One of the many things I love about my school is that they purchased Teacherweb and licenses for teachers to create their own webpage for their class. If you want to check out my site you can find it using the following link: Mrs. Ferry's Webpage
I fully admit that my webpage is nowhere close to what I want it to be. Honestly after taking our three courses this past summer, I have worked on updating my website and using it for more than just listing the homework. I want to be realistic though and understand with recent budget cuts I should prepare for when I might have to create my own webpage and not use the school's resources.
In general I want my digital learning hub to be one that is constantly alive and not stagnant. Since technology and the resources online are constantly changing and being updated I feel that is what my website should be as well. For my students it should be the ICT that they use for not only my class, but hopefully all classes.
Although I am a math teacher, I want to take what I learn in the IT&DML courses to reach out to my students and my fellow teachers in all academic areas. Imagine what it would be like to have one website that would direct you to Internet sites that could assist you with online research, solving algebraic equations, identifying successful science fair projects, and looking for common themes between great literature pieces? For both students and teacher alike, this type of resource would be an amazing resource and it would take the guessing out of looking through numerous search engine res
The webpage would have categories on the left hand side that list different subject matters. Under each subject matter it could be broken down into grade levels and content topics. In addition, there would be links and resources available for Common Core lesson plans and activities. I get excited just thinking about what could be designed to assist my learners and fellow teachers. Unfortunately I think about the time it would take to research and find the material, create the webpage, and constantly keep it updated with the most up to date information as possible. It would be a full time job just keeping up the website, but boy would it be worth it!
As Leu, Kinzer, Coiro, and Cammack stated 2004, "It will be up to each of us to recognize the continually changing nature of literacy and to develop a rich understanding of these changes." Personally I feel at times it is hard enough to keep track of new curriculum and procedures in my own district and school. I am sure there are other teachers who would share my concern and would like to have one resource available that could keep them up to date on the new literacies and how to implement them into our classrooms.
If a girl could dream about what her learning hub would be like, this would be it, one place where anyone and everyone could find resources that would help them succeed whether they were a teacher or a student. The learning hub would be updated regularly and continually change to account for the changes in literacies and new resources that are available on the Internet. It would take the guessing out of what search engine results are legit and which ones are really useful for academic use. The time spent shifting through the Internet would be reduced and more time could be dedicated to learning actual content material.
I share the idea that although we teach math I would like my site to cross content areas as there is so much more we can be doing with technology in all of our classrooms...from my perspective.
ReplyDeleteI already love your existing webpage...and hopefully you can either continue building what you have...or migrate to a new location. I know too well the challenges that occur when districts cut budgets and move to new platforms. Good luck.
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