Classroom Website

Our next big task was to create a professional classroom website.  I decided to use Weebly and make a site geared towards my next student teaching placement.  Parts of it were hard to make or visualize because I had no real information to put due to lack of a real classroom.  I am happy with my overall product for the purpose of this assignment.  If it were a real classroom website I would want to have more student work or involvement on it somehow.  It is simple enough to navigate that almost any age could update or post reminders after some practice.  In looking for ideas on what to put on mine, I searched through a lot of other teacher's websites.  They were all a way to communicate what was going on in the classroom but they were all so different.  Seeing how they were all different made me feel more comfortable with mine.  After realizing how easy it is to make this is something that I definitely want to use in the future.  Once you have the basic site made it would not take much time to quickly update something or quickly post a reminder to parents.  

~ Carissa

ePortfolios EEEK!

The big new idea this week was ePortfolios.  Looking at a few examples in class I think that they look great but also like a lot of work.  There are a lot of things to think about when deciding what to include and what you want to put online.  So far it feels really overwhelming.  For myself I think that I will have to make a rough outline on paper first to organize my thoughts and figure out what I want to include.  I am still not entirely sure how I would want to share my portfolio for the purposes of a job interview.  We talked about the options of putting it online or giving out a memory stick.  I think that once I have the project completed it will be easier to decide what I feel most comfortable with.  I have chosen to make mine on weebly.  So far it is going okay.  The site is proving fairly easy to navigate so far.  I have not done anything fancy with it yet, but so far I think that this site does everything that I want it to do considering it is free.  It may take a while to make it look professional and at the same time personal but I think that in the end my final product will be worth the time.

~ Carissa

Back At Blogging

Once again this blog is up and running for another term at Brandon University.....my last term I might add!!  It is hard to believe how fast time has gone and that in the spring I will be applying for my first teaching position.   All of my courses are in full swing now including ICT, the reason for my blog.  This term I am looking forward to learning more about creating websites and practical applications and tools I can use in my final student teaching placement and my career.  With this being my second technology based course, I am hoping that I can build upon the skills I learned last year.  I already feel a lot more comfortable with technology as compared to last year.  This is definitely a good thing!  Here's hoping for a great term filled with lots of learning!  

~ Carissa