EDTC 603 Web development
Reflection
The first artifact is my classroom website. I have had a classroom website for several years now, but I was excited to get dig deeper and create a better one using more design and purpose. My website is a active website, because my kids and parents have been using it throughout this school year. I learned how valuable websites can be for teachers. Teaching is not the sole responsibility of the teacher. It is a partnership between teachers, parents and students. Parents want to know what is happening in the classroom, and how they can best help their child at home. On my website parents can assess bi-weekly newsletters, volunteer schedules, pictures, videos of children learning and educational websites. The children have a student blog section where they are creating a Voki about themselves. My students love listening to each other’s Vokis. My students use my website every day in our daily centers to access a link to an online reading program called Raz-kids. What I find valuable is that they then go home and know exactly how to access it from home too. Each year my kids star in an Australian play that I wrote. Last year I posted the video on my website and within two weeks I received an email from a teacher in Australia saying that she loved our video and showed it to her kids. WOW! My kids and I were ecstatic!
My second artifact is a table critiquing website elements. When browsing through the good and bad sites I realized that the reader will make their mind up if they like the site or not VERY fast. First impressions are important. The design, color, typography and CSS need to dance together making the reader want to stay and investigate your site. By looking at other websites I soon realized that there were items that I definitely liked and disliked about websites. Hands down the number one thing I thought made a quality website was user friendliness. I want to go to a site and find what I am looking for without getting frustrated. I liked the images and text to be simple and not too flashy. Too much can distract from the content and make the site harder to navigate. I used this knowledge while creating my own site.
NETS*T Standards
*Facilitate and Inspire Student Learning and Creativity
*Design and Develop Digital Age Learning Experiences and Assessments
*Model Digital Age Work and Learning
*Promote and Model Digital Citizenship and Responsibility
*Engage in Professional Growth and Leadership
21st Century Skills
*Creativity and Innovation
*Critical Thinking and Problem Solving
*Communication and Collaboration
*Information Literacy
*Media Literacy
*Facilitate and Inspire Student Learning and Creativity
*Design and Develop Digital Age Learning Experiences and Assessments
*Model Digital Age Work and Learning
*Promote and Model Digital Citizenship and Responsibility
*Engage in Professional Growth and Leadership
21st Century Skills
*Creativity and Innovation
*Critical Thinking and Problem Solving
*Communication and Collaboration
*Information Literacy
*Media Literacy
Research
Gee, did I have to do a lot of researching about websites in this class!! I had never heard of half of the terms I researched. I now will not look completely dumbfounded when talking about a CMS, widget, plug-in, hosts, open source, and dashboard. We researched and created a basic page using HTML code. This was tough and I’m glad we have WordPress, Weebly and other hosts that do most of the coding for us.
I also learned how people read and scan content in magazines and the internet. Being aware of how Web users, including me, scan articles and sites was helpful in designing my website. There is so much a designer has to think about even before they put the content (words) on a page. Whether or not the content gets read depends on the look of the site. The graphics, colors, icons, buzz words, easiness of navigating. The layout can lure the reader in or turn the reader away in frustration. I learned that the main titles needed to be short, sweet and to the point. It is helpful to use different sizes of text to draw the reader’s attention to what is important on your page. Pictures and graphics play an important role and can help make the readers want to learn more. The background color needs to compliment the text color, and not be a strain to read.
I also learned how people read and scan content in magazines and the internet. Being aware of how Web users, including me, scan articles and sites was helpful in designing my website. There is so much a designer has to think about even before they put the content (words) on a page. Whether or not the content gets read depends on the look of the site. The graphics, colors, icons, buzz words, easiness of navigating. The layout can lure the reader in or turn the reader away in frustration. I learned that the main titles needed to be short, sweet and to the point. It is helpful to use different sizes of text to draw the reader’s attention to what is important on your page. Pictures and graphics play an important role and can help make the readers want to learn more. The background color needs to compliment the text color, and not be a strain to read.
I learned that as soon as your work is created it is copyrighted automatically. You do not have to register for a copyright. However, if you wish to bring a lawsuit for infringement your work must be registered first. It is illegal for anyone to violate any of the rights provided by the copyright, but there are limitations described as “Fair Use.” This gives various purposes for which reproduction will be considered fair. The problem this poses is that it is not always clear what would be considered infringement or not. Some people want to share their creative work to an extent based on some conditions or no conditions. So something called Creative Commons (CC) was established in 2001. The Creative Commons media is free and gives people the right to share and use your creative work on conditions of your choice. It protects the people who use your work, so they don’t have to worry about copyright infringement, as long as they abide by the conditions you have specified.
Resources