8/18...oh wait, 8/17/10

The one thing that always gets me about technology is the need for every post to be time stamped.  If it weren't for time stamps, I'm sure I could convince a fair number of you that I eagerly posted this entry right after class.  Alas, I did not.  I ate two peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and then went to work.  Then I got home and read and finished up some work for my group project.  Oh well, I can model proper sleeping habits when I'm actually a teacher and blog right after school. 

Today (yesterday), we explored various classroom websites that we had pulled together the night before.  We went over the pros and cons of some of the website elements and decided what it was that made a good website and what it was that made a bad website.  Unfortunately, we came across some websites with sparkling or flashing pieces of clip-art littered throughout.  I'm surprised that people haven't realized that those types of decoration are distracting and, frankly, soooo Myspace.  I think that if a teacher should pull together a website for the classroom, he or she should be sure to show students what an effective website looks like.   There should be little to no clutter, a consistent design for every linking page and a modest color scheme to start.  It's important for students to know what the expectations are for web building when they head out of high school.  Near the end of class, we practiced building classroom sites through Google web hosting.  I'm pretty satisfied with the practice site I created, but I won't share it here because it's all based on a fake classroom.  I've always liked to design websites so this part of the class wasn't that big of an issue for me.  I've never use Google Websites, but I like it well enough.  The only thing I don't like about it is that it doesn't have some of the flexibility that I've seen on other web hosting sites.  Otherwise, it's very useful and straightforward.

We also discussed our final project, and I got into a group with Chelsea, Becca, Eric and Max.  I'm pretty excited about the project we have planned.  We each get a minute or so to talk about how we can use technology in the classroom. We are each covering different technological tools from EDT 520.  I have my idea at about 45 seconds (probably less if I can get myself to stop stuttering on camera), but I'm not too worried about it because our complete project will be plenty long enough, time-wise.  We are also bringing in some Sir Ken Robinson action, so I think the project will be really great.