There is always a debate about whether or not homework is essential to learning. From my perspective homework can be a very important step to one's learning process. It is for me, although I really, really hate doing homework.
A couple of years ago I had a rather detailed homework assignment for one of the courses I was taking. At first, I thought that the homework was really unnecessary - it was just "busy work".
The assignment was to quickly write down the steps I use to evaluate online materials - in other words, whether or not the website can be trusted. Then to go online and find five resources that I would use, and why I would use them.
Really? I teach this stuff - do I really have to do this?
Yes.
What I discovered was what that it's not as simple as I thought.
Sure, there are the common sense checks, such as:
- Who's the author?
- Credentials?
- Can the information be verified?
- How current is the information?
- Are opinions clearly identified?
- Who sponsors the website?
But today, there is this new phenomenon - social media, blogs, and wikis.
Can those questions above be applied to these types of websites? I think that they can, but there are other questions one needs to ask as well.
Social Media questions:
- Can the identity of the source of shared information be verified?
- Can the information on the profile page be verified?
- Can institutions and/or companies be identified?
Blog questions:
- Is the blog posting signed by an identifiable author?
- A guest author?
- Who are they?
- Is the blog posting cited on other blogs? (Use Technorati - a blog search engine - to find out.)
- Do new postings appear fairly regularly?
Wiki questions:
- Can one identify all of those who are able to edit or add content?
- Who are they?
- Are there guidelines for contributors to follow?
- Is the wiki moderated? That is, is there an editor? Who are they?
As one can see the questions are very similar to the basic questions one uses to determine whether or not a website can be trusted; they are just a little more detailed. They dig deeper.
So, does this teach me anything about homework - yes, I still hate it, but once again I did learn something new and that is always wicked awesome.
Ok, I have not met my goal to post. Ah, go figure? It really does take a lot of dedication which I obviously do not have, YET.
There are only six school days left!!! But, of course like most teachers, I really don't get a summer vacation. It's the nature of the beast - especially considering the subjects I teach - which demands a significant amount of attention over the summer.
In other words, I tweak or totally revamp most of the curricula I teach. Technology is not like English or History where most of the information is static. Do not get me wrong; it still takes a clever mind to make English and History interesting enough to get students' invested enough to learn.
But teaching technology is more than how it is taught, it's constantly evolving and updating! AND that requires a lot of dedication to learning new information and incorporating it into the curricula constantly.
For example, English grammar does not change nor does historical events, but in technology software is updated as well as programming languages. Imagine being told that how to make a noun plural is NOT to add an -s to the end but rather to add an -z, AND the signing of the Declaration of Independence really happened in 1676. At least I don't get bored, right?
Since I will be spending a significant amount of time working on curricula this summer, I will share a lot of the new information I discover as well as how those lesson plans are evolving. I'll also share some of those ramblings we all have about who in the heck makes all these changes and WHY!
So, here is my first entry on my very own blog, and I have so many thoughts running around in my head that I don't know what I want to talk about. Of course, I have to keep in mind that high school students may end up reading this, so I want to set the correct tone for my blog. Yet at the same time I want to be able to express my feelings in a constructive way. There are days when my feelings are in no way constructive.
I guess I should mention why I finally bit the bullet and bought a domain and hosting package. Although I have been actively creating websites since the early 1990s, I did not build Mrs. Boutot's iteachnology zone until 2002. Every time I started to build a family website, I lost interest not to mention I was rather uncomfortable about the idea of posting personal family business up on the internet for anyone to see. I won't tell my neighbor what was going on, so why would I share with people I don't know.
Anyway, before I bought my domain name, my site was hosted by my home's internet service provider. It worked out great. No real complains, except for the 36 character long URL and only 10MB of space! Last time I checked which was just before I transferred it to iteachnologyzone.com, it was a little, just a little, over 300MB. That's, what, only about a 2900% increase. Did my ISP catch this increase? Nope, they didn't. So, why didn't they? Well, I have a theory. They didn't realize because most of their customers don't realize that they get free website hosting along with their service. So, if you are in the market to create a website, before you go and spend a chunk of change on a domain and hosting package, use what you've got just to make sure you'll stick with it. That's what I did which brings us to why I finally bit the bullet.
I am excited about having my own domain name. Has this changed my website? Nope. has it change me? Nope. But it's still exciting. I'm officially part of the World Wide Web. It's like when you got your very first car, or your own phone number. Sure you drove and use a phone before but when you got your very own, WOW! You are all grown up!
Another reason why I finally bit the bullet...I want to be able to add lots of those cool features to my site which I couldn't do with my ISP. I want to be able to have a blog that I control completely, I want to be able to have email addresses with my domain, I want to be create searchable databases, and I want to be able to develop itechnologyzone.com as an educational tool for anyone out on the internet, not to mention that I want and I want and I want.
