Websites - EDED20491 Week 3 Post #3

Engagement Activities 4 & 5: Creating a Website and reflecting on it

The third tool we had to explore this week was websites. The web has a huge range of free sites that will allow you to create your own web content, and upload it to the web. The site we will use this week is Weebly.

We had to create your website following these instructions and http://weeblyforums.com/2011/10/how-to-add-youtube-video-to-weebly/ 

This video was helpful...


(Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=UMBknOSR0CA)

My Weebly is located at http://teachingresourcesitmathematics.weebly.com/. I have decided to use my Weebly as a place to store the e-resources that I collect in my teaching areas of IT and Mathematics. I plan to expand it to use for lessons when I am prac teaching. Similar to what two of my colleagues have done with their Weebly sites:

• Anna Sluggets's Weebly http://annasictweb.weebly.com/
• Gail Tucker's Weebly http://mrstuckersgrade8scienceclass.weebly.com/

Critical reflection on using websites

Pluses	Minuses	Interesting/Implications
Free tools are available. Weebly is a free tool that provides a very professional looking website.	It was a bit difficult to work out how to do the editing. The Weebly site has changed since Wendy wrote her manual and since the video tutorial were made.   Can't embed video unless you pay money.	Incorporation of many multi media forms ie, links to web pages, other blogs, wikis, etc Limited only by your imagination
Easy to create and edit. Students can use it to write assessment that is accessible from anywhere. Could be used by even very young children.	I had trouble placing things on the website where I wanted them to be. The editor was a bit unforgiving.	Informal learning is happening when they engage with the website and learn how to use it. The skills they develop are transferable to other technologies.
Students can work individually on a task or to create a resources in the website.	Teacher needs to scaffold the tasks so that the students are guided in their learning.	I like the idea of using a website as a place to hold resources and materials for use in teaching. Just let the students know the URL and they can access material for themselves.
The student has total control of their website. No-one can overwrite or delete their work.	To keep the level of interest to the website other people need to look at it and send comments to the author.
Available for others to view (external to the group) and from anywhere in the world.	Doesn't support collaborative learning on its own. Could be used as tool to link to/from another technology.
Ability to add multimedia to the website.	Can become static unless regularly updated.

Personal reflection on creating a website and how to utilise it in my praxis.
I have been using websites for my teaching since 1998. I was one of the first CQU staff to use the 'homegrown' Course Management System called Webfuse. This system would generate an outline of a website for your courses and you uploaded course materials and assignments. It also supported the online marking of assignments. Students uploaded their assignments, I marked them online and returned them online. Since 2010 I have been using Moodle as a Course Management System. So I felt quite comfortable in setting up a website this week.

I found it relatively straightforward to set up and use the Weebly. There were just a few confusing sections as the instructions we were given were not up-to-date. Also when it came to publishing the website I got confused because it asked me to pay just less than $50 to publish it. It took me a little while to work out it was giving me the option to create a brand new domain name. When Ignored that message I was VERY happy to see that the Weebly I created was available and it was free to create it.

Wendy wrote that the difference between a website and the blogs and wikis we have explored is that YOU decide on the content and structure alone, and nobody else is able to edit, or add to it. This to me is very attractive. It makes the creation of websites an ideal medium for students to present their work, or for me as a teacher to upload activities for students to complete or a list of resources for them to access. It could also be used to provide guided instructions on how to complete a task.

Wendy cautioned us to use websites to make use of the features of the web. It should not be used purely as a repository for uploading questions or worksheets for students to complete. Instead we must think about how to use websites to link our students to the world, and various experts in their fields. She challenged us to think about how to use websites to transform the way our students learn. An example she suggested was to use a website as a MASHUP tool to amalgamate a range of artefacts, images, video, podcasts, and text from a variety of sites. It was this suggestion that inspired me to make my Weebly into a repository of teaching resources.

While studying and as we move into schools for prac teaching we are exposed to rich array of teaching resources. By using the Weebly to keep track of these resources I will easily be able to incorporate them into my lessons. I can also write a page within the Weebly that scaffolds the learning that I would like the students to accomplish. I just need to ensure that the school where I am teaching allows its students access to Weebly.

In the past you needed to be a web programmer (webmaster/mistress) to create a coded web page. In the 21st Century most online spaces have WYSIWYG editors (what you see is what you get). This makes the creation of webpages much easier as it is similar to using programs like Word, or PowerPoint. You upload your content and the program application writes the HTML code for you. This means that almost anyone can create a web page. When using Weebly it allowed the insertion of place-holders into which I could add my own content.

Though, just as it was with blogs and wikis, I found that I still needed some knowledge of HTML code so that I could get the site to have the look and feel that I desired.

Wendy has encouraged us to make use of our websites as repositories of teaching materials so that we only need to upload one of everything in a range of spaces custom built for each type of artefact. For example, using SlideShare for Powerpoints, Flickr for images (and video), of YouTube for videos. The website allows use, through use code to embed artefacts into our webpages. Of course when we do so we must always practice legal, safe and ethical principles.

Wendy's final suggestions was that Websites, blogs and wikis are only a few of the types of spaces available online for us and our students to work in. She has encouraged us to explore other spaces...if only I could find the time.

Using websites in my teaching
My teaching context is to teach year 8 & 9 students in the subject areas of IT and Mathematics. The school is an all girls school. I can think of two ways to utilise the Weebly website. Firstly, I can use it as a static website to support student learning by being a resource for them to access and the creation of lessons that are scaffolded to promote higher order thinking to accomplish. The students also could be asked to create a website for them to use to express their creativity in topics that I set for them. For example in IT I could ask them to research a topic such as bullying on Facebook and ask them to create a page to support the victims of bullying. Alternatively the students could use the website to present materials they have created. The students when they are ready can invite their colleagues to view their websites and provide feedback.

Gary Holmes suggested in the EDED20491 forum that we can hang other tools off the website where students can be interactive. For example, we could set up a wiki for interaction on a task and provide a hyperlink to the wiki from the main website

The ideal teaching environment will use a number of tools. I just need to find the right tool to support what I want the students to achieve. Each tool has advantages and disadvantages and different affordances. I am attracted to the use of a website as the 'hub' of my lesson planning and that I have other tools that hang off that website. An ideal way for me to control the 'messiness' of the web and the plethora of tools and resources that are available to use.