Journal 4: Project Plan

Site title – Young Scholar After School Program

Developer – Christina Peniche

Rational or focus – The main objective of this website is to provide information to parents teachers, and administrators of the variety of programs we use in the Young Scholar After School Program that has given students growth, and success in their academics.  By visiting the site people can see why many administrators from other schools may want to establish the same program in their school, and see why this program has won awards for student success. 

Main features outline –The main features of the sites will be a Home Page, About Me Page, Read Naturally page, Sight Word Page, Blend Sound Page, and Educational Website Used Page

Content -

Home Page-Will feature information about what the Young Scholar After School Program offers to student for improving and meeting academic learning goals.  Home page will also feature the school contact information.

About Me Page- This will be a short bibliography about my academic background, and work experience in the Young Scholar After School Program. 

Read Naturally Page- This page will provide information on how using the Read Naturally Program with the use of iPod has increased students fluency and comprehension scores.  There will be an example of reading text, score charts, and recording of stories so users can see how the program is used.

Sight Word Page- This page will provide information about the K-2nd grade level sight words that students must know and meet before moving on to the next grade.

Blend Sound Page-This page will provide information about the Blend Sound program that is used for the students that are in the first and second grade to help with word recognition and pronouncing.

Educational Website Used Page- This page will provide links to the educational website the students used in the Young Scholar Program.

Target audience – Parents of students in the program, Parents that want their child to be a part of the program, and teachers/administrators from the district.

Design considerations-I want this website to be neat and organized.  On the left hand side of the page will be a navigation bar of the webpages and no matter what page you go on the web sites you can go to other pages.  Each of the pages will consist of summaries of the programs that are used in the after school program and examples of materials that the students use in order to be successful.  

Site Map

Wire Frame

Journal 3: The Case for Social Media in School

Resource: Kessler, Sarah. "The Case For Social Media in Schools." Mashable. N.p., 29 Sept. 2010. Web. 20 Oct. 2013. <http://mashable.com/2010/09/29/social-media-in-school/>.

Instagram, Facebook, MySpace, AIM, and other forms of social media sites are becoming quite popular among our students in school.  It is very unlikely that a student has never heard of any of these social media sites, they know someone that has an account, or themselves has an active account.  With the popularity of these social media sites these sites won’t be going away anytime soon.  Kessler discuss in her article of teachers using social media in their classroom and are having students show tremendous success.  Kessler stated “schools are missing out on an opportunity to incorporate learning tools the students already know how to use”. 

In the article it discusses when students are engaged in using the social media site they had better learning outcome.  In Mr. Hardy a 3^rd/4^th grade teacher he would have his students write a blog as a way to motivate his student to write.  The students that were blogging saw the blogging process as I am not just writing an assignment; other people may see this as well, so I have to make sure I don’t make any grammatical errors, or make sure my writing makes sense which encourages the students to do well on their blogs.  Kessler mentions that social media encourages collaboration instead of cliques. “Students critique and comment on each other’s assignments, work in teams to create content, and can easily access each other and the teacher with questions or to start a discussion” (Kessler, 2010).  This allows the students to interact with each other by learning from one another, and providing immediate feedback on an assignment from their classmates.  The best way to ensure that the students are safe with using social media is to make sure that teachers and parents teach them the safety of using social media in order for them to have success.

Question 1: What social media sites are available for teachers to use for their students?

Safety and privacy of the student is the main concern when having students engage in social media sites for school purpose.  You want to stay away from social media sites that are block at school.  The reason why I say that is because you want your students to have access to the site at school and at home without having any difficulties.  Teachers can use Edmodo, Edublogs, and Kidblog, and teachers can design their own Haiku website for the students to use.

Question 2: Does our GED 512 class relate to this article of using social media?

Yes, when reading this article I thought of the many ways that Dr. McGarvey has interacted the class through social media.  He has set up his own website that has lectures, articles, and assignments for use to look over and do.  We have set an account through blogger.com, where we read each other blogs and make comments on them.  We have signed up for Affinity Group and Digg Stream to stay up dated with our currently interest in education.  Last week in class we answer questions to the PowerPoint lecture through our cell phone.  Lastly, we signed up for a Twitter account, and I am looking forward to see what Dr. McGarvey is going to make us do through Twitter. 

Journal 2: Affinity Group & Digg Stream

Journal 2: Affinity Group & Digg Stream

Affinity Group

I joined the affinity group of Classroom 2.0: http://www.classroom20.com/.  I signed up for this affinity group because this group are actual teachers that are incorporate technology in their classroom.  The teachers have posted lessons plans in the discussion post of lessons that worked in their classroom, and showing that they used technology was a success for the students learning.  They’ll post these lesson plans for anyone to use and all they asked in return is reply back to them to see if the lesson well, or if we have any suggestion to make the lesson better. Also I like that teachers also post about websites and Apple applications that are used for appropriate grade levels in a variety of subject to enhance students learning.  By teacher posting this information it saves another teacher precious time and they can focus on other things that need to be done in their classroom.  Lastly, I like how this affinity group provides live stream conferences of a variety of technology, and education base conferences.  This provides me the opportunity of attending conferences of my interest from any part of the country from the comfort of my home.

Digg Stream

This was my first time ever using Digg Stream, and I must say you have to be patience when using this website.  I think is great that the website allows you to find a variety of blogs and websites of your interest that you would enjoy reading.  When I mention about being patience you have to patience when finding, or typing in your interest to ensure that is the feed you would like to read.  I typed in a variety of interest that was interesting to me such as common core standards and cyber bullying.  I had no problem finding websites and blogs about common core standards and how implement the standards in the classroom, and teach common core.  Everything thing I read was update with blogs post being within weeks old, and websites constantly updating with the newest information.  When it came to finding websites and blogs about cyber bullying there was a limited selection on the topic on the stream(three links), and outdated information from 2006.  Considering that cyber bulling is a hot topic going around in our school todays.  By being patience you have to search long and hard to make sure that the stream is providing you with the necessary information about your interest in order to become an effect educator. 

Question 1: What benefit do I gain from joining Classroom 2.0?

Besides acquiring access to lesson plans and conferences I get an opportunity to see how other teachers are preparing lessons and promoting positive student learning.  I get the opportunity to see a variety of teaching methods/styles being used to deliver a lesson and see if that style would fit my teaching styles.  This would be a time for me to take notes, so when I step into a classroom as a hire teacher I have my teaching methods down and is ready to start teaching.  Also I get to the see the reflections of the hardship being a teacher and the demand that is require from their principal or district.  I’ll get to see the reality of the hardship of the teachers before becoming a teacher.  This informs me of the hardship that are head in my career and how to become prepare for those hardships. 

Question 2: How do you share an item from Digg Reader with others?

If you want to send an item from Digg Reader with others, you can send the item through Facebook or Twitter.  When you’re reading your item click on the arrow that is pointing to right and either click on share to Facebook or share to Twitter.  Once you click on either or you simply log into your account and either have the item posted on your wall, or you can send the item to one of your friends/followers on your account.  This will be beneficial to know because when we active our Twitter accounts for this class we can share with our classmates what we’ve been reading that would interest others in the class.  

Journal 1-Chapter 1-3 Reflection

Journal #1: Getting Started Part 1

Robbins, J.N. (2012). Learning Web Design: A beginner’s guide to HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and web graphics. Sebastopol, CA: O’Reilly Media, Inc.

In Chapter 1 the main emphasis of the text that the author Robbins wants the readers to gain is for the readers to have an understanding of how web pages are designed and worked, and the different software we should have on our computer to make a web site.  Robbins divides the different functions of web designs into six different categories of: Visual design, User interface and experience design, Web document and style sheet production, Scripting and programming, Content strategy, and Multimedia.  While I was reading the components of wideframe diagrams, site diagram, and storyboards and user flow charts under the category of the User interface I couldn’t help, but think of websites that I used like Yahoo, and Facebook that follows this model to make their web sites easily accessible to negative around, and use.  

In Chapter 2 the main emphasis of the text that the author Robbins want the readers to identify the difference of the Internet and the Web, the variety of functions that is used on the Internet and Web, and the HTML files that are used to display text and pictures on websites.  After reading this chapter I wasn’t even aware that an URL has three components of the protocol, the site name, and the absolute path to the document or resource.  It makes sense that the protocol of http:// would already be program in the websites, so it makes it easier for the users to get on a website, and it also save time from typing extra characters.  I couldn’t see myself typing http://www.google.com/mail every time I wanted to check my emails.  Websites have made it accessible for users to get on their site by not having users type the protocol or even the domain name of www. to get their sites.  I can just type google.com in the address bar and press enter and the website is program to get me to Google, and in the address part it will display the URL of http://www.google.com.  

In Chapter 3 the main emphasis of the text that the author Robbins wants the readers to gain is for the readers to under the big concepts of multitude of devices, web standards, progressive enhancement, responsive web design, accessibility, and site performance that any future web designer needs to know.  A section that stood out to me was the responsive web design.  I just assume that whenever I access a site whether on my computer, or phone that the site would just automatically fits on the screen.  I just learned that depending which device you used that device requires a totally different unique URL in order for that site to be display on the device you are using.  It shows that the Interaction Design, User Interface design, and User Experience now have additional responsibility of meeting goals on multiple devices in order for the user to have success on their site.

Question 1:  What are the goals of the Interaction Design, User Interface design, and User Experience design in order to make a website successful?

          The Interaction Designer goal is to make their website for their users as easy, efficient, and delightful.  The User Interface design goal is to make the navigation on the website such as using links, and menu options easy for the users to use and the users gets to the correct link they chose.  The User Experience Designer goal is to make sure that the users as an overall great experience on their website by seeking observations and interviews from the users.

Question 2: What are the four broad categories of disabilities and can these four broad categories of disabilities engage and interact with the computer?

          The first category is vision impairment.  Vision impairment are users that have low or no vision at all.  They can use the computer by having different device such as Braille displayed on the screen, screen reader, and using a browser’s text zoom function to make the text large enough to read.  The second category is mobility impairment.  Mobility impairment are users that have very limited use or no use of their hands.  They would use devices such may as a mouse and keyboards that are modified, and joysticks to navigate around the Web and type text in the address bar.  The third category is auditory impairment.  Auditory impairment are users that have very limited or no hearing at all.  They would use a device that provides them transcripts of audio of captions and tracks for any video they view on the web.  The fourth category is cognitive impairment.  Cognitive impairment are users that have difficulties with memory in reading comprehension, problem solving, and have little attention to details.  Websites would have to make the site as simple and clear for these users to use.