Lesson 8: The Final Lesson

The final blog for class... the final blog before I graduate! How exciting.

This week we were asked to examine our classroom computers and discuss the types of security we have in place to prevent malicious software and/or hackers and to cite any areas of concern. In my opinion, our school software is not very protected. No one maintains the computers on a regular basis. A technician comes in only if there is a problem. We pay for a program that I consider inefficient, as I run one of two different free protection programs: AVG or Panda Cloud. Honestly, we have a minimal firewall. Students can go to any page I believe. The only protection we have is the students have to have an administrator's password to download something. We really need an overhaul and a professional development on how to avoid viruses, Trojans, and worms. Then we need to conduct a lesson with our students so they can be wise users of the internet at school and at home.

We know how damaging the effects of a Trojan can be. My mother-in-law's computer completely crashed. Luckily we have a friend who teaches computer science at a university and builds computers as a hobby take a look at it. He moved all the documents onto an external hard drive, reset the computer to factory settings, complete reformatted the hard drive, and then reloaded the operating system and office suite. He gave us the external hard drive to transfer the documents back to the computer. After we did that, the same thing happened again. He says that it was possible for the Trojan to break itself into pieces and then put itself back together when we restored the documents. That is the current stage we are in. Our friend is going to retake the computer, work his magic, and hopefully the computer will once again work. The computer is only a year old, but if it cannot be repaired, we will have to purchase a new computer for her. Technically she will get my new computer that we were saving until I killed this computer, but either way a new computer will need to be purchased. I kill my computers on a yearly basis. My husband jokes that I need a military grade computer. I just physically beat them up from transporting it everywhere with my school supplies.

If you want to learn more about viruses, Trojans, and worms visit: http://www.howstuffworks.com/virus.htm

Lesson 7

 
 See the full PicLit at PicLits.com

Above is the link to my latest playing around. PicLit is definitely fun to play with. I can see students enjoying it as well!

I often have a huge list of bookmarked links, but I hate that when I switch computers I lose them. Try out these websites to help with that. I love them! :

http://www.delicious.com/ 
http://www.diigo.com/


Brain research was another interesting facet of this week’s study. We visited http://www.dana.org  to read articles about the brain. I chose an article based on sleep and your ability to remember things. Apparently REM sleep is no longer considered the most important stage of sleep. Slow Wave Sleep (SWS) is actually when most of the memory consolidation happens. They said sleep was more important that staying up and cramming for that test. Now I have research to back what I tell my students. I think it will strike up some interesting conversation. I also enjoyed how dana.org provides a Brain Kids area. Students can participate in their own activities and lab experiments! http://www.dana.org/resources/brainykids/ Check it out!

 Onward ho to the assigned topic I go.... (My children and students get a kick when I say that.) 

This week we were to choose a Web 2.0 tool to use in my classroom. School starts Thursday for me, so I did not have the opportunity to use it with my students. However, I have had experience using Blogs as part of our BookFest Club. The instructional objective was for students to analyze what they have read and discuss with their classmates what scenes were the most important to the story.  This club was conducted mainly through the blog and we only met in person once a quarter, with the exception of the last quarter when we went to a University for their annual BookFest program. Students were able to complete the blog at their own pace and had a minimum requirement in order to participate in the field trip. One problem we ran into was a lack of technology in the home. We have several students whose parents are reluctant to use a computer and thus don't see the value in having one or having one connected to the internet.  These students had to complete the blogs at school and often had forgotten their login information. The blog I used made it difficult to track students and their posts, which added to the difficulty. A new school year has rolled around and I have moved to using a different blog than previous. I assign the names and passwords, have a teacher console where I can easily track students, and I am building in time for those students with lack of computer and internet access.

Websites:


http://www.delicious.com/ 
http://www.diigo.com/
 http://www.dana.org
http://www.dana.org/resources/brainykids/

Lesson 6

WebQuests:

What a week! I have designed WebQuests before, and find myself a little too picky for the generic fill in the blank and up it goes type of WebQuest. So I created my WebQuest from the ground up and connected it to my classroom website. I have been trying to come up with a way to ditch my social studies textbook for the exploration chapter for a while, but just have not had the time to invest in creating something new. My Educational Technology required me to create a WebQuest, so I am suddenly forced to have the time. If I had to take the time to create one, I decided it would be for that unit.

In my WebQuest, students are magically transported back in time to be apprentices under their assigned famous explorer. As an apprentice, they have four tasks they must complete in order to have a successful adventure. The first task is to convince the King and Queen to fund their exploration journey. Secondly, they must create a recruiting poster in order to convince sailors to join this dangerous trip. Thirdly, they must create a PowerPoint showing and describing the tools they will need and what three personal items they would choose to bring and why. The final part of this WebQuest is students must create a mini-journal of six entries from the beginning of the voyage to the end when the famous explorer makes their discovery.

Some of the struggles I had with this WebQuest was time constraints. I tried to get ahead knowing the my brother would be getting married the week/end that I had to create this massive project, but being in the wedding party demanded more of my time than I expected. The fact I was too stubborn to go ahead and do the prefabricated designs added to my dilemma as it takes even more time to create the design from a blank page. However, it did get created, and although there are a few things I am still going to work on, it is mostly ready for my students in one month's time. One of my biggest problems was fixing all the dead links. That is a problem you run into when you are designing a website ... you are the one responsible for making sure the task page links to the process page. I think I have all the bugs worked out.  I plan on fixing my credits page, but for now I figured a list of the websites I used would suffice. I am really proud of this WebQuest and can’t wait to see how my student’s react to it. I used the paint program several times to modify pictures and really personalize the experience. Yes, that is my actual face in the picture of the Renaissance Queen. Check out my WebQuest and let me know any suggestions you may have!

Checkout my WebQuest : http://hiphoppin.home.insightbb.com/trip_of_a_liftime_intro