At first glance I was confused about this activity reflection… How concise was I supposed to be? I’m a verbose person by nature; this is going to be hard.
While doing the textbook reading I noticed there are some pretty extensive lists of sites between the Ch. 2 special feature and the later Appendix B pages. I happily dove in to investigating the web through both my trusty Google search engine (I’m a big Google fan, I figured out how to work it long ago and it gives me what I want and tells me how fast it did it in!), and through the directory search feature of the web sites I was already in (another feature I love, because some web sites are so convoluted I need the site map to get to what I want).
I started with the Florida Department of Education (www.fldoe.org). I wanted to see if they had uploaded the latest World language SSS… nope, still pending. I got to see a rough draft thanks to the nice people at FFLA (Florida Foreign Language Association – www.ffla.us/). They sent us (their members) a review link to ALL the Florida Standards that are being updated and that YOU as an individual can review (link to it is here… take a go at them http://etc.usf.edu/flstandards/index.html )... I’ll let my sarcastic tone speak for how I feel about some of the ‘revisions’…
The FL DOE site also had a really nice ‘student’ section and a good search feature. I’ve spent a lot of time on this site over the last few months (my summer classes might as well have listed it as a required text!), and therefore felt pretty comfortable navigating the site. And my overall feeling is that it is very easy to use.
Surprisingly the DOE site is much easier to navigate than the Brevard County site (http://www.brevard.k12.fl.us/); which while trying to be user friendly has put so many links on its site I find it distracting. I, again, spend a lot of time on this site; as it is my county and I was trying to find a job this summer. I do admit that once you get use to it it’s not bad to navigate around… but until then you might click on 30 things before you find what you want. And the search feature is not very refined so it might not lead you to anything of use.
I found the Department of Education (www.doe.gov) site to be very useful, and it had a ton of resources for everyone (educators, parents, kids), with links that I felt were pretty well organized and easy to follow to other fun sites. That was my biggest problem… I could follow links for days! That’s how I ended up in the Smithsonian’s web site, so many cool lesson plans, and a pretty virtual tour you could take your class through. It has already been added to my favorites list!
I then went onto the sites the AR instructions recommended we see and decided to review the following sites:
A to Z Teacher Stuff – atozteacherstuff.com
First, I liked the name of this web site, seemed pretty comprehensive and catchy. I was not disappointed in the sense that the structure of the web site was easy to follow. The search feature even had several different options for how and what you wanted to search for (including a Google link). I was disappointed that yet again this is a site for the ‘core’ subjects and some electives are left out. It would be nice to have the foreign languages included in a site like this.
Kid’s Search Tools – www.rcls.org/ksearch.htm
I thought this was a fantastic site! As a parent you don’t have to worry that the magical web suddenly bring up a picture or a site your child should not see, and as an educator you can feel safe in the knowledge that you’ve directed your students to a safe site. The only down side is that this site can be seen as pretty child like for more experienced users (and that can be your average 8 year old), so the appeal may not be there for the older students. But in a classroom, where you need to search for something in front of your students and don’t want any surprises this would be a great tool. (This would never actually happen as we have all read our text book and the Online users guide for educators and know that we should preview ALL sites before we let the students see it… but just in case…) I also like the fact that the site has specific division and you can type in your search depending on the type of information you need to find.
The Gateway to Education Materials (GEM) – www.thegateway.org
At first, I thought I wasn’t going to like this site. There was the issue that one link seemed to link to about 50 others and I couldn’t figure out how to actually SEE the activity or lesson plan each link seemed to be attached to. Then… then I discovered this site’s search page, and everything changed. This site has something lovely and rare in the internet world…. Instructions! Granted it took me 3 minutes to find the instructions, but the good ones are always hard to find. J
The instructions let you know that you can either use a subject directory for this site, and click your way to where you want to go (a rabbit hole if I ever saw one); OR you could use their handy dandy search engine feature and get a more refined list! [So nice to have the option…and to have the special feature at the end of Ch. 2 in our book (Teachers Discovery Computers by Shelly, Gunter & Gunter) to clearly define the difference between the two options.] Once I got the hang of it really cool lesson plans, tools, and widgets just magically appeared even in my hard to find subject of Spanish!! And the best part, you can always go back to the main page and click on *find standards*, a couple of clicks and you are all good to go. This is one that is going on my ‘school web sites’ list.
Talking about that, I’ve decided I will stick with my old trusty *favorites* button and the folders I’ve created within it to save any useful web site. Not only is this feature easy for me to use on either one of the computers in my home, but I felt it was better organized that what Diigo was trying to do to my selections. No offence, but way too much work for something that right now takes 2 clicks for me. I’m sure I’ll get some response totting the greatness of this site and how you can access the list from anywhere, etc. But I just did not like it.
I feel I should wrap this up, it’s pretty long, but there was just a lot out there.
Overall I found that the sites I did visit (when not too busy to navigate through) were very helpful to the public they were intended to use them. The parent/children sites were often very ‘child like’ but full of substantive materials that if available to every student would be of great help to all. Now if we could only get all students a computer with internet access and someone to help them.
I immediately related to your comments about the websites being hard to navigate. Especially when I am looking for something for my classroom, I need to find things quickly and easily, and I found some websites you need to click many times before even getting to the page you need. I found this on some of the county sites as well, and thought what a turn off they were. If websites want people to visit them, they need to make sure they are clear and concise so people can find what they want in a timely manner. Otherwise they are going to lose people. I am pretty comfortable on the internet, but if websites want to attract all sorts of people, they need to make sure they build a website that is very simple to navigate. I found that not all the sites on our lists did that, and I may not have discovered all of the good things about them simply because I knew I could find the same information on another site in half the time.
ReplyDeleteI do think the websites had some good information for students and parents as well. I think those need to be advertised more, because I had no idea they were out there, and I am not sure parents do either. As far as internet access for all students, I think a lot of libraries have internet access that anyone can use. This is also something that I don't think is well known, and is something that could be very beneficial to lots of students and parents.
Megan H