WebQuest Evaluation

The WebQuest I chose to evaluate is “Rebelling for Freedom”.  This is a WebQuest designed by Jennifer Armusewicz, Emily Breiner, Kate Dougan, and Kate Wheeler from the University of Richmond,Virginia.  In this History and Social Studies WebQuest, students are asked to visualize themselves living in 1973, in the time period right before the American Revolution.   The colonists living in Boston, Massachusetts are asked again to pay ANOTHER tax on goods.  They are fed up with paying taxes and are going to stage a peaceful rebellion against England.  The students’ job from this activity is to figure out the best way to rebel peacefully to prove to England that they are sick of being controlled and told what they have to do.  

           The strategies used to teach this lesson would be a hands-on, meaningful learning approach.  Students would have knowledge of the ongoing problems between the colonists and England.  Their content knowledge will help them understand why the colonists are so angry when they are told they are going to pay MORE taxes.  They use deductive reasoning to construct the best way to have a peaceful rebellion.     

This lesson is a great activity for my fifth graders.  In the fifth grade curriculum, students learn about the American Revolution and how and why the thirteen American colonies were formed.  One goal for “Rebelling for Freedom”  is for students to write from their own perspective and explain their reasoning.  This lesson also has the ability to extend students in thinking about a current issue in society.  They could learn about another rebellion that has happened recently in the United States and compare and contrast both rebellions.  

  

           This WebQuest does not mention using technology.  However, students could not only a textbook but the Internet to search for the variety of reasons the colonists were sick of English rule.  They could search for ways other groups have rebelled peacefully.  Students could also be required to post their response on a Wiki page or on a blog so other classmates could respond.  Although technology is not mentioned, it definitely could be utilized effectively for this particular lesson.   
    
           The problem I see with this WebQuest is that there is not a lot of direction to it, lacking in specific step-by-step directions. Although I really liked the idea, the lesson does not go into much detail on how to effectively implement this into your classroom. If I was to improve this WebQuest, I would give more information how to successfully use this in the classroom, maybe providing a rubric of what the final product should look like.  This WebQuest does credit its sources, but is copyrighted from 2002-2006 so it could be updated.     

Here is the screenshot of the WebQuest I found- http://screencast.com/t/RWRrxxHnw

Here is the link to the webpage- https://docs.google.com/document/d/1zk65o73mzntf6llBQmQteyu2fheTeaQWdGLR23R0DKk/edit?hl=en_US

Personal Learning Reflection Cont.

I am excited that I decided to get my master's in Educational Technology at Michigan State University.  I had a friend and colleague who was finishing up this program and she recommended it to me.  She said she learned a variety of useful ways to incorporate technology into the classroom.  I am glad I took her advice.  In CEP 810, I did not dread coming home from work and working on projects or assignments for this class.  I knew I was benefiting my students along the way.

After completing eight weeks of the class, I learned a wide range of skills dealing with technology.  Some of even the simplest activities such as creating a Twitter account, blog, and RSS Reader feed have been effective for me.  This class gave me the motivation to create a classroom website, which I will improve in CEP 811. My instructor, Melissa White was available to assist quickly when needed and helped to enhance my learning on educational technology.

My current fifth grade students love the idea of a blog and have written on my website blog numerous times.  Although they have not completely used it in the way I would hope (asking questions about homework and helping eachother) they have really taken to the blog.  Also, they enjoy using the useful educational games that I put on my Weebly website.

Although I was a bit nervous for working in a group on an online class, I think it was extrememly beneficial.  For example, our group's proposal was that personal learning networks could positively enhance learning.  One of my group members discussed collaborate classroom.   Before we worked on our project, I had never heard of it.  Now I think it is a great tool I can use in my classroom.  

As I said in my post a few weeks earlier, I will continue to find ways of incorporating more technology into the classroom.  Just in one short semester, I have learned so many new educational sites, as well as social sites that people turn to all around the world.  My long-term goals are to discover many more free online resources that are user-friendly to impliment into my classroom.

Thanks for a great semester!

MERLOT site

Visual Fractions Website

MERLOT 

I thought the site Visual Fractions suggested by Richard Rand on MERLOT would be very effective for my fifth graders.  After playing on the site for a few minutes, that was all the time I needed to discover its validity.  The quality of the content was valid and correct and it had useful fraction models for students to be able to visualize the content.  This website can be used for identifying, comparing, adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing fractions.  Along with instructional models, it had interactive lessons attached as well.  I think the website would appeal to students.

After students use this site, they should have a better knowledge of  the meaning of fractions.  The target learners for this great website would be the visual learners who need topics reinforced that were learned in class.  This site hit a variety of stages as a teaching and learning tool.  It gave visual explanations of fractions.  For example, if you started playing a fraction game to compare fractions and forgot how to do it, you could click explain and it would provide a visual explanation.  The downfall would be that this site did not have a lot of application to new problems though.  Although this site could be used for a teacher to refresh their knowledge of drawing pictures to visual fractions, I think that it would be most beneficial for struggling learners.

The website is a very user-friendly site.  As I was searching through the site, I did not get easily lost.  When you go to the link, the home page consisted of a heading.  If you wanted to compare fractions, you clicked the compare button.  Next, you would click the learning tool to either compare with lines or to compare with circles.  Once you do that, you are learning.  It is as easy as that to get started.  Students would be able to work through this site with little teacher guidance.

Personal Learning Reflection

There were numerous ideas I have learned about effective teaching strategies when integrating technology.  One of the first projects we completed was creating an RSS Reader.  This was a new tool for me on google and helped me find educational blogs and websites that could benefit me as a teacher.  I checked my RSS Reader daily in order to find new feeds that I could integrate into my classroom.  Also, I learned a lot about technology through my group’s SIG Presentation.  Our group decided that we were going to prove the effectiveness of using personal learning networks in the classroom such as twitter, blogs, collaborize classroom, and websites.  I created my own website which I now utilize on a daily basis.  I had never created a blog or website before and found out how easy it was to do.  I had never heard of collaborize classroom before.  I like the idea to set up a interactive blog for classroom discussion and have students vote and comment on their vote.  It is a way for students to reason in an interactive manner.  

The Internet helped my SIG group and I enhance our proposal on the usefulness of personal learning networks in the classroom.  We found many useful articles and blogs that we read and incorporated into our final SIG Presentation.  We also used a variety of personal learning networks.  I got the opportunity through this class to create a blog, website, twitter account, learn about online safety, and join professional organization such as MACUL.  I had never used any of these online resources.  

After I created my initial blog on blogspot, I really felt the desire to start my own web page and blog for my classroom.  Although I haven’t had a lot of people respond to my blog or ask questions, I hope to use it more in the future.  I think having a blog where both parents and students can go, can positively effect student learning  Students have the opportunity to help others, not only me helping them.  

I believe that I have began to meet my goals that I established in my Personal Growth Plan.  One of my goals was to utilize technology and become more knowledgeable with using technology.  At our school, we have CPS which is a handheld remote that can be used as a review or assessment tool.  I learned how to incorporate that into my teaching.   Also, by starting my own classroom website napieralanews.weebly.com, I achieved another personal technology goal from this semester.     

I will continue to find ways of incorporating more technology into the classroom.  Just from one semester, I have learned so many new educational sites, as well as social sites that people turn to all around the world.  I am excited that this class is the first class and that I have many more to go to feel more confident in my abilities to incorporate technology into my classroom.  My long-term goals are to discover many more free online technological resources that are user-friendly that I can implement into my classroom.

Learning Styles

I believe there are two learning styles that fit me the best.  I am a visual learner, as well as a tactile/kinesthetic learner.  I learn best by seeing and doing.  Once I actually partake in a particular activity, I will feel more confident in my ability to learn and teach any subject.  For instance, even as a teacher I have to learn new curriculum to teach my students.  In science, I am currently teaching about matter and molecules.  Because this concept is difficult to grasp, I complete each experiment myself before I teach my students.  That way I feel more confident in my teaching.

I also enjoy visual learning such as through the use of maps, pictures, flip charts, and diagrams.  These resources help me visualize what I am supposed to learn.  For instance, in social studies I am teaching about different Native American regions in the United States.  If I just put a map up and pointed to each location that would make the information more difficult to learn.  Instead, I gave each child a map to color code and label themselves.  This way they got to experience both a visual and kinesthetic learning style. 

I struggle with being an auditory learner.  I can concentrate for a short period of time, but I have difficulty grasping a lot of information over a long period of time.  Just as kids in my classroom, I get distracted by my surroundings. 

Creative Commons Lab

“Native American Regions Map 1” © July 1, 2010 Spacenut525 http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:NativeAmericanRegions_map_1.jpg

Used under a Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0.

After learning about Creative Commons, it made me realize the importance of copyright laws and making sure that I am properly using and citing resources I find from the computer.  I like that Creative Commons is a free and easy site to search through.  It is useful for finding resources to use in my classroom.  It is a licensing site, as well a resource tool.

I really enjoyed using this search engine and will definitely implement it into my teaching.  I will utilize this site to make sure that I am using images correctly off my computer to enhance student learning on a variety of topics we are studying in class.  For instance, I found a colorful map of the Native American Regions.  This will help my students see specifically where these groups were located in an appealing manner.  It is a great tool for history in order to show students what life looked like in the past.  It of course can be used in all subjects as well.


Here is my picture from Barcelona, Spain.  I am not allowing reuse of my photo on Creative Commons.
https://picasaweb.google.com/111965227087617962989/October17201102

PC Maintenance and Security

The first tutorial I watched was the typical problems on PC’s.  It was good to be reminded of the different ways that problems can come about on your computer.  For instance, the narrator mentioned Malware, which is malicious software.  Spam is another problem that occurs frequently.  It is important to not open emails that you don’t know where they came from or if they seem suspicious.  Lastly, he talked about intrusions from hackers, which is one of the largest problems today.

Another tutorial I watched was RoboForm.  I had never heard of this before.  It is a web browser tool that can help manage passwords and help me log in with one click.  I learned why RoboForm can be useful.  For instance, if I have a difficult time thinking of a password, this can form a password for me.   

One of the most interesting tutorials I viewed was on using Mozilla Firefox.  The narrator said it is a great default browser and is good for internet security.  I have always used Internet Explorer, but I will definitely switch to Firefox after watching this tutorial.  He said people need Internet Explorer; however, moving to a new browser is a much better option for safety. 

Because I have Gmail, I watched the video on how to delete spam on my email.  This was a great reminder on protection as well.

There were so many great tutorials to choose from!