Discussion Question #3
During our initial face-to-face meeting, we took some time to list some of the communities we belong to. Each one has characteristics and features that are unique to the group. The language and norms of the groups have different levels of understanding depending on our level of involvement in each of these communities. These “layers” of knowledge allow the information to be available for users of varying expertise within the community. Think about the different “layers” of understanding among your students as you teach a lesson. The concept is similar. Some students can go deeper than others. Information that is available to multitudes of people must also satisfy this component of providing information of varying degrees of interest and knowledge.
For our purposes, we will concentrate on education related communities.
There are numerous sites dedicated to sharing ideas among the teaching community. Standards and accountability issues are at the forefront of much of the discussion among educators. Here are a few sites to visit that offer resources to teachers who are looking for more information on standards, as well as lessons that incorporate them.
Los Angeles County Office of Education (LACOE) http://teams.lacoe.edu/
From Putnam Valley School District in New York:http://edStandards.org/Standards.html
These sites are designed for a specific audience who have specific purposes. Other “education portals” provide more general resources for teachers to access. Here are three that are well known:
Kathy Schrock’s Guide for Educatorshttp://school.discovery.com/schrockguide/index.html
TeachNet http://www.teachnet.com/
California Learning Resource Network www.clrn.org
Questions to think about: We know that the intended audience of each site is educators.
Pick one of the above sites and complete the following. Your responses should be brief and to the point. Please post your responses in the comments section.
1. What are some of the layers within this group? Do these sites reflect different layers within the education community? (For example: grade-level specific? subject specific? teachers only, or are there areas for other communities?)
2. Find examples of language and terminology that is community specific.
3. Look for some of the design components that assist the user in using the site. Connect your reading in our course readings to what you see in this site. Please use references (page numbers) from our sources.
4. Who would find the site useful?
5. What is your overall impression of the site?
Jason Seliskar · December 14, 2009 at 12:12 am
I chose the http://edstandards.org/Standards.html website to look at. Just right off the bat I see that it was last updated in 2007. Websites need to be updated regularly. Its subtopics range from categories of state standards, subjects and resource types. Outside the initial assumption this is for educators, there is no clear cut “audience” for this website. One can assume that it is for government agencies, school districts and schools. There is nothing stated that is grade level or school level, just by subjects. Some language in the education community is known such as; Special Education, Admin and Teaching. I do not find this site useful. Too many clicks to where I might want to get to. I have to click at least five times to get where I think I need to be and is still confused once I get to a particular state’s website.
The website format is not up to date. It looks like an unfinished template in Dreamweaver. The entire website is to the left. The divs are outlined in dot frame. There is no title and tag line to let me know the purpose of the site. Its making me think of what this site is about and its purpose. There is no depth to the site other than the hyperlinks that kick you to the other sites. There is no theme colors or images to make the site more interesting. My overall impression of the site is very basic and out of date. There was not much thought in the construction or purpose of the site.
Lynese · December 30, 2009 at 11:10 pm
It is very frustrating to be directed to web sites that seem aimless or confusing! I appreciate the review so that I will avoid it! I chose to review think.com which came up as newly joined to thinkquest.ort/en/. It was a fabulous site! Within this site, it seemed to target 2 specific layers in the education community: teachers and students. The language and terminology specific to this community that were used are more toward the teacher layer of the parts I could investigate without belonging: accredited, integrate learning projects, critical thinking, and cross cultural understanding. Most of the vocabulary was not specific to a certain “layer” and therefore, it made it very easy to understand. I appreciated the design components used to assist users: all 5 of the 5 most important things needed to use and understand the site were in place that S.Krug advised on pg 31 of, Don’t Make Me Think. (clear visual heirarchy, taking advantage of conventions, clearly defined areas on pages, Clickables that are obvious, and minimized noise.). I also appreciated the mindless choices that S.Krug believes makes the site easy to use (p. 43). I honestly believe that teachers, students, administrators, parents, and extended support family members would find this site useful. Overall, I really enjoyed this site and will investigate how my site could untilize it within our curriculum. I believe it’s a resource that I’ve been wanting to search and to use for a while now!
Janet Williford · January 1, 2010 at 5:39 pm
Teachnet.com opens with several commercial messages that pop up when opening the website while the main page opened. The layers open up with four choices: Lesson Plans, Power Tools, Sharing, and Help. It also brings up a seasonal/holiday list of hot topics. Two of the topic layers opened to one article, all that the layer held. The “Lesson Plans” layer had several subjects but I clicked one of the subjects and after a long wait (again), it only opened to a page where I was asked to download my lesson plan. The “Help” page was a plea for financial support and ways to put money into this site.
In the design portion, according to Steve Krug’s book, page 61, the site ID was clear and stood out. The sections were listed with a utility of a “Help” page and a “Search” box (p. 65-69). It opened up to secondary levels, as well (p. 70). My navigation ability was slowed down by not having the navigation bar change and stand “out like a sore thumb.” According to Krug, the designer of the site should help the user with visual cues of color change or highlighting location. In accordance to Williams & Tollett’s book, this site was simply designed (p. 136-137). The colors chosen for the heading, background, and levels were eye appealing and not overdone (p. 167-168).
Primarily, I would assume this site would be beneficial for elementary grade level teachers—if they could get the “Lesson Plan” pages to open within a reasonable amount of time. I was disappointed in this site especially since the website name sounds so official, “Teachnet.com.” The separate layers took a great deal of time to open quickly, as well. I could go and get a cup of coffee before the layer would actually show up, and it was not worth the wait.
Christian Arteaga · February 12, 2010 at 12:58 pm
I decided to explore Think.com and it seems very interesting. This website touches on many layers of education: grade level, students and teachers all over the world, different subjects, and even competitions for prizes. Without signing up for an account I was limited to what I can explore on this site. Much of the language and terminology is directed towards teachers. Teachers can create their own projects as well as browse through others to get ideas or to have their students join a preexisting project. Teachers who have outside of the box thinking students would definitely benefit from this website. How exciting would it be for one of your students to know that he/she is competing with another student from China or any other place in the world? The awards for the winners will benefit the student as well as their school (ex. laptops, money for school). Overall, this website seems pretty interesting to me and I’m sure to many others.
David Dearie · February 26, 2010 at 8:50 pm
I spent time at the CLRN site. At first glance this simple site didn’t appear too powerful. However, after some surfing around, what a wealth of information and tools to pull from. Now, I’m not an educator yet but this data sure seems like it will come in handy.
From the get-go I like the video tutorial on using the site; the search engines and what to expect from the site. The topics/subjects offered range from math to english and many things in-between. It covers grades K – 12 and the user can search for specific grade level material! There’s a link to the sites monthly newsletter some of the most recent materials as well as upcoming conferences.
The site make-up has some of the welcome effects I’ve come to learn in our text. It’s not busy to the eye. Everything across the top make sense and appears easy to navigate. Inotherwords, it didn’t require much thought on my part. The links offered on this site are great for more products organized by subject. To me it looks like thought was placed on ease and simplicity for a tired teacher at the end of the day to enter the site, grab something, and get back home.
Primarily teachers and home-schoolers would be the target audience who would use this site.
Liliana Tolson · March 9, 2010 at 3:49 pm
The only layer reflected in Teachnet.com was for elementary school teachers. The subjects in the lesson plans were art, language arts, science, music, math, social studies, internet, health & physical education, and seasonal. The community specific terminology used in the website was Teacher-2-Teacher (T2T), Classroom P.R., Seasonal Lesson Plans, and Power Tools. Despite the basic design scheme of Teachnet.com, the website contained a Site ID, Search, Sections, and Page name (Krug, 86). The background noise elements (Krug, 38) found in the website were the animated banner ads and pop-up ads. Teachnet.com would be useful for elementary school teachers interested in finding and/or sharing lesson plans. Overall, I found the website to be non-user friendly due to the background noise and the slow loading times.
david · March 12, 2010 at 4:19 pm
I went to http://school.discoveryeducation.com/schrockguide/index.html and found the site very useful. I like that the subjects are listed in order and separated so teachers can find their specific subject matter faster. It also breaks the subjects down into grade levels once you choose a subject.
The site is a little cluttered and sometimes difficult to navigate, but if you choose by subject matter, it seems a bit easier. It needs a major redesign and layout that would better serve the educator and might include more resources for parents and even some for students.
There is also an area just for parents to go to that has resources for them to keep them updated on current events or happenings in the area. This site is definitely targeted for teachers, with a lot of the terminology and references pointing towards the educator/teacher. I think this could be a great resource for teachers if some changes are made.
Charlie Loya Jr · March 14, 2010 at 9:28 am
I took a look at Teachnet.com my very first impression was not good. The site took me to different pop-ups and it seemed very hard to navigate. It layers consisted: Lesson Plans, Power Tools, Sharing, and Help. I have never used this site before and I did not get a good vibe from it. I am a guy that likes things to be very easy. There were a couple of different themes that were outlined based on the time of the year. After look at the help section things seemed to get easier. I would think that any K-8 teachers would benefit from this site. I am sure that after more use I would feel more comfortable with using this site, but for now I will stay away.
I also wanted to comment on the Discovery website. I use it often mainly for their videos and easy accessibility. I embed videos in all of my lessons to re-emphasis what I am trying to teach. I also use the videos when I have 15-20 minutes left in a class and my lesson went quick. I am able to log in and type my request in the search menu and I get a great variety of education videos to show the kids. They like and it help explain what just words cannot. I think that any teacher at any level would be able to utilize this site for their needs in the classroom. In defense of Teachnet.com, I am very comfortable with this website and use it often, so I like it a lot.
Katie Minor · March 29, 2010 at 10:03 am
Oh no! I had typed this up on Google Docs while waiting at the airport a few weeks ago and never posted it! Good thing I checked to see what I’ve completed!!!
I chose to evaluate Kathy Schrock’s Guide for Educators. The website is a “hub” for educators looking for educational websites. Right off the bat I noticed a list titled “Subject Access.” This layer gives direct access to the subject area you are teaching or are interested in. I clicked on the math section and was directed to a list of math websites that was not grade level specific. It looks fairly easy to navigate if you were looking for anything having to do with Algebra or general area of math but it would be very difficult to find something with the specific standard or even topic. There are different layers throughout the website including subject access, alphabetical index, and teachers access, which is resources for teachers to teach better.
Overall, the website doesn’t use too much community specific language. It would be easy for anyone who can read to navigate. The small amount of community specific language that is used would be ELA, Fry’s Readability Graph, Assessment, and Webquest.
This is definitely useful for educators that are willing to spend some time on this site. The lack of anything grade level specific would hinder me from using it until I had some time to do some searching. I can also see this being useful for parents but, again, they would have to spend some time on the website to find something specific for their child’s grade level.
I really WANT to like this website but I have these terribly mixed feelings. One side of me loves it because there is a ton of websites that educators can use in their classrooms. All of the websites listed here have something to do with education, are subject specific, and are recommend by Kathy Schrock. You don’t have to filter through other random websites that won’t be helpful. Another part of me hates it because there isn’t anything that is grade level specific! Super annoying! I could even go for the sites being grouped by elementary, middle, and high school!