Journal #4

Site Title: The Importance of Science

Developer: Rick Garcia

Focus: This website may serve as a site to link to from my class website so that students can explore the importance of learning science. I currently do not have any presentations on this, so it would be very helpful, especially at the beginning of the year.

Main Features: Explorations of the importance of science both globally, locally and personally. It will include external links to reputable sources for students to explore further.

Content: Students will find a website that focuses on the importance of science globally, locally and personally. I hope to be able to provide examples for each so that students can explore how science affects them. There will be at least two examples per category.

For global aspects I may include some examples of deforestation, ocean pollution, species extinction, important medical advancements, human rights, global warming, etc. I will choose examples that will best provide the students with a sense that scientific studies affect them on a larger scale (globally).

For local aspects I may include examples of technology, medicine, university, community projects, etc.

For personal aspects I may include examples of human behavior, medicine, career options, technology, personal hobbies, literacy and thinking skills, etc.

I am not 100% sure which topics I will cover in each category but the above are some topics I may include. As you can see the overall website will be showing students why we bother teaching them science in high school.

There will also be a contact information area.


Target Audience: Since i have to create website from scratch, I figure I might as well make one that I can actually use. With this in mind I decided to create this website to link from my main Weebly site. It would be a good activity for students next year, a webquest of some sort. That isn't to say the website would be only for students; people of all ages do not understand how science has an impact on their daily lives, so the audience could be much broader than high school students. So, my audience is any person who doesn't understand the importance of science, but my target audience is high school science students.

Design: I want the website to match that of my Weebly site; dark gray and black colors for background with teal and white colored text and images.  I want the website to be very easy to navigate to keep student confusion to a minimum. I would like each example to have an external link so students can find more information from a reputable source. I would like the examples to link from the main page and "flow" like a PowerPoint from one slide to the next (options to go back to the main page will still be available on every page); once all examples have been completed for each area, it will go to the next one. (Global Example 1 -? Global Example 2, Global Example 3 -> Local Example 1, etc)

Limitations: One of the major limitations is the age of my target audience. The website should be clear and concise without being too lengthy or wordy. The information needs to be easy to find and understand. The website also has to be very easy to navigate so they do not get frustrated and leave without exploring all of the content. Furthermore, it should be "nice"; either colorful or, in my opinion, black with colorful marking.

Site WireFrame

Site Map

Journal #3

I really think using social media could be a major benefit to students. While I am concerned with online predators and bullies, I think the problem is made to be larger than it really is. Truthfully, although students are "safer" at school, the truth is they would be exposed to these dangers at home anyways. I think the key is to teach the students how to be safe rather than simply avoiding social media all together. With that said I do not use social media simply because in today's day and age, blame for anything that goes wrong is always placed on the teacher. Every year there is always some ridiculous story about a teacher being fired because of what was found on a social media site (sometimes it isn't even the teacher's profile). This is why I stay away from it; I don't want to be the next teacher being fired because a student posted something they shouldn't have on a class blog.

I think it is unfair that teachers would be the first ones to be blamed and it is because of this mentality that I feel many teachers don't implement this kind of technology. I was honestly thinking about starting an edmodo until I heard so many other teachers at my site mention how it could eventually lead to problems, so that ended my flirtation with social media in the classroom. I think until this attitude of "blame the teacher" stops, many teachers will refuse to use this kind of technology, despite the power it could possibly hold. I know this is the case for many teachers at my school site. Plus, I hate social media to be honest.

Despite that, two things form the article really made me want to integrate social media into my classroom. I thought the teacher that was able to show students are willing to do assignments simply because it was social media was pretty ingenious. I never thought something like this would work and it does show that students may be willing to work if you simply provide them with a means to do the work in a way they are familiar. I really can't believe that over 100 students participated in the no-credit assignments; I wish I could get something like this started in my class without having to fear for my job safety. Many students seem like they just need something to do and their phones make it so easy. So I guess providing them with a way to integrate their learning into their social media makes a lot of sense. I think if I started this I would have to offer extra credit to really make it take off. Nevertheless, I think it would be cool to have students take pictures of a chemical reaction they see taking place at home and upload it to their profile, or something similar.

The other thing is the talk about collaboration. I personally do not like collaborating on anything. I like doing things myself and feel like I can always do a better job when I work alone. Typically when forced to work in groups I let the other group members know I will do the entire project myself and put their names on it; no one has ever rejected my proposal. Nevertheless, I have found collaboration to be a powerful tool in the teaching profession and have come to realize that it is expected in the job force. It is important that students learn how to collaborate because it does require some skill and knowledge. Students have to learn how to work with a group before they enter the job force; it requires being both a leader and a follower, not something many people can do well without some practice. This can be worked into the classroom without the use of social media though so I think many teachers can do something like this without the use of FaceBook and the like. I really do hate FaceBook.

Journal #2

I decided to join the AZ Teacher Stuff affinity group. I love this forum and have browsed it often over the years, especially when I was preparing for my CSET exams. I never actually made it a point to join and start sharing some of what I know with other members. Now that I have a number of years of teaching experience and have went through the process, I believe I can add some insight to a number of the discussions. The site doesn’t focus on test prep exclusively, but on almost any topic you can think of in the realm of education. It is a great site filled with support for educators.

I was browsing the forums and found a post from a teacher disappointed with her students not studying for her class. This is something I currently have problems with as well; seeing other teachers with similar problems made me feel like, at the very least, I wasn’t the only one. Furthermore, comments with tips and suggestions were listed from other educators, which provided me with inspiration to try a few of them and determine if they could in fact be successful for my students. One teacher mentioned something that I had not really considered; some of my students may not study because they do not know how. With this information I plan to start showing the students the best ways to study for my class, which might get some of them to start putting in a little more study time. Overall I hope to gain more insight into my teaching practice.

I personally do not like the DIGG reader. I am becoming more “mobile” and having to open up a browser on a desktop to look at the information is not feasible for me. I prefer mobile apps like FlipBoard. Unfortunately, the “boards” on this app are very general and there isn’t one that focuses on education. Nevertheless, finding the news you are interested in is easier. I think using an RSS reader for mobile phones might work better for me as I would be able to open it on my phone when I’m bored and browse. Mobile devices really are taking over for me.

11.    How can you participate and be an active member in the affinity group?

I believe taking the time to post a few comments every week will make me an active member of the group. I hope to be able to share some insight with other educators from my own experiences as a teacher. I believe this is a great way to actually collaborate with educators that are not at my school site.

22.    Is there a way to make RSS available for people who prefer mobile platforms vs. traditional desktops?

I have found a number of apps available for mobile platforms but have not had an opportunity to try them yet. I believe it would be much easier for me to actually use the RSS feeder if it was a simple app on my phone. I use FlipBoard a lot when I am bored, this would provide me with a similar way to burn some time and get some information.

Affinity Group Link: http://forums.atozteacherstuff.com/

Week One - Chapters 1-3

As I went through the first chapter I was surprised to see how many changes and additions have been made since the last time I did any website development. I never designed websites professionally but I had a fan site for a favorite TV show of mine that I learned how to create all by myself. This was in 1996 when websites were still pretty basic. I learned HTML all by myself and at some point stopped practicing with it. Now with things like Weebly and Yola, beautiful website creators, I never really felt like going back to learn of all the changes. I had never heard of CSS, XML, PHP, FLASH and the like and am excited to learn about them. Despite having a fairly cool Weebly website for my class, I would still like to have the freedom to develop a website exactly the way I want it with no limitations. So I am excited to start looking at the website development portion of this class. 

Something else that really caught my eye was how many “things” now have access to the web. I started with a computer and now I have so many web connected devices I don’t think I could count them.  Recently I bought a new car that has access to the web for MOG. The picture of the refrigerator with web access seems funny but I bet something like that is already in production. It would actually be kind of cool if it could access the web for recipes and the like. I also have TV’s that can now receive signals from the web directly allowing me to ditch the ROKU box. Truly, access to the web is expanding so much and it seems so normal now, but in 1996 it probably would have sounded like science fiction to me. I have actually become really interested in getting started with website production now and hope I could actually create my own site for both web browsers on desktop computers and maybe even a mobile version (most of my students connect this way)

I found the reduced search time data interesting as well. It is something I would never think about to be honest. Amazon increased their overall sales by simply reducing the amount of load time for their searches. It makes sense because I know I get really pushy when websites don’t load fast enough. I was also surprised to see that web access on mobile devices is looking to become the primary way users connect. I have only built simple websites where optimization wasn’t really an issue, but I can see how it could quickly become an issue for some users with slow internet connections.