Week 2 District Web Page

I decided to focus on Barnegat Township for this assignment. It was very interesting viewing the page of Barnegat as I never did before. On the main page I found a handful of useful information. The first thing that caught my eye on the home page was the school calender, school times, and finally a review of the 5k run for Barnegat. These three links were under the headline section which was easy to view on the site and showed its importance to the viewers. There is also a section on upcoming events which is good to have so the parents can view any events their child might not have told them about. I believe keeping everyone involved, up to date on events, and future plans is very important to a school district.
I remember reading an article about what children in 2011 will not experience. They had a few topics I could agree on such as home telephones, typewriters, and hand written mailed letters. I however did not agree on watches, as they stated everyone will have an I-Phone in their hands at all times with the exact time. I believe watches fall into a category of style and fashion, but that's something else to get into. The one thing that they did mention was long distance. Many years ago the average person didn't really have "friends" who lived hundred of miles away. People didn't know what was going on at all times because it was pretty much word of mouth. Now word of mouth is a click away so having a website about a school district and all the information is just as important as meetings they used to have to update parents about what was going on.
Barnegat has done a very good job with their site, it is organized, easy to follow, and very informative. I enjoyed viewing and learning new things and think district websites play an important role to a successful education.

Week 1: Hopes and Expectations

I never took an online class before and I honestly believe you gain much more value in a classroom setting. I know some people would read this and instantly think of a classroom setting as a scene from The Breakfast Club compared to a high-tech online class. However, I am a believer that the teacher and students are the true factors behind a successful class. In "Learning to Change-Changing to Learn" a number of different professors and teachers came on screen and talked about the importance of teaching students about and with technology rather than be against it. This is something I completely agree with, but the main point should not be teaching with technology. The message lies deeper and it should focus on how teachers should adapt when teaching, whether it may be technology or something else.

Technology is just a part of the adaption.    Technology is something that will help teachers teach their students in an exciting new way, but when it comes down to it all the technology in the world won't make a "bad" teacher into a "good" one. When I say a "bad" teacher I think of one that doesn't understand who they are teaching. To make it to the second grade you need to have made it past the first and the same goes with having to finish high-school to make it to college, but everyone has a different past with different experiences. 

This first assignment having us give you information on how experienced we are in technology is one that is very important on how this online class will progress, because knowing your students is one of the most important pieces in teaching. Right now computers, blogs, Facebook, Wikipedia, Youtube are what the students know which is why the teachers who want to continue to succeed will learn and know these as well.    As far as my experience goes with technology I would say I am some what experienced, but everything I do know about it I believe was self taught.

What I want to gain from this online class is something that can't be learn from reading a book or Googleing it. Something innovating would stand out, possibly a different approach to a class or something else unique to everyone in the class. I am excited to see more critical thinking teaching techniques rather than the learn a bunch of facts and try to remember it. With technology you are not trying to just remember a fact about something you are actually learning valuable information. Whether it be using excel, internet research, or just making a class more engaging as was discussed in Four Takes of Technology, teachers still need to stay ahead of technology, use it as a learning tool for students, but make sure they use it the right way for students to get the most out of it.