School Websites: An Evaluation

For this blog I will compare and contrast various school websites:

McLane High School:

• Overall feel: basic, but could use some tweaking
  
• Layout: liked the columns on the left and right and current information in the center
  
• Professionalism: many of the links on the homepage led to incomplete sites that needed to be updated (such as a staff directory or websites for every teacher)
  
• Parents: I thought the layout was easy to follow, but adults less familiar with technology might be overwhelmed. There is a link to "Teleparent" which is a service that supposedly links teachers and parents via technology such as e-mail. There is also sight for parents to log in to the website.
  
• Students: Students can access pictures of events, information on upcoming events such as prom, but not much else. I did not know if the tab "Web Mail" was for students. Regardless, if I were a student, I would not use the site much.
  
• Community Members: I like that community members can check out what is happening at the school via pictures and updates on the homepage. However, it would be difficult to get specific information. The website does provide contact information though- phone numbers, address of school, etc.

Fort Myers High School

• Overall feel: basic, but could use some tweaking
  
• Layout: At first I thought this website did not have any menus or links, but then I finally saw the small white menu links atop the screen. Those words need to be bigger, especially for adults. Moreover, when you click on a link it does not bring you to a new page; rather, the click brings you to a new smaller series of menus under the large menu. If I find this confusing, then parents and community members probably do too.
  
• Professionalism: the site seems to have a lot of information and utilizes flash a lot.
  
• Parents: Parent Link is available which helps parents know about student grades, cafeteria balance, etc.
  
• Students: There is a survey on the right side of the homepage. This is the first survey I have seen on a school website. It was neat except that question was about the summer (way outdated). There didn't seem to be much information geared toward students.
  
• Community Members: There is probably the most information to community members or people from the outside about the school's programs.

Mclane v. Fort Myers

• The design of the McLane site was more basic and traditonal whereas the Fort Myers site was more futuristic and technologically advanced
• As a student or parent, I would probably prefer McLane's site because it is easy to find information, and I would not need to get too much information from the site if I paid attention to school news. If I were a community member, I would prefer Fort Myers' site because it has more information on it.
• The Fort Myers site could have more pictures and graphics like the McLane site.

The Woodlands High School (my alma mater)

• Overall feel: professional, simple, yet provides all basic information and more
  
• Layout: I really like the layout. On the top is a neatly divided series of tabs of drop down menus of the traditional categories-school info, academic departments, etc. On the left is a simple table of contact information so that parents can load the website and easily get phone numbers for who they need to call. On the right top is a statement of school objectives. Underneath that is a large image and a link to school news. The layout is informative without being too complex. I would like to add that it did not look this way when I went there! It resembled more of the other sites.
  
• Professionalism: most professional looking of the 3 sites.
  
• Parents: To access the "Highlander Happenings" or school news, one just has to click on the main image, and then parents can read a text document that just opens in a new window. It is the most user friendly way to access new and relevant news that I have seen and still looks technologically savvy. In addition to school news, there is easily accessible contact information on the homepage, a tab for any school info one needed to know, and finally a parent tab that includes a link to the school PTA website and some sort of "View It" software to keep track of student progress in class.
  
• Students: This is the first time I have seen a student tab with separate links for different resources for students: links to the yearbook website, the College and Careers site, the student handbook etc. If that information was there when I went to TWHS, I probably would have used it.
  
• Community Members: There are copious amounts of information available to community members as I have stated above!

McLane and Fort Myers v. The Woodlands

• The site for the Woodlands High School was the best designed and laid out. It had new tech savy features without being overwhelming. All necessary information was present and more. Great site!
  

Watch my video

I made a video about the importance of going oustide and exercising every once in awhile. Check it out!

NETS

So there is this article about emerging National Education Technology Standards (NETS) for students. At the bottom is a nice chart summing up the NETS. I think the list is quite comprehensive- it includes using technology for expression, being able to sift through and analyze data, using technology as smart tool for communication, and using the internet wisely. I think the list is put together quite well. It includes a lot of the top levels of Bloom's Taxonomy including creating and analyzing. Also, the normal issues of internet safety are there. I also liked how there was a bottom piece on "Digitial Natives" which is a term discussed before in class.

I also think it's good that standards are moving away from having to learn certain technologies or programs (which will inevitably change) and instead focusing on ways of thinking. Improving the brain is so much more lasting than teaching one specific skill. That I think is the aim of college and Trinity- they are not trying to prepare us for anything but to be able to analyze situations. Thus, we need to teach kids how to be able to adapt to different technologies and processing large quantities of information. Detail in these areas is essential.

I am not so sure if giving students un-limited access to programs and/or the internet is such a good idea, but that could be just me.

And I know that we are becoming more technologically advanced, the pace of communication is increasing, and our devices seem to be getting aburdly small, but really: are things that different? We are still people, talking to people right? I know that the older generation does kind of freak out at the sight of changing technology, but it really is not that scary. The world is still basically the same- just a little more tech-savy. We are still all human beings- at least until the robots come.

Election Reflections

Listen to my podcast about the March 4 primary

Spring Break

So, it's Spring Break, and...

Copyright and Creativity

"A Tight Grip Can Choke Creativity" by Joe Nocera of the New York Times

So this article published in early February of the New York Times discusses how J.K. Rowling is suing someone for publishing a Harry Potter companion guide. The idea of the book came out of this large fan site on-line. There of course, have been numerous other books published about Harry Potter, but in the past apparently the author and publishers conferred with J.K. Rowling and co. before publishing, but in this case, the publishers (RDR Books) have not consulted with Rowling first.

The author of the article seems to think that it is so terrible for J.K. Rowling to want to protect her "intellectual property"; it is apparently awful for her to want to have unique rights to publish her own "Harry Potter encyclopedia". I for one think it was rather rude for RDR Books to not consult with Rowling first- they are her books; she wrote them.

I also disagree with how the author thinks that more restrictive copyright laws have destroyed the world- for instance, I think it is entirely appropriate for musicians to have to get permission to sample songs- I have to cite a small quote from an article, so they should have to acknowledge credit where credit is due- especially if they are doing a cover of an entire song. Property rights have to be well established, or anarchy and lawlessness result. That is why we are in desperate need of figuring out how the internet should be regulated.

I agree to the extent that companies are being way too restrictive about who they give permission to use their works and who they do not. I definitely do not agree with that at all. The important point for me is that people who use other people's work do at least show respect to the original author and ask permission.

I obviously have more to read on "fair use" and what that all entails, but I am certainly not in favor of copyright laws going away anytime soon.

Wikipedia: In Schools, Friend or Foe?

In Episode 1 of Vanderbilt University's Center for Teaching Podcast, Dr. Michael Bess, Professor of History discusses his thoughts on the modern Wikipedia revolution. I think Dr. Bess opens with an accurate portrayal of the current situation- as usual, it seems like teachers against students, the old against the young, the old dinosaurs against the new "hip" generation.

Well, let's face it- kids are gonna use it. Dr. Bess even admits to using Wikipedia himself to get the "quick and dirty" (his phrase). The fact is, Wikipedia is helpful. It does provide that quick fact or that quick knowledge of exactly when World War II started or when Gandhi was born. The important point, Dr. Bess notes, is that Wikipedia be used for the right purposes, and not as a subsititute for scholarly research.

The problem is, I don't think younger kids know the difference. For instance, today, I was at Jackson Middle School helping a 6th grade class with a project on Gandhi. The kids got to to go the library for a few class periods to do research for a project. Rather than having unlimited access to the internet as I would while working in the library at school, these kids could only use the school district's library portal to access information. On the webpage were links to thinks like Encylopedia Britannica, and there were even links on the right to search engines such as yahoo. However, the kids were banned from two sites, funny enough, the same two sites I probably use the most: google and Wikipedia.

Now I understand that schools want to protect kids. I get that. But really- is Wikipedia that harmful? Is it really that unprofessional? Dr. Bess talks about this case of why we dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagaski. Expecting to find just surface knowledge, the article in wikipedia was actually quite comprehensive, and the debates about what was published were actually scholarly. So Wikipedia was not a bad source.

Now that application here is whether or not I, as a teacher would encourage, tacitly condone, or prohibit the use of Wikipedia. I feel like I'd tell kids it is okay to use as a starting point, but sources in their research must come from other sources. The thing is, if it's 6th grade, Wikipedia and an Encyclopedia are essentially the same thing- tertiary, 3rd source. If it's high school, then it becomes more of an issue. I'd think I want students to use primary and secondary sources for something like a research paper.

So Wikipedia is sort of a murky issue with me, but I think that Dr. Bess dealt with it well, and I must say it is refreshing to hear an actual History professor at a good school defend Wikipedia.