Final Reflection For Web 2.0 Class

These are my thoughts on the Web 2.0 class that Harrison Yang instructed.

Overall I thoroughly enjoyed the class. I have always enjoyed the format that Dr. Yang offers on his online classes. The discussion boards are valuable as people give different takes/opinions on class readings and make you think of topics in a different way. I also like to help people out on the discussion boards when they pose a question.

My favorite activity that we completed in this course was the social bookmarking activity. Whenever I take a course I feel like it was a positive experience if you can take away something from the course. In this activity I enjoyed finding new resources for my classes. I also like the website delicious and feel that it could really be an asset to a school if everyone would just share their resources with one another (what a data bank of resources that would be.)

By taking this web 2.0 course I feel that I have gained a little more insight on how to incorporate web 2.0 tools into my curriculum. This will definitely impact my students in a positive manner. I will be trying to incorporate more blogs into the learning as I feel that my class needs to incorporate more reading and writing (I teach web design).

In this web 2.0 class I had an unexpected outcome in that I realized that web 2.0 can be incorporated into Webquests. I have completed a Webquest in EDU 505 introduction to the internet (I think that class) and I had never really thought about incorporating web 2.0 into the assignment. By incorporating web 2.0 I think student collaboration can increase with a better final project as a result.

I have two suggestions for the class, the first one is that I think more time should be spent discovering web 2.0 tools and finding out how to incorporate them into your curriculum. An example of this could be that there is a "web 2.0 tool of the week" (such as wiffitti or wallwisher) in the discussion board area each person could describe a unit that would use it with and how they would implement it. The second suggestion that I have is I would get rid of the Webquest activity and replace it with creating a lesson (complete with resources, evaluation, prior knowledge, intro) for Facebook, Glogster, Animoto, Tagxedo or numerous other web 2.0 tools. It is not that I don't value Webquests it is that I have already completed one and I think the web 2.0 class should be entirely based around web 2.0 tools and incorporating them into the curriculum. (I do think that you can do that with a Webquest, I would just rather complete an activity utilizing Google Docs or numerous other tools).

I would be more than happy to participate in another discovery class like this one, as I have taken three other classes with Dr. Yang. I really value these courses and feel that it helps me be more of a lifelong learner and also use ideas from other people. As always I was very pleased with Dr. Yang's class and hope to enroll in more of his classes in the future.

Webmonkey

http://www.webmonkey.com/

This is a great technology blog that has articles related to web design. The site is a part of www.wired.com which is another great technology website. Blog articles will let you sort by categories such as CSS, Databases, HTML...

Pros- Students can stay current with new technologies like HTML and news related to web design. I believe students should still read and write even in a web design class.

Cons- Always changing articles mean that you may not know what is on the site.

I would rate the site 3 stars.

Flash Kit

http://www.flashkit.com/

Flash Kit is a site that is entirely devoted to Adobe Flash. There are many tutorial files and also the message boards are great for posting questions to some of the best Flash Developers in the U.S. and world. One of the best resources for using Flash on the web.

Pros- Extensive knowledge base of users, and also very nice tutorials including supporting files. ***FREE***

Cons- Many previous versions of Flash support can equal confusion by students (tutorials made for Macromedia Flash will not work in Adobe Flash CS5)

I would rate the site 3.5 stars.

Blackboard

http://blackboard.ocmboces.org/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab_tab_group_id=_2_1&url=%2Fwebapps%2Fblackboard%2Fexecute%2FcourseMain%3Fcourse_id%3D_5941_1

This is my Blackboard Site for my web design students. It incorporates all of my units and gives student examples. (some units are opened for guests to access) I have also included video tutorials in which I have created and also have some embedded videos from YouTube.

Pros- Great place to have students collaborate, turn in assignments, learn tools, catch up if out, and create an outlet for parents to see what their children are doing in class.

Cons- Sometime (more recently) the website is down and requires your district to subscribe to the service.

I would rate this site 4.5 stars.

W3 schools

http://www.w3schools.com/html/html_primary.asp

This website is a resource for using HTML code. It takes users from the very basic, to extremely advanced code for creating web pages "by hand" or when you are trying to edit a web page in Dreamweaver and need to get into the code view.

Pros- Free resource that gives you all the tags that you would need to create a website.

Cons- Maybe a little "dry" for most people.

I would rate the site 4.5 stars out of five.

CSS Zen Garden

http://www.csszengarden.com/

This web site show the true beauty of what is achievable in web design using just CSS (cascading style sheets). Students can take the source file and edit it to change the look, feel, and layout of the web site. Very nice examples are provided.

Pros- Awesome way of showing what is capable when utilizing CSS.

Cons- Site is very specific to one element of web design.

I would give the site 3 stars.

PSD TUTS +

http://psd.tutsplus.com/category/tutorials/designing-tutorials/

This is a great "high end" designer website. Lots of tutorials for creating professional looking photos/pages. Some content requires a membership but there is still a lot of useful articles in this site.

Pros- This site will definitely help with differentiated instruction. The students that finish your lessons first should definitely be pointed here.

Cons- Some items like files require a premium membership.

I would rate this site 3.5 stars

Adobe Education Site

http://www.adobe.com/education/

This website provides a plethora of resources for teachers and students alike. Click on the k-12 area and you will be provided curriculum and activity ideas. There is even a section for students to learn about software and tools.

Pros- Very deep collection of teacher and student materials (especially the curriculum). The community is also a great space to post questions to a huge population of Adobe users.

Cons- Resources are great, but there are many hidden "gems" that are hard to find.


I would rate this site 4.5 stars

YouTube

http://www.youtube.com

Youtube is a video sharing site that allows for the upload of videos. Users can create their own "channels" and can also share them very easily.

Pros- Some people would argue with me that YouTube is an educational website, but I think it can be a huge asset in the classroom. If I am trying to learn a topic, it can almost always be found on Youtube.

Cons- Sometimes videos can be inappropriate. I would point to the exact video that I would want my students to watch, or embed the video so that they don't even need to go to YouTube.

I would rate the site 4 stars.

Microsoft Office Support

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/publisher-help/CH010079337.aspx

 This is Microsoft's support web page. When using Publisher to create a web page this resource allows you to search things like; adding pages, creating hyplerlinks, changing background images and many more useful instructions.

Pros: Very simple, clear directions for completing a task

Cons- Sometimes hard to search for what you are really looking for.

I would rate this three stars out of five.

Tutorial videos

http://www.tutvid.com/

This is a great resource that has video tutorials for a lot of the Adobe Suite. Video tutorials range from the most basic lessons to very high end design. The lessons will tell you the level of skill set needed to complete the tutorial.

Pros:
I think this website is nice for teachers and students alike. When I am trying to figure out how to use an advanced tool this is the first place that I check.
Cons:
The only con that I can think of is that I wouldn't mind more detail on the latest software CS5

I would rate this site 5 stars

Blog Details

This blog is for my web design class. All of the websites provided will be great assets to students and teachers in learning; basic web publishing, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Flash, HTML, and Adobe Dreamweaver.

First post template

1. Name of the resource (i. e. Educational Technology Resource)
URL address (i. e. http://www.oswego.edu/~hyang2/edu506/resources/)
Summary (i. e. This Website is designed to provide numerous Internet links on an array of productivity tools on: text management - Word Processing, number arrangement - Spreadsheet, scheme performance - Presentation, information allocation - HTML Editor, and portfolio integration - Portfolio. It is intended to help pre- and in-service teachers build on their ideas and become lifelong educational technology learners.)
Commentary (i. e. The advantages of this Website are... the disadvantages are... therefore, I rate this site 4 out of 5 stars.)