Webquest Reviews

1.  The two best projects we chose were Unraveling the Underground Railroad and Where is my Hero. These sites used great use of time and the students worked in groups to understand the history. Many students may not know the true meaning of a hero and the project would be a great way for students to learn that definition.

2.  The two worst projects we chose were Grow School Green and Ancient Egypt Webquest. The Grow School Green project was a great use of time but may have went too long for the children. The Ancient Egypt Webquest really is too lengthy for the students to read. It does not seem interesting and it is very disorganized.

3.  Best and worst hold strong meanings to me. The best is the one that is going to be the better instructions and which project the students would enjoy. If a project can interest me and make me want to do the project then I qualify it as the best. The worst to me is the project that is most unorganized and most clearly unwritten. I had a hard time reading certain projects because the site was just uninteresting and hard to pay attention to. A website has to catch a reader's attention.

The Efficiency Expert

WebQuest	Strengths	Weaknesses
Grow School Greens	Takes 15 weeks to complete. This keeps the students busy in the classroom with this project.	This project may go on too long and students may lose interest.
Where is My Hero?	This project will take the students a week or so to complete because they do have to do the outside interview.	What if they complete their projects in a day before they have to do the at home interview. The children are then sitting there with nothing to do.
Underground Railroad	This would take a while for the students to complete and a good use of their time. There are so many different pieces they have to complete before they can move on to the next section.	No weaknesses
Ice Cream	The assignment the second day would take up the whole class except the end.	This project would only take two days to complete and the first day the children could complete it before the class is over.
Ancient Egypt	This project would take a couple days to complete in the classroom.	Only one of the students are actively doing something during the research portion of the project.

DEJ #12

Quote:

They need to understand a new language of expression. The way we are educating is based on nineteenth-century ideas and methods. Here we are, entering the twenty-first century, and you look at our schools and ask, 'Why are we doing things in this ancient way?' Our system of education is locked in a time capsule. You want to say to the people in charge, 'You're not using today's tools! Wake up!

Response:

This quote explains so much about our schools today. I wish that teachers would wake up and understand that lecture does not grab our attention. If you want to get your students attention make something exciting for them. Let the students answer questions on Edmodo or use Storybird to let the students explain something in history. Teacher’s all over America are not allowing students to expand and broaden their horizon with the different resources that are available to that, and that to me is absolutely sickening. Let the students’ minds expand and let them learn!

Additional Response:

This website gives a list of essays about Visual Literacy in the classroom.  It also gives teacher's different ideas to integrate Visual Literacy into their class. 

http://www.rapides.k12.la.us/nitro/visual_literacy.htm

Resources:

Cox, Mary , and Cherry McNease. "Visual Literacy." Rapides Parish Schools -K-12 Education Louisiana. http://www.rapides.k12.la.us/nitro/visual_literacy.htm (accessed November 13, 2011).

Daly, James. "Life on the Screen: Visual Literacy in Education | Edutopia." K-12 Education & Learning Innovations with Proven Strategies that Work | Edutopia. http://www.edutopia.org/lucas-visual-literacy (accessed November 13, 2011).

My Autobiography

My autobiography

View more presentations from kstemple1.

Glass Giant

DEJ #11

• Summarize the argument made in this article.
• What evidence is presented to support the argument?
• State and justify your position on banning sex offenders from social-networking sites?

The argument in this article is whether or not to allow registered sex offenders to have a social networking site that they can use. A majority of people say that sex offenders should not be banned from social networking sites.

The evidence that is shown is that people all over the country who are on the sex offenders list does not necessarily mean that they raped a child or even touched a child. People had to be put on because of participating in prostitution and peeing outside in public. They had no contact with a child and being on the sex offenders list makes it a stereotypical thought.

I feel like some sex offenders should be banned from social networking sites because of the charges against them. There are sex offenders who actually have not done anything except pee in public and yes, of course that is wrong but that does not make them a sex offender. I feel like they should have the choice to get a facebook if they want one. Offenders who have been charged with touching a child or being on the internet and seeking attention from young children should be banned from every networking site there is. I believe that if they do it once they'll do it again.

Friend Not Foe

1.  Did the class activity about Wikipedia and this article change your opinion about the value of Wikipedia to society in general and education specifically?

     It did change my opinion about Wikipedia because I did not realize that there were so many people behind the site who try everyday to keep facts on the page and make sure people get the right information. I had no idea there was a wikiscanner who kept the site under control and keep people from posting information that is unreliable. 

2.  Describe how you might direct students to use Wikipedia in your future classroom.  ( Blogging Points for this assignment)

     I will direct students to use Wikipedia as a site that they can go to and get a quick overview of what is going on and get some information but not let them use it as a resource because you do not know if the website is 100% credible but students could use it as a beginning point to get them started on research.  

Harry Potter

1. Start with the main page. Does it have any cleanup banners that have been placed there to indicate problems with the article? (A complete list is available at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Template_messages/
   Cleanup.)

Any one of the following cleanup banners means the article is anunreliable source:

This article or section has multiple issues.	No
This article may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards.	No
The neutrality of this article is disputed.	No
The factual accuracy of this article is disputed.	No
This needs copy editing for grammar, style, cohesion, tone or spelling.	No
This may contain material not appropriate for an encyclopedia.	No
This article only describes one highly specialized aspect of its associated subject.	No
This article requires authentication or verification by an expert.	No
This article or section needs to be updated.	No
This article may not provide balanced geographical coverage on a region.	No
This is missing citations or needs footnotes.	No
This article does not cite any references or sources.	No

2. Read through the article and see if it meets the following requirements:

Is it written in a clear and organized way?	yes
Is the tone neutral (not taking sides)?	yes
Are all important facts referenced (you're told where they come from)?	yes
Does the information provided seem complete or does it look like there are gaps (or just one side of the story)?	yes

Wikipedia Questions

a. What is Wikipedia?  Wikipedia is a multilingual, Web-based encyclopedia project, operated by the Wikimedia Foundation, a nonprofit organization


b. How would you answer the question posed in this piece “How reliable can a source be when anyone can edit it?” I feel like a source can only be as reliable as you let it be. People edit sites sites everyday and if you feel uneasy about the information look it up on a different site.

c. Who do the creators of Wikipedia place their trust in when it comes to weeding out misinformation?
 They put their faith in the "wisdom of crowds,".


d. Why did founder Larry Sanger leave Wikipedia?Mr. Sanger left Wikipedia, believing that it should give more authority to experts; he has since created another site, Citizendium that does just that.


e. What would abuse or vandalism look like on a Wikipedia page? There would be a lot of errors and untrue statements made about whatever the page is on.

f. What do the statistics quoted in the third paragraph of this piece reveal? Wikipedia is growing rapidly and spreading all over the world.

g. Why do you think Wikipedia is so successful? Wikipedia is so successful because you can look up anything on the site and there is so much information on there. It is easy to get to and convenient.

h. Why might Wikipedia’s creators not want to accept advertising? when advertising is on a site it becomes less credible because everyone would think that it is a scam to get money from you.

i. How does Wikiscanner help increase the reliability of Wikipedia entries? It reveals any errors or abuse made by businesses or government officials. It keeps the site credible.

Think Aloud

Presentation1

View more presentations from kstemple1