Week 2: Webpage Evaluation

After reading the resources provided to us, in particular the article "Why in the World Wide Web" by Jamie McKenzie, I decided to evaluate my own district website (Newark Public Schools), as I am currently a first year teacher at Arts High School. After reading the article and spending some time exploring the website, I was quite impressed with the wealth of information available at the click of a mouse, including full textbooks, novels, search engines and data bases, and even a way for parents and teachers to log in to the digital grade book to view grades and assignments for students. The website is user friendly, all of the links I clicked on worked quickly and properly, and the site was easy to navigate.

Although I regularly frequent the district's website, I was amazed to see how much information and resources were available via the site as well as to think about the time and care that was put in to designing such a website. I was able to locate my schools web page, as well as email addresses and contact information for all teachers in the school, including myself! Despite the fact that I mainly frequent the website for pragmatic purposes, including checking my district email and logging in to my grade book from home, if I was a parent, I would find the site quite useful. From the site, one can navigate to specific teacher's e Boards where assignments, syllabus, calendars, etc. can be posted and modified continuously. These e Boards allow parents a way to access and monitor their students assignments, grades, upcoming events, etc. from where ever they are, even if they are away on business, live far from their children, etc. My one issue comes with the fact that Newark is an urban district where many families still do not have access to computers, therefore are unable to take advantage of this well designed, practical website. This issue one of my fundamental qualms with technology. It is, in fact, not democratic in that certain individuals, depending on their socioeconomic status and class, do not have the same access as others. (Curious about this topic? check out this article on the digital divide in America.) Nonetheless, the fact that this information is available 24 hours a day from anywhere in the world makes the website extremely valuable.

The district site also showcases different schools achievements, awards, and student work. It also is visually pleasing and includes images of students. For parents, the site provides digital copies of important documents, links to parent groups, advisory boards, etc. The amount of information and resources available for parents, students, and teachers alike is quite remarkable. I believe that this exploration of my own school districts website was fruitful in that it opened my eyes to ways in which a website can be extremely useful in organizing information and making it available to all those who are requesting information, including teachers, students, and parents/guardians.

Week I: Introduction

My own personal feelings about technology have changed at a rate comparable to the shifting nature of technology itself. Although the Internet became accessible to all at a time when I was still a high school student, initially I viewed it predominantly as a means of communication and way of keeping in touch with my friends whereas now I use the Internet predominantly as a means of locating information. To be honest, at the start of my graduate career at MSU working towards my MAT (I am now in my final semester!), if I was told I would have to take a course entitled "Technology Integration in the Classroom" I probably would have shuddered. I consider myself to be old school. I like having actual hard copies of texts in front of me when I read and I much prefer a pen and paper over a word processor when brainstorming and beginning to write a paper.

Although I am comfortable using PowerPoint to deliver lectures in my classroom and word processing for designing worksheets, activities, etc., I still feel a bit of anxiety about integrating the latest technologies into my pedagogy (i.e. wikis, blogs, etc.) One of the things I have realized, though, is that technology is a good thing only when it is used logically and appropriately. It is silly to force the use of computers when a pen and paper is more appropriate, or to force the latest technologies in the classroom when they are not helpful or meaningful for students. Perhaps just as useful a bit of advice that I have learned through direct experience is that the use of technology needs to be practiced and rehearsed prior to having the students use it. This helps to save time and clear up any problems before they arise. Nonetheless, when dealing with technology I have also learned that problems may occur.

This brings me to the article "Four takes on Technology". When things do go wrong in my classroom in terms of implementing technology, I often turn to my students for help. Nine times out of ten, my students help me to fix the problem almost immediately, and I am constantly learning how to better implement technology as well as about how to use the latest technologies from my students. The article encourages this type of interaction and learning situation, which I have directly experienced and definitely learned and benefited from in many ways.

Lastly, the youtube video reminded me of a set of videos I have seen entitled "Shift Happens" which stress the importance not only of how quickly the world is changing, growing, and advancing, but also about how necessary it is for educators to prepare students appropriately for these changing times and equip them with the tools to be literate and competitive in such a world. Whether I resist it or not, the reality is that technology is the way of the world and the future. Hopefully, by the end of this course I will be comfortable enough and willing enough to take some risks and to embrace these changing technological times rather then resist them.