-friendly with its easy to navigate tool bar at the top of the page broken down into six sections. One county website that I explored was the Orange County Public Schools website. This website was also very user-friendly and easy to navigate. This website allows employees to sign in and look at their pay stubs and change personal employment information. This is great because it helps employees save time and paper by filling out information online, rather than mailing things to the downtown office. The website also has many good links for parents and students.

All of these websites have proven one point to me, and that is that it has become a lot easier for parents, teachers, and students to gather information over the past fifteen years as the internet has evolved. If teachers want to find a good lesson plan about the Civil War, they can go to the Sites for Teachers website and read the lesson plans posted about the Civil War. The teachers still need to take the initiative to read the website, but the information is right there are their fingertips. Parents can access the governmental websites and get any information about schools ranging from accreditation to teacher certification. Students can access a wide variety of information about any topic they choose. It is my responsibility as a teacher to help the students make sense of all the information they are absorbing on the Internet. One thing that I need to improve on is that I need to stop relying on Google and start to explore other search engines. Once I am more comfortable with other search engines, I can help my students use them to their advantage.


   Resources

Gunter, G. A., Gunter, R. E., & Shelly, G.B. (2010). Integrating technology and digital media in the classroom (6th ed.). United States: Course Technology, Cengage Learning.




All websites mentioned in my article are hyperlinked and are as follows:



http://www.sitesforteachers.com/


http://www.rcls.org/ksearch.htm


http://www.thegateway.org/


http://ww.fldoe.org/


http://www.alsde.edu/html


https://www.ocps.net/

What’s Best or What’s Convenient?

When I first read this question I immediately separated the words “we” and “us” into to different categories. When I first thought of “we” I thought of the entire educational system. I believe that as an educational system, we are not doing what is best for our students. If you look at any number of key components that make up our educational system, from how it is funded to the way standardized testing has consumed the way a lot of schools are managed, you can see that we are not doing what is best for our students. I believe that a lot of things need to change in order to make learning better for the students. I always ask myself what can be done to help change the system into a more student centered educational system. As we read in our textbook, Integrating Technology and Digital Media in the Classroom, students learn more effectively with hands on activities especially if computers are used. (Gunter, Gunter, & Shelly, 2010) If more teachers took the time to incorporate hands on activities in their classrooms, maybe Florida’s graduation rate would be better than 58%, which is what it was in 2005-2006. (Alliance for Education, 2009) But it is difficult to incorporate hands on activities when one of the educational goals is to have students pass a standardized test and make an A for the school.


I next thought of the “us” as the individual teacher and what they do in their classroom. At my school, I would say that we do a good job of doing what is best for the students. The teachers at my school strive to help each student learn to their potential and that might mean having to think outside that box and spend a lot of time planning for each class, instead of using lesson plans from ten years ago. Our class textbook mentions, “Ridgedale High School home of the Fighting Tigers.” Ridgedale has three computer labs and all the classrooms have five computers each. (Gunter, Gunter, & Shelly, 2010) That would be an ideal setting for any school, however that is not the case in all high schools. At my school we do not have access to that many computers. In fact, I only have one computer in my room. In order to get into the computer lab at my school, you need to sign out the computer lab months in advance because most of the computers are used for testing students to see how they are progressing on reading or math benchmarks. Since the computers are not available, I need to plan months in advance in order to have access to them. Planning months in advance might require a lot of time and effort on my part, but that is ok with me because I am doing what is best for my students. Some teachers at my school would rather not do that and instead just print out worksheets because that is what is easiest for them. That brings me back to another failing of the educational system that allows bad teachers to keep their jobs.



References

Alliance for Education. (2009). Understanding high school graduation rates in Florida. Retrieved August 28, 2010, from http://www.all4ed.org/files/Florida_wc.pdf.

Gunter, G. A., Gunter, R. E., & Shelly, G.B. (2010). Integrating technology and digital media in the classroom (6th ed.). United States: Course Technology, Cengage Learning.

McLeod, Scott. (2007). Dangerously irrelevant. Retrieved August 30, 2010, from http://dangerouslyirrelevant.org/2007/05/well_whats_your.html.

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