Wade Vandervest’s Blog

It is hard to believe that this class is over.  It has gone by very quickly.  I must say that I have learned about a lot of resource that are available to me.  I have enjoyed using my delicious.com account and I plan on using it when this class is done.  I have enjoyed having this blog to reflect on my progress through this class.  I know the last month has been a blur to me.  When we would get an assignment, I would be busy working on my own project that I really didn’t see what others did.  I tried the best I could to respond to others, but I didn’t do it as frequently as I would like.  There were a great deal of good ideas out their from other teachers.  Many having the similar thoughts that I have.  Knowing the educational process as we know is broke and trying to do something to fix it.  I only hope we can do enough to keep our students motivated to learn.

As I work on a WebQuest, it is amazing how detailed I have to think.  I thought about doing a section about how much student would have to make in order to meet a standard of living they wanted.  As I thougth about the parts, it was almost too overwhelming.  I may have to give them a certain amount to look at.  Then we can open up a discussion at the end about what parts were missing from their budget and how that would effect what type of job they would have to have.  We will have to see how things go.

I am debating whether to work on a webquest assignment or a web page assignment.  I could see using both in my classroom.  It would be interesting to set up a webquest to use in my classroom.  It would be interesting to see how students would work through a webquest.  It would also be nice to set up a web page for my classroom to introduce what my classes are about and maybe set up a couple assignments that students could work on later on.  I will have to think about this decision a little more.  If I had more time, I would think about doing both.

As I look at more WebQuests, I am tempted to try and create one on my own.  It seems like a really rewarding experience for both teacher and student.  Their are two possible problems.  The first being what topic to do a webquest on and the second being time.  I have a couple of ideas that I think would be neat, but not sure if it would interest students.  Especially freshmen and sophomores, what I find interesting being a math guy and what they find interesting might be a little different.  The time thing wouldn’t be a big issue, but it would still be an issue.  How deep do I want to go with this?  How much time do I want to put into it?  How much time do I want the students to work on this?  We have experts say it is not the quantity cover it is the quality.  Standards tend to say otherwise.  I will have to contemplate this one for a while.

This week I pulled out the first web paged I ever created.  I did it back in the year 2000.  It is amazing to think about how much web pages have changed.  Epecially since you have all sorts of web page editing software.  When I orginally wrote my web page I used HTML language.  The way web pages are today, there is no way I would try to write using HTML.  The editing software is so convenient.  You can see instantly how the page will look.  At this years math convention, there was discussion about the teachers having the same trouble with programming language and students.  They could see instantly what was happening, so many students didn’t have much interest.  It should be interesting to see what the next 10 years brings in web page design

As with many people, I am cautious about visiting a site like wikipedia.  Granted it is not the only wiki that is out there, it is the most known.  The thought that concerns me the most is the fact that anyone can write  about the topic.  In class we had to write about student online safety.  As we worked on it, I thought to myself, I am no expert in this area.  So I looked it up.  Am I any more of an expert, I wouldn’t say that.  It would be interesting if someone would correct what we had to say about it.

In class this week, we discussed online security.  We talked about filters, AUPs, and security itself.  I found it interesting today 7/22/08 that there was a report on CNN about 20% of children of the age of 11 and 12 find it safe to give personal information online.  That is a scary stat.  The discussion was interesting.  The anchor asked the question, “How can parents let their children believe it is safe?”  The “expert” stated that at that age many student feel invincible.  It only makes our jobs as educators that much more important.

This past weekend I worked on a research paper.  I was impressed by what the lesley university had to offer in terms of resoures and guides that were available.  I was able to find out a lot of information about my topic of technology in math education.

I must admit that I have been a little disappointed with how much I have been making post on the discussion board this past assignment.  I am not sure if I am the only one, but I feel as if I have been spending time doing the work and not taking enough time reading what other people have done.  There have been times in this past assignment when I have looked at what people wrote, but didn’t take the time to think about they wrote and make a comment.  I will have to make sure I take a little more time this next assignment. 

I am also a little disapointed in how many post I have made on my own blog.  I will have to make sure to make a post at least once a week.

It is amazing to see how many search engines there are on the internet.  It seems the new generation of search engines want to combine multimedia and searching.  Yahoo has done this for a while.  Google on the other hand has its popularity, to me at least, based on a non clutter page to search.  I think many people find the other options that some search engines have on its page distracting.  I know when I go on yahoo, I always end up looking at what is in the news and spend time on reading another article.  The search engine I enjoyed the most was Kartoo.  It was amazing how it split a phrase into different catergories and I could base my search on pages that were similar.  I may find myself using this search engine more often.

This past week in my technology class I learned about RSS feeds, online bookmarks, and other blogs.  The most interesting to me was the online bookmark del.icio.us.  It was useful to be able to access all of my bookmarks in one location.  The RSS feed was handy in the fact that you can check to see if  a few websites have new information all in one location.