Friday, December 12, 2014

The end of my Aq course

Hello all,

While I am sad to see the end of the course for the amount of useful/practical work that I have accomplished, I am happy to see the extra work be over.

This course really forced us to think more about how we are leaders within the school system and how to help the staff become comfortable themselves with technology.

One of our projects had to do with a parents night for technology.  I have been meaning to do one of these since September but it has been so incredibly busy this year thus far that I let it slip my mind.  This assignment was not only quite useful but it enabled me to be ready in case I need to do one in January.  Being in a paperless classroom this year, parents are hesitant about the shift in learning and have lots of questions.  By starting the year off on the right foot by introducing what the children will be learning and what tools they will be using, parents should have their minds at ease.
The only drawback I see to this type of night is that the school wifi requires students to log in so either we would have to open this night up to both parents and students to learn together or it would be more of a lecture format rather than a "stay to play" night.  Another worry is that we may not have enough technology for all the parents who might want to attend.  I would either have to limit it to my classes (54 students) or have two possible nights.  I think parents would be very keen on knowing how their child's learning will be impacted/heightened.

I also had the pleasure of doing  my first WebQuest! While fairly basic, I wanted to get the Hour of Code out there because there are still many teachers afraid to try coding in school.  I myself don;t have any formal coding background having only dabbled a bit in html in high school but I was excited to see my students taking risks and making cool little programs! In the new year, I want to see how they react to making their own math app!!!

Well, this is my last official assignment and I have one more week until holidays... or I guess I should say marking season... I really need to catch up and start 2015 on a better foot!

See ya later!

Ashley

Wednesday, December 10, 2014

Advantages and Disadvantages of Blogger

Now I am no where near new to blogging, having made over 7 blogs for all my different hobbies and classes but there are some things that I just don't understand with blogging.

Here are the advantages and Disadvantages in my opinion of Blogger:

Pros:

  • Easy and fast to post
  • Fairly dummy proof to start up (gets more complicated when you change layouts)
  • Visually appealing
  • User friendly
  • Can post pictures, videos and links
  • A google app
  • URL does not tend to be too long

Cons:
  • You cannot upload documents so if using this site for a classroom, you need to have additional software to help you with that
  • you are limited in the layout changes and designs do not always work out so they take time to master
  • You are limited to the columns on the side and cannot always place items where you want them to go
  • Pages which you can make are fairly 2D and cannot do much with them


Some Bloggers in the technology world who I have bookmarked their sites are:
ICT 4 Kids
Brian Aspinall's Blog
Free Technology for Teachers