I have spent some time looking through many of the pages on the school site, and I have come up with several things that I like and dislike about Windsor's site.
One of the strengths of the site is that is can be tracked using an RSS feed, which allows users of the page to receive notifications when the site is updated. However, this feature is not useful when the site isn't updated frequently, and this lack of updates is one of my main issues with the site. I have found pages for clubs such as Windsor Goes Green, but these pages are not very detailed and list dates for meetings from months ago. I like seeing pages for various school clubs, but I think that they should each be reponsible for frequently updating their pages. This may be a responsibility for the secretary in each club.
The largest part of the school site is the Academics and Courses section. This area features course outlines and other information for many of the courses offered at the school. The various departments in the school have clearly not spent much time putting their pages together, as most of the content is outlines that have been copied and pasted into the site. The school site would be far more useful if each department added more information and updated the site more frequently. One example of extra information that could be added is a list of homework for the last few classes for students who are away from school. This may be too much work for most teachers, but there is a lot that they can add without spending large amounts of time editing the site.
I like Windsor's website, but there are a number of significant changes that must be made to it before it can be useful to students and parents. I don't have a specific section of the site that I would like to work on, because I am comfortable working with any of the pages. I would like to meet with a few teachers, possibly department heads, to see what they think should go on to the site, so that I can help them make those changes.
Monday, February 25, 2008
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
Working with Elementary Schools
I want to start working with the elementary schools soon, because I know there are lots of classes that want help doing different technology-related projects. I have spoken with teachers at Blueridge, Seymour Heights, and Capilano, and they are interested in getting help teaching programs to their classes. A few of these teachers want help making websites on the school site as well.
If we are going to teach a program to an elementary school class, we should make a guide for the teachers. This should be a small booklet that covers everything that we are going to help them teach the class. Everyone in the class should be working on a basic project that will help them learn the program. We can teach Scratch, Photoshop, or Powerpoint to their classes. For each of these programs, we should have a project prepared that the kids can work on.
If we are going to teach a program to an elementary school class, we should make a guide for the teachers. This should be a small booklet that covers everything that we are going to help them teach the class. Everyone in the class should be working on a basic project that will help them learn the program. We can teach Scratch, Photoshop, or Powerpoint to their classes. For each of these programs, we should have a project prepared that the kids can work on.
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
Scratch Impressions
I have not had an opportunity to use Scratch very much yet, but I have read articles about it and I am aware of its ease of use for children in elementary school. It seems like it will be a simple program to learn to use, and could be useful in teaching kids 2D animation. Another positive of the program is that it is free, and can easily be loaded onto computers at elementary schools.
As I haven't been able to use the program much, I can't provide many negatives about Scratch. However, the fact that it is much more basic than Flash could be a problem for older kids, but I don't expect that to be a concern with elementary school kids. Although Scratch is not as powerful as Flash, it is much easier for younger kids to use and this will be important if we try to teach them the program.
I found the layout of the program interesting because it simplifies the process of creating and animating 2D graphics for younger kids. Although it isn't as powerful as Flash, it has enough features to be useful for students in elementary schools. Another feature that I found interesting was the Youtube-like site that has been set up to share Scratch projects. This would make it very easy for parents to go online and look at their child's projects.
As I haven't been able to use the program much, I can't provide many negatives about Scratch. However, the fact that it is much more basic than Flash could be a problem for older kids, but I don't expect that to be a concern with elementary school kids. Although Scratch is not as powerful as Flash, it is much easier for younger kids to use and this will be important if we try to teach them the program.
I found the layout of the program interesting because it simplifies the process of creating and animating 2D graphics for younger kids. Although it isn't as powerful as Flash, it has enough features to be useful for students in elementary schools. Another feature that I found interesting was the Youtube-like site that has been set up to share Scratch projects. This would make it very easy for parents to go online and look at their child's projects.
Keep Toolkit Impressions
I have had an opportunity to go through Keep Toolkit and make an account, and I have posted a few of our projects on my portfolio. The site is clean and fairly easy to navigate. It is great to have a page with links to all of our projects on it. I liked how easy it was to quickly set up a page, but it doesn't look professional enough to be used as a portfolio to show to others.
I am having a few problems with exporting a Flash movie into a movie file small enough to fit on the site, but this more of a problem with Flash than with Keep Toolkit. I think that they should accept larger files, but you are getting a decent amount of space for free. I can see how this site would be useful for a teacher in organizing multiple projects into one page, and making them accessible for both students and parents. Personally, I don't feel that I will get much use out of the website, but it may be useful for certain applications in the future.
It is great that you can load photos and videos on to your portfolio, and this feature is one of the most interesting parts of Keep Toolkit. Although the site is not very powerful, it is easy to use, making it more appropriate for teachers who are not used to making websites.
I am having a few problems with exporting a Flash movie into a movie file small enough to fit on the site, but this more of a problem with Flash than with Keep Toolkit. I think that they should accept larger files, but you are getting a decent amount of space for free. I can see how this site would be useful for a teacher in organizing multiple projects into one page, and making them accessible for both students and parents. Personally, I don't feel that I will get much use out of the website, but it may be useful for certain applications in the future.
It is great that you can load photos and videos on to your portfolio, and this feature is one of the most interesting parts of Keep Toolkit. Although the site is not very powerful, it is easy to use, making it more appropriate for teachers who are not used to making websites.
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