Blog Post 6

When looking at a few class pages for a school website I see photos, videos, a course description, archives, online resources, and summer assignments.  All of these options are open to the public.  The school’s name is Stevenson School and I mainly focused on checking out their Chinese class page.  The grade levels run from PK-7^th, so the page is fairly broad regarding the age of the students.  Some videos require a login and the site is based off of Weebly which is a web 2.0 resource we have previously discussed.  Some video require a log in to view them.

The site can be found at this address: http://stevensonmandarin.weebly.com/

            The set up for the website I viewed was very effective in the way that it allowed for parents to see what their students have been working on and gives students a place to display their work.  I would utilize a class website to encourage parent involvement which is crucial to a student’s success.  Having the parents set up on a notifications system so each time something is posted they are alerted would help increase their knowledge and involvement in the students’ studies.  In addition, adding maybe a calendar for the semester would help parents better understand what is going on.  I could also post PowerPoint presentations or supplementary materials for students to aid them in learning and studying.

            While working on the current project, I learned how to create a wiki in a group setting and format a wiki page.  These skills can be useful to me in the future.  I felt as if the assignment was doable in the amount of time given to us.  Group projects in general make me anxious because I am consistently afraid I’ll be the only one doing something but the organization of our group and the division of the working being equal and purposeful was helpful.  The only thing that I say could have been fixed was the clarity of the instruction because I consistently found myself feeling confused.  I can use these skills in my career as I want to take the journalism route and since news is becoming so digitized, simply working with technology is beneficial to me.