Mike Says to "Build A Website!"

Starting this past week in my ICT course, Mike (our prof) asked us students to build a website, and create it like it is your own classroom website. Surprisingly I had never once created my own website, it was always something that I made someone else do for me (fantasy sports site, team site), because it seemed a tad overwhelming to give a try. But actually, it is pretty easy to get started because of the numerous websites that make it easy for you to start one up.

I have seen a ton in my day, a lot of friends and ex colleagues have their own websites that which they keep up to date and some that haven't kept up with their site at all. I truly feel that a class website is the best way to keep students, parents and fellow colleagues up to date on the daily happenings within a classroom. Instead of sending a weekly newsletter home with your students, just take 5 minutes and update the website because it is important to keep parents informed of what their son/daughter is learning on week to week basis.

So then, I had to decide on what I would want on my own classroom website...

Who am I...A brief "About me" section, just to introduce myself to the parents who do not know a whole lot about me yet.

Contact...Basically just my contact information, consisting of my e mail and phone number to the school.

Homework...This section can consist of the daily homework. If a student has forgotten what was due, then they can always check our classroom website for information. This could be very useful for parents as well.

Schedule...This section will give students and parents an idea on what kind of events, celebrations, tests or projects that are coming up for this particular class.

Classroom Rules...These are a list of expectations that are done by the class and I at the start of the school year. They will need to be followed throughout the school year and they will be posted in class as a reminder to all the students.

These are just some ideas so far, I can always add more, definitely has been fun to give a try and looking forward to seeing the finished product.

ePortfolios...Where do you start?!

This past week in ICT class, Mike Nantais introduced us to the idea of a personal ePortfolio. Before this class I didn't know much about ePorfolio's and their importance they can have when you're looking for employment someday. Mike explained to us that these types of portfolios are growing in popularity since they can include video and audio in addition to more traditional elements.

Over the next couple weeks, we will be brainstorming ideas and forming our own personal ePortfolios. We as a class brainstormed some ideas for what we should have on our portfolio, some ideas were:

• A welcome page that introduces yourself.
• A personal information page which further introduces yourself and goals for the future.
• Resume: highlighting the important experiences that have occurred in your life (work, teaching, volunteer, etc.)
• Teaching philosophy
• Professional Learning (professional developments - what did you learn?)
• Artifacts: this may include student teaching reports, lesson examples, activities, ICT items, gifts from students.
• Classroom Management plan
• Sell yourself - include things you have done that might get you an interview/job. Basically..."What do you have to offer?!"

So, over the next few weeks I look forward to building my ePortfolio and thinking of new ideas that I can add to it. Even though the jury is still out on whether interviewers or administrators actually have a look at these, I am still looking forward to seeing what I can put together from all of my experiences.

My Second Crack at Blogging!

Well I guess I am blogging again! Which I think is fine....for now. I eventually enjoyed blogging last year in Internet for Educators, it was just a matter of keeping up with them. I enjoyed reading other classmates blogs and seeing how many people were viewing my blogs was kind of neat as well. Seeing which of blogs were interesting to others and which ones were just plain brutal (no views or comments) was pretty cool too. So I am back blogging...I am going to be as interesting as I can be, but that might be not mean YOU will think its interesting and that is more than fine.

When it comes to technology in the classroom, I learned quite a bit in Internet for Educators last year but I am hoping to discover some new ideas through Mike and my classmates. Last week, Mr. Nantais ask us to put a WORDLE together using http://www.wordle.net/create. I have done a world splash and word map to introduce a new topic to students during my placements and it worked very well. But if you use wordle, it can create a pretty fancy word splash for your students to see after the new topic discussion is complete. The wordle below is what I came up with in ICT, it is my first one so don't make fun of it.

More interesting blogs involving education and technology in the coming weeks...