Grand Finale!!!!

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WebQuest

My WebQuest

New Driving Question

Can you afford to live?

Driving Question

What would the world be like without math?

WebQuest Evaluation

-- Which two of example WebQuests listed below are the best ones? Why?
The two sites I think are the best are Grow Schools Green and Unraveling the Underground Railroad. 
I like Grow Schools Green because it is an easy site to navigate through. It has good examples and the directions are well written out. It offers a lot of good tips about the plant growing process.
I think that Unraveling the Underground Railroad is a good site because it has good information, and is well laid out. The information given is easy to understand, and is an important part of our history. 





- Which two are the worst? Why?
The two that I think are the worst are "Where is My Hero?" and Ancient Egyptian. 
I think that the Hero site is just not laid out very, and it is basically just your own opinion. There are no facts, and no real information. 
The Egyptians site is pretty boring to look at, just blah and boring information. The site is a little difficult to navigate. 




- What do best and worst mean to you?
To me, best means that this is an ideal WebQuest site. It has good information and is laid out well. It keeps my interest while I'm learning from the site. Not boring. 


A WebQuest site that I think would be the worst would be one that is boring, with little or no color or animation. It's not easy to navigate through the site, and provides either no, or little factual information.

Top Ten Video Questions

     -Does this activity differ from much of the activities you engaged during your K-12 education? How? or How not? Give examples.

             When I was younger, I would do research projects similar to this, but not with this amount of technology. We would get all of the information from the library, textbooks, and magazines.  After we gathered the information, we put the information that we gathered on a poster board. 

     - Is your learning style addressed in this activity? How? Give me an example.

          

           Yes, it relates to my learning style. I now use the internet for nearly all of my research. I like the way this site used a visual medium, and then gave information about the subject. I am a visual learner, so to be able to see what is being talked about makes it much easier for me to learn.

      - This project was implemented without the use of textbooks. Are you surprised? Are you interested in teaching in a similar way when yo become a teacher?

         No, in today's world I am not surprised that textbooks weren't used. With technology available to us today, it makes it faster and easier to find information about practically anything you want. 

           I would most definitely be interested in using technology for my classrooms. Researching on the internet keeps the students interested by making that technological connection with them. The future is heading toward a more technology based society, so we must be able to prepare the kids to adapt to the new technology and understand how to use it. 

     - What are your concerns and what do you anticipate as being barriers?

        My concerns would be keeping the kids off of sites that are inappropriate, or have false information. We need to ensure that they know what to look for to find credible sites.  There is also a lot of distractions readily available on the internet, so we need to trust that the kids will stay focused on the work and not get side-tracked onto something else. 

WebQuest

WebQuest about WebQuests Worksheet

Your Role: Efficiency Ecpert

_X_Efficiency Expert

___Affiliator

___Altitudinist

___Technophile

Your Impressions

WebQuest	Strengths	Weaknesses
Gorillas	-Good information -Well laid out -Direct and to the point	-A few grammatical errors -The Standards page under the teacher wasn’t there
Shakespeare	-Well laid out -Got right to the point, gave what was required of the students without the “fluff”	- The Process page could be shortened some
Earthquake	- Great site, not too much extra wording. - Told what needed to be done, and nothing more - Well designed, and laid out - The questions were concise and direct - Gave good examples on what they were looking for	- None that I noticed. Good site
Foreign Country	- A little wordy, but good info - Site was easy to navigate	- Three pages had no information on them in the teacher’s section - Too much detail in the Process section. Be more precise
Waves & Sound	- Good information supplied on the site	- Too much detail - Process and Resources pages missing from teachers section

Bernie Dodge, Department of Educational Technology, SDSU

Blogging Questions

1. What do you like or dislike about keeping a blog for this course?
I like the simplicity of it. I knew nothing about blogging before this class, and I'm glad that I now know how to blog. It helps me, most of all, with organization. I can keep all of my work on the page and I can see when I get it done, and what progress I have made in the class. It's nice to look back at all the postings and see what all I've done this semester. 

2. How can keeping a blog make you a more effective teacher?
Just like in the video, blogs are a great way to spread information or ideas. Collective Intelligence is a big reason for teachers to blog. It allows us to see what teachers from all over the world are doing in their classrooms. Nothing like this was ever possible before, it's pretty amazing. Blogs are literally opening up a whole new world for educators, and even their students. 

3. Will you consider continuing to post to your blog after this course is over? Why?

Yes, I will definitely try to incorporate blogging in my class. I think it is a good way to connect to the kids' interests, and a good way for them to document the work they are doing. It will allow them to work together, even when they're not in class, and even get information on blogs from students all over the world.  

4. Keeping a blog helps you develop four new media literacies:

• Appropriation - The ability to meaningfully sample and remix media content.
• Collective Intelligence - The ability to share and pool knowledge and compare notes with each other toward a common goal.
• Transmedia Navigation.- The ability to follow the flow of information and stories across multiple modalities.
• Networking - The ability to search for synthesizes and disseminate information.

I think that the media literacy that has effected me most is Networking.  I now how more about how to find credible resources on the internet, and know how to run my own blog. Like I said before, I had never blogged before, and this class has really taught me a lot about it, along with multiple tools and programs that I didn't even know existed. I feel like I have a better grasp on how to operate certain programs on a computer, and how I could apply them to my classroom.  I'm really glad that I took this class, I think it will definitely pay off in the future. 

Wikipedia Reliability Worksheet

Wikipedia Reliability Worksheet Article title: Answer the following questions to see how reliable a Wikipedia article is. Start with the main page. Does it have any cleanup banners that have been placed there to indicate problems with the article? (A complete list is available at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Template_messages/ Cleanup.) Any one of the following cleanup banners means the article is anunreliable source: This article or section has multiple issues.         This article may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards. The neutrality of this article is disputed. The factual accuracy of this article is disputed. This needs copy editing for grammar, style, cohesion, tone or spelling. This may contain material not appropriate for an encyclopedia. This article only describes one highly specialized aspect of its associated subject. This article requires authentication or verification by an expert. This article or section needs to be updated. This article may not provide balanced geographical coverage on a region. This is missing citations or needs footnotes. This article does not cite any references or sources. Read through the article and see if it meets the following requirements: Is it written in a clear and organized way?     Is the tone neutral (not taking sides)? Are all important facts referenced (you're told where they come from)? Does the information provided seem complete or does it look like there are gaps (or just one side of the story)? Scroll down to the article's References and open them in new windows or tabs. Do they seem like reliable sources? (For help in determining the general reliability of a source, check out the Knowing What's What and What's Note: The 5 Ws (and 1 "H") of Cyberspace handout.) Yes, the resources seem reliable. Reliable references: HowStuffWorks.com The New York Times Popular Mechanics Possibly unreliable references: http://www.ozgm.com/Ozstory.htm http://www.autoblog.com/2010/03/11/chevrolet-to-employ-new-excellence-for-everyone-ad-campaign/ http://www.springbokradio.com/ADSCHEVROLET.html Definitely unreliable references: http://watches.infoniac.com/index.php?page=post&id=23 http://www.kroymanscorporation.com/ http://www.autohistoria.com.ar/Historias/GM%20Historia%20EN.htm http://www.moby302.co.za/brochures/1972_chevrolet/kommando.html Click on the Discussion tab. How is the article rated on the Rating Scale(Stub, Start, C, B, GA, A, FA)? What issues around the article are being discussed? Do any of them make you doubt the article's reliability? This has been rated  Start Class. It has missed information and vandals have added their comical two cents to the site. Based on the above questions, give the article an overall ranking ofReliable, Partially Reliable or Unreliable. You may use a Reliable article as a source (but remember that even if a Wikipedia article is reliable, it should never be your only source on a topic!) You may use a Partially Reliable article as a starting point for your research, and may use some of its references as sources, but do not us it as a source. You should not use an Unreliable article as a source or a starting point. Research the same topic in a different encyclopedia. How did you rank this article (Reliable, Partially Reliable or Unreliable)? Give at least three reasons to support your answer. I would consider this site to be partially reliable.The article seems to have good information, but after reading the comments in the discussion section, there is need for improvement. Vandals have typed some obvious misinformation, and they are missing some aspects of the topic. They have completely  missed a section on Chevy trucks. I would also like to see a history of the company, chronologically ordered.

Wikipedia Questions

a. What is Wikipedia?

                A multilingual, Web-based encyclopedia project, operated by the Wikimedia Foundation, a nonprofit organization.

b. How would you answer the question posed in this piece “How reliable can a source be when anyone can edit it?”?

                According to this article, it only works in practice, it never works in theory.  They put their faith in the "wisdom of crowds," which they think will weed out the non valid information.

c. Who do the creators of Wikipedia place their trust in when it comes to weeding out misinformation? 

             The many people watching what appears on the site.

d. Why did founder Larry Sanger leave Wikipedia? 

              He believed that it should give more authority to experts

e. What would abuse or vandalism look like on a Wikipedia page? 

               It would look like the rest of the information. Unless the abuse is so crazy that it stands out, it would be hard to tell the difference.

f. What do the statistics quoted in the third paragraph of this piece reveal? 

             That Wikipedia is a fast growing, global website. It's validity seems greater thanks to Google showing their site in many searches.

g. Why do you think Wikipedia is so successful? 

               I think it's successful because in large part to what was said in the last question. Every time you Google  something, a Wikipedia page of is one of the first things that are listed. Wikipedia pages usually have a fair amount of information, whether or not it's true is another issue. They layout of the page in general also gives off a "professional" look to it, which gives the researcher confidence in the site just from appearance.

h. Why might Wikipedia’s creators not want to accept advertising? 

             If it's not broke, don't fix it. They seem to have a good thing going. Their only expense is a $5,000 a month payment, while bringing with $3 million per year. They currently only have 10 employees, and with more funding , they may feel the need to hire more people. Like I said, everything seems to be working well for them, so if it's not broke, don't fix it.

i. How does Wikiscanner help increase the reliability of Wikipedia entries?

   It allows the IP addresses of anonymous editors of the site to be checked. It makes it easier for the editors to expose the abuse on their pages. 

TodaysMeet

Think Aloud

Website Evaluation

Who is the source of the information?  
 They gave a fake list of authors for the site. They gave all of them impressive resumes. You must pay attention, at the bottom of the site, it gives a link to the real authors.  They are Gerald Aungst and Lauren Zucker. Gerald is a Supervisor of Gifted Education in the Cheltenham School District in Elkins Park, PA. Lauren a Library Media Specialist in Centennial School District, and also taught middle and high school English. 



What are you getting? 
A fictional site. This is a site made by a group of teachers to teach students how to use the internet. Most of the information on the website is fictional, or made up. They made the site look legitimate, but it's fake. They did a good job, just by looking at it, I thought it was real. They got me,

When was the site created?
It doesn't say when the site was created. It does say that the site was updated on June 17th 2011. So that tells me that it is a current site.


Where? 
It is a ".com" website. This goes along with the content of the site. Anyone can make a ".com" site, which is why the teachers can make a false site. Clever. I like this site.

I love this site. This was such a great idea. This is a good way to catch the students who don't pay attention to what they are researching. I'd like to implement this in my class somehow, just to see if anyone catches on.