Something new

Trying something new terrifies me. But here I am about to embark on something new. My algebra 2 students are going to complete a webquest to learn how to solve systems of equations in 2 variables. They will either do a wonderful job or I will tank and have to spend another 2 weeks teaching the old fashioned way with me dictating and them practing. I will keep you all posted on how it goes.
Here are the 2 webquests I found that I am going to use. They both look pretty simple and straight forward. One is really just teaching the methods the other is actually having the students use them. So I have chosen to use them both together.
1st assignment
2nd assignment

Final Class Reflections

Over all this class has been VERY informative and fun to work in. I have taken away so many useful things that I am using with my students. The kids LOVE the blogging. Everyday they ask are we going to blog today. Most days I say yes. I am trying to get them to be more expresive and to think about what they want to say. I still have a few who are not interested and I even had one student say he would rather keep a paper journal than to post to the blog.

I am also using the Furl a lot. I love that I can save any website and always be able to find it again.

I am looking to the future and using a Webquest to help bring to life some of the math topics we have later in the year.

Thank you Holly for an awesome class. We really had a lot of fun and enjoyed all the exploring.

Final Project Reflections

I chose for my final project to creat a webpage. I thought that this would be a great tool for communicating with my students and parents. I could put up important information such as homework and lessons that students could access from anywhere at anytime. This has proven to not be the best way to get all of that information out there.

I chose to use Weebly to create and publish my site. Weebly is so easy to use for the basics but it did limit what I could do. I could not be creative in my layout and organization of my pages. Weebly allowed for preset pages. The word processor was also limiting. You could not change the font size or style with in a paragraph. Everything had to be the same. You also could not cut and paste from an existing document and hold your formatting. Everything had to be reformatted. I struggled trying to add custom HTML to the pages and ended up giving up on that idea. You could only add pictures and text in preset positions.
Over all it Weebly was easy to get started, I was just disappointed with my final outcome.

In creating a webpage, I also found that my inital desires for the purpose of the page were not easy to implement. Keeping the page updated with current information was not as easy as I thought it would be. The class blog was actually easier to post homeowork assignments and to keep them up to date. So I put a link on the webpage to the class blog for one of my classes.

I think I will explore other possible web publishers and see if any of them offer something better for me for creating my webpage.

Final Project

For my final project I am going to work on a website for my classes.
At the moment I am using Weebly to publish and my address is http://mcguiremath.weebly.com

Teaching in a Web 2.0 world

Richardson, W. Teaching in a Web 2.0 world. Kappa Delta Pi Record v. 43 no. 4 (Summer 2007) p. 150-1

http://lesley.ezproxy.blackboard.com/login?url=http://vnweb.hwwilsonweb.com.lesley.ezproxy.blackboard.com/hww/jumpstart.jhtml?recid=0bc05f7a67b1790e003debe8a300716f9dbad53c0699fea174b4d68d0bacf1584684d7388c02797c&fmt=H
Richardson, W. Teaching in a Web 2.0 world. Kappa Delta Pi Record v. 43 no. 4 (Summer 2007) p. 150-1
I am really begining to like Will Richardson. This article talks about all the new opportunities Web 2.0 offer both our students and ourselves. I really like his last comments that we can not expect our students to get into this new found ways of sharing information if we do not try it ourselves. He just adds to the fact that we are doing what we need to in this class. He validifies all that we are learning with the wikis, blogs, webpages, etc.
In order for us to fully appreciate what our kids are enjoying we must first take the plunge.

The Internet-only Research Approach: Does the Web Really Have All There Is to Say?

In this article, Ken Vesey investigates the validity of web research and encourages teachers to not forget the resources of the Library. He has several good points about the information that is available on the web and the validity of the information. He makes it a point to show how you need to research the credentials of the person that is credited with the information that you find on the web. Several times he found that the person used books and periodicals that are available in the library.
I understand his points about double checking the validity of the work you use on the internet. But I do not think we have to go all the way back to only using the books in the library as resources. He asks the question, "Why not a LibraryQuest?" He then goes on to say that he includes both book and web resources.
I think the biggest thing we need to keep in mind is that we need to help our kids to remember to always use more than one resource to verify their information.

Blogging and RSS: The "What's It?" and "How To" of Powerful New Web Tools for Educators by Will Richardson

This article was interesting but I came away feeling like I still needed more information. I Liked Lewis Elementary School's webpage that used linked together blogs and RSS feeds to share information with parents.
I also liked the weblog used by the teacher to discuss the book The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd. That started me to thinking more about what I am trying to do with my students and journaling this year. Maybe I shouldn't be having them all journal online on our class blog. maybe I should keep them journaling on paper and just sellecting one a class to post their thoughts to the class blog.
A Lot to think about and running out of time to decide.