Journal Entry #10

Quote 1

The text 1) exists within public space, 2) includes elements of the personal, 3) is a form of publishing, and 4) is characterized by connections between text fragments within the blog and to other online texts.

I love this quote because it explains what we did in our blog and throughout this classes. There is not really much else to say because this quote explains it all.

Quote 2

This phenomenon is one aspect of what Agger (2004) described as the breakdown of boundaries between public and private space as well as the “dematerialization” of the line between text and the world.

I fond this quote to be very interesting and confusing at the same time. This quote explains the confusion and boundaries the internet is dangerously playing with. It talks about private space and public space and the importance of each. In addition to this focus it talks about how we are making our personal and private lives very public within these spaces.

Quote 3

To answer his question, he interviewed the creators of Twitter and Tumblr about how they distinguish between what should be public and what should be kept private and were told by each of a set of self-determined guidelines they use before posting online. Croal also informally polled members of his online social network and found that all had similar types of self-checks including “the Mom test” which involves asking themselves whether their posting was suitable for their mother to see.

I find this quote very interesting because I believe that people are becoming to public with their lives. I also believe that our students do not understand the dangers of posting this information on the internet and on twitter. I work with high school students in my summer employment and they find it very difficult to go one hour with out checking their phone - each one of these students has twitter, facebook, and ect linked to their cell phones for immediate information on the content. I think that our students need to understand these self- checks and think about them.

WebQuest Product

For the Spring Break WebQuest one of the assignments my students were to complete was an Itinerary in Gloster.

View my Gloster Itinerary for a Cedar Point Trip.

Web Quest Activity - Finished

I have completed my webquest.

Let me know what you think :)

Spring Break WebQuest

Journal Entry #9

Quote 1

I believe that this view was instilled even deeper in me by my work on this project and from what I learned by completing it.

This quote is of a student reflecting on the assignment completed. I found this very inspiring to here a student say such a thing. It shows how beneficial project based learning assignments can be. It allows the student to create a product and really develop a very deep understanding of what they are doing thus learning more than they would with traditional methods of instruction.

Quote 2

We are the future of our world. We therefore need to fully understand what is going on in it.

This quote is another quote made by a student and it truly shows how important educating the student for the current world and the future is. Students may not like to admit it but they are interested in what is going on around them, especially when it involves new types of technology. I think that educators could use this information to their benefit. If educators find intriguing new topics in the world and incorporate them with the use of technology they will be successful in engaging more students in the learning process.

Quote 3

Although teaching students to interpret and evaluate the flux and flurry of messages surrounding them is certainly a challenging and formidable objective in itself, the projects described in this article suggest that production activities can serve as a logical extension of the objectives of media literacy and should be incorporated into media literacy classes. The result can be an enhancement rather than diminution in critical analysis skills, particularly when media products are developed in response to assignments that require critical analysis.

Ok, I know that this is a long quote. But WOW it says it all. I love this quote. It really shows the importance of using up to date information, incorporating technology and media, improving literacy, and helping the student to have a deeper learning experience. I agree with this quote 100%, and I think it says it all, so there is not much for me to reflect on.

Journal Entry #8

I found what he was saying about the left side and the right side of the brain very interesting. David Pink was then able to intertwine those theories with out economy and life today. He talked about how we are going from a labor built economy where logical and sequential abilities were the very important to an economy where artistic, inventive, and creative abilities are the new focus. I can completely understand what he is trying to say here. If you think about education in general, we are asking our students to express their creativity, to invent or create through project based learning, and to express themselves through their work. As educators we are changing our style of teaching and what we teach to better prepare our students for the future! He continues throughout his speech making this point speaking about how "routine" work is on its way out of the economy. This makes sense as we are our broadening horizons and demanding more complex factors when it comes to services, products, and our economy in general.

I think David's perspective on our life and our economy if very interesting. He speaks of everything from factors and influences in our life to the cost of higher education. I like how we showed the differences and increases of technology used over the decades. He shows and speaks about how the amount of people increase in the use of technology. He speaks more from a business perspective explaining how one's reasoning behind buying the new advanced services and products.


I think that David's claim through his speeches is that as our scientist create new technologies and learn more about the human brain and so forth, the more our economy develops. He speaks about how we have changed in both our thinking and our way of life over the past decades. I think he does an excellent way of presenting these ideas.

Web Quest Activity - Introduction Page

Check out My WebQuest!

I finished the Home and Introduction Pages.

Journal Entry # 7

Quote 1:


Although I still believe that social networks has allowed our student to lose a crucial communication factor (face-to-face communication skills), I can understand how it is beneficial for the student. Part of growing up is discovering who you are and making a place for your self in this world. Places such as myspace or the creation of web pages have allowed individuals to do this. As educators we know that students go through many stages when expressing their-self, through the creation of these pages student are developing and identity and learning about their own values, whether they realize it or not. I believe that this development is a crucial life skill. Concerning academics they are using a variety of different types of literacies to explain or represent who they are from basic text to multimodal technologies.


Quote 2:


I guess I never thought of social networking in this way. This quote proves how social networking can be very beneficial to the student, and how it can help communication skills, academics and future success.


Quote 3:


Although I can understand the importance and benefits of social networking I cannot disagree with the items presented in this quote. That online communication last the non-verbal features which help us to understand another true feelings. Someone can easily hide behind the text on a computer screen, and this is my only negative thoughts to towards the subject. I feel that both types of communication are beneficial in their own way but that their must be a balance between then - thus one type of communication should not be used more than the other. As educators we should attempt to find a balance of communication in the classroom as well.

Finding a Web Quest

Web Quest

As I will be teaching Business Education in the Fall I chose to research web quest that focused on business content. The Web Quest that I found is called Spring Break. This is a scenario in which students have a given amount of money and the must plan out their spring break vacation to anywhere in the world. Many links are provided to direct students in the correct directions for obtaining this information. I really liked this web quest because it teaches students about how to create a budget and use that budget wisely. Too many of our students do not understand the value of money because they just swipe a card. I believe this web quest could help students be able to manage their money better. This web quest focuses on Business (budgeting), Math (calculating numbers), and life skills (managing personal money).

Evaluation of Web Quest

Visual Appeal - The web quest is OK, but could use some more graphics and visual aids to grasp the students attention better.

Navigation and Flow - The navigation is easy to follow from the navigation bar located to the left hand side of the site. The process moves through an organized format in a number sequence. The flow is very easy to follow. As well there is not to much text to confuse the student.

Motivational Effectiveness of Introduction - This web quest is very based/created around the interests of students. Students are getting to plan their OWN spring break trip. They have room for choice and creativity in this web quest!

Cognitive Effectiveness of the Introduction - The introduction could provided more information about budgets, to provide more background information.

Connection to Standards - The standards are listed and the skills learned through the web quest are explained, however the standards are not directly connected to the process of the web quest.

Cognitive Level of the Task - The task is accomplishable and able to do with the provided resources. It is also engaging and interesting for the students.

Clarity of Process - All of the steps are clearly stated and provided with a link.

Scaffolding of Process - This is excellent each step builds on the first.

Richness of Process - No different roles are assigned.

Relevance and Quantity of Resources - There are not to many but enough resources to aid the students through the process.

Quality of Resources - Links are good for content and all links appear to work correctly.

Clarity of Evaluation Criteria - There is a rubric provided for the entire completion of the project and it is well explained.

Ideas for Modification of Web Quest

I would like to begin by changing the appearance of the Web Quest. I feel that the color scheme is to dark - we are talking about spring break this means that warm colors need to be used. By using the correct color scheme I will be able to get the students in the mood for spring break. I would also like to add additional images and graphics to make the visual appeal greater. If you have to much text on a page the students' minds will begin to wander. I really liked the links that the creator included, however I might add a few extra links and change the link name from "click here" to more descriptive names. I think it is also important for students to understand how these website are being found for future reference. As far as the final projects for the students I think I would use other forms of technology. I would like to use gloster for the student to create a visual aid about the place the are going to visit possibly to make their itinerary this way and then to create a PhotoStory- instead of the PowerPoint to show the place they will be visiting. I might even have the students pull the highlights of their trip and create a voki. I would like to then take the classes ideas together and do a class project of creating a magazine called spring break - in which the students place all of their trips as a collection, for this part I would use OpenZine.

Web Quest Activity - Step 1

I chose the role of The Technophile: You love this internet thang. To you, the best WebQuest is one that makes the best use of the technology of the Web. If a WebQuest has attractive colors, animated gifs, and lots of links to interesting sites, you love it. If it makes minimal use of the Web, you'd rather use a worksheet.

The two best web quests I found in this activity were: The Diary of John Wilkes Booth and Creative Encounters. I felt that both of these websites were successful in the creation of the webquest and the activities associated with the webquest. Both of these webquest seemed to provide a great learning environment in which the students were engaged. Each website was also successful in providing links to additional pages to explain concepts and material being used. I think these were great webquests. After getting the Acient Egypt Webquest to load - I also found it very similar to that of the ones listed above and felt that it provided a variety of links on the internet that were valuable to the conent being studied. I know I was only suppose to chose two but all three of these were sucessful for me.

The two worst webquests were: The Problem with Landfills and War Poetry. I do not feel that the Landfill webquest provided enough links to aid in the learning process. I felt the navigation through the War Poetry webquest was difficult and confusing to follow - it had multiple links but I did not like the way the navigation or flow through the webquest was set-up.

Gloster Journal Entry #6

Here is a link to my Gloster

Presenting Information Multimodally:

Click here to see my video!