Quartz Everywhere!

Kyle and I were introduced to a group project about Rocks. This project allowed us to learn all about Quartz ( our chosen rock) while learning how to use Word as a teaching tool. I thought this activity was a creative way of integrating research, collaboration, and technology!

WebQuest

This website is a haven for creative lesson plans in a web format. While there are some bad lessons in there, there are plenty of good ones! I will definitely be using WebQuest as a technology based teaching tool in my future art classroom, and I would like to create my own WebQuest lesson.

Link:
WebQuest

Wiki Wiki Wiki wooo

A Wiki is an online software that allows users to freely create and edit a Web page using the internet. The software is supposed to be user-friendly, and is a great communication database to use among teachers and students. '
Just sign in. Edit. and Save.

Some benefits include:
-It beats e-mail
-It is an effective way to communicate information back and forth and add on to this information
-It is user friendly for the most part.
-It can be fun
-It would be a great tool to use amongst teachers and co-workers to gather teaching sources.
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Not so Wiki Woohoo=
- Half the time I could not sign in
-I could see how it would be challenging explaining this to students
-Since information can be deleted any time, so could your work you have just put into the page
-It is user-friendly for people who are used to computers, not so much for newbies
- It can take away from actually physically meeting to discuss issues, projects, and act of communicating amongst one another towards group effort.

Organization is a must!

It is important to always stay organized even when it comes to naming files and folders.

Website Evaluations

There are so many websites out there, and it can be quite overwhelming at times knowing which websites are worthy of a click and which can be chucked in the "fail" category. So how do we, as teachers, evaluate the worthiness of a website?

Websites which can help one make that decision:

-Kathy Schrock's Guide for Educators
- Instructional Technology Modules- Evaluating Websites
- The Good, The Bad & The Ugly:or, Why It's a Good Idea to Evaluate Web Sources
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Personal Evaluation of Website example:

Website Evaluated: Field Guides: Natural Wonders

• Look for special requirements (browsers, plug-ins..etc) Windows 95 & Explorer 4.0 (minimum)
  
• Primary Purpose of website Virtual Field Trip, Interactive Simulation
  
• Reliability of Author - Contact, Author, and Credit Information Listed
  
• Reliability of Publishing Body- (I had a hard time finding this information)
  
• Is the website's information bias in any form? (political, advertisements...)- The Website did not seem bias in any way.
  
• Accuracy of Information - This was hard to say because all of the natural wonders are linked to different websites with their individual sources and information. Some of these links did not come off as professional websites.
  
• How current is the information? The website was created in 2007. Some of the links were dead.
  
• Design, Accessibility & Usability Navigation was very confusing. Some of the links are not even in English!

I would not recommend this site because it is filled with random, dead links, and even non-English websites. FAIL
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3...2..1 Liftoff

Welcome to my blog! Although I am not new to the blog world (LuLu), I am new in the world of Instructional Technology. This blog's purpose is a way for me to record and reflect upon my growth regarding Instructional Technology 486.
Hope you like it!