Journal


 * January 29, 2011:** Wow, this has been an extremely new type of learning experience for me. While I consider myself to be somewhat tech savvy, this Wiki page is proving to me otherwise. I am thinking about my final project for this course. I would like to go one of two places with it. I would either like to create a page that my house church can all chime in on, and we can set up a forum to open discussions for those that were not able to join us on a given week. I would also like to have a page for us to sign up for different volunteer work that we are doing. This would allow for more of us to see what we have our hands in and how others can offer their support. Another idea I would like to do, is somehow partner with the group that is working on the Sex Trafficking that is happening in Portland with our young women. I think offering a site that offers information about what is happening in our city, how to help and what to watch for would be a blessing. It is time to take over the Internet fr the use of good and demolish the evil doings that are occurring.


 * February 5, 2011:** I am sitting in class with Karen and Scot working on our Wiki. Hopefully I will become more familiar with this site. I have been thinking heavily about my topic for my final project and I am going to change from my original topic. My classroom has been weighing heavily on my mind and heart. I am wanting to create a site that my students' parents can sign on to and see the happenings in our classroom. In addition I want them to have access to technology in a useful, appropriate manner as opposed to some of the sites that are available out there. My goal is to have a few options for parents; one being educational websites they can sign onto for their children, a calendar of events, a weekly update of our happenings in class as well as a miscellaneous page.


 * February 6, 2011:** I spent about three hours yesterday and another two hours today getting the webpage for my classroom up. I am far from finished, but I wanted to make sure that all the links worked and that I had at least a little of something in each area where parents may click. My goal is to talk to the district this week about putting up student pictures. I also want to go to Costco and get a flip camera that I can use in my classroom for projects.


 * February 7, 2011:** I went through the channels today to get permission for children's photos to be uploaded and used on my Google sites page. Awaiting approval. I sent out my weekly newsletter and gave parents the address to get there. I also need to fiddle more with our copier/fax machine at work so I can scan homework packets in and email them to myself and upload them onto the site so parents have access to them.


 * February 10, 2011:** I think I am going crazy with this project. I make changes and forget to save, or I think I remember how to do something and then cannot remember. Work is not being very user friendly as far as setting up an account on our copy machine goes. I think I may Google a manual for our copy machine and figure it out myself. Going back to the old saying, "If you want anything done, you better do it yourself!".


 * February 12, 2011:** Talked with some of my student's parents last night. I ran into them at a store and they were excited to see the web page for our classroom. One of the moms wanted to know about getting parents to be able to network together on there somehow and they can create homework clubs, or parent support groups. Hmmmmm, now to think about how I can do this!


 * February 15, 2011:** I fought technology and guess who won? YEP, I DID! The secretary has been less than helpful in setting me up on the copy machine so I can scan my paperwork in. YAY YAY YAY ME!!!


 * February 16, 2011:** FRUSTRATION is the word for tonight! I have been monkeying with PicasaWeb for a few hours and cannot get the slideshow feature to work on my webpage. ARGH! I had a parent that called this morning and her son was sick so they could not go on our field trip today and she was excited to be able to get online and see our pictures.


 * February 19, 2011:Kirsten's Journal:** I enjoyed reading through and seeing the direction Kirsten was going on her journey with this bit of technology. I think I would be completely frustrated with getting everything ready for a GLOCAL site and then having to change it. However, Kirsten does not seem flustered at all and shares her excitement to still be able to do a GLOCAL site later on, after her March visit in Texas. I think creating a site for her school will be an amazing experience that will help a lot of people!


 * February 19, 2011:Karen's Journal:** I am excited to see what Karen finds out about people's motivation for joining social networking sites. I think the idea of using Survey Monkey is a great idea in order to gather the information she will need to analyze her data. I will be interested in seeing if there is a correlation among age of participants and the hours they spend on the sites!


 * February 21, 2011:** I am going to create a form for parents to ask them what they would most like access to on our class website. I am also going to offer up some options, such as having open access to email addresses and/or phone numbers (whatever they are comfortable with) so that parents can begin collaborating with one another. I see parents very seldom interact and I think they could be great support for one another.


 * February 24, 2011:** Sitting here on a snow day is wonderful. However, I do not have access to my new friend that SCANNER at work. I am running into issues with Google Sites in that it is all in English. I am curious if there is a link that I could add that would translate my page to different languages. This would meet more of my families' needs. If anyone reads this and knows of something, let me know. :-)


 * March 2, 2011:** I am not sure what I did, but the last few things I have added to my web page did NOT save. As much as I want this to be up to date on a weekly basis, I cannot afford to re-do this week's work. I am trying to get grading done, and report cards completed for our report cards and conferences coming up. I am excited to have our website up on my laptop and screen during conferences and have the chance to walk parents through the navigation of it. :-)


 * March 7, 2011:** I am working on report cards and a new program called Engrade. This is an online gradebook that has an option to provide parents a code and they can look up and see how their child is doing with their given code.


 * March 10, 2001:** I have time to update the Google sites. Report cards are done and so are assessments. Everything is entered and now I sit here editing the page. I am not wanting to change too much or add too much, as parents may have requests next week at conferences.


 * March 16, 2011:** Going over questions I should ask parents about the site. Updated some information to get ready to show parents. Reviewed the site with the student teacher that will be in the classroom after spring break.


 * March 21, 2011:** Conferences went well. The parents loved seeing the website and many were currently using it. They loved how use friendly it is and appreciate that I put homework up on it so if their child loses their homework, it is available to download. A couple of parents liked the idea of having a "parent lounge" area where their personal information was so they could keep in contact with one another; however, this was definitely not the norm. Many of the parents did not like this idea and did not want to partake in such a thing. The families that speak Russian loved the site but wished it was in their home language. One of the Latina moms copied and pasted information into a translator so she could read it. All in all, the parents felt that what was currently on there was more than enough, as it was simple and easy to navigate.


 * March 28, 2011:** I had several parents email me over spring break and thank me for setting up the web page with educational links on it. Many of these parents utilized these links over break for their students. YAY, this is working!!!


 * March 30, 2011:** I sat with my student teacher today and showed him our classroom website as well as our weekly newsletter. I forgot how I had done a few things on the website and had to fiddle with it to remember. For some reason the calendar is not syncing with the Google calendar I created and I have to manually update it.


 * April 3, 2011:** Working on the webpage this morning. My goal will be to add 5-10 more books to the book list for parents so they have a large compilation for SUMMER READING! I am also planning on adding more websites so parents have places to go and things to do this summer with their children. I am hoping the student teacher will slowly take over adding things as well, but right now he is pretty overwhelmed even with just the daily classroom tasks. This is showing what an amazing thing TEAM TEACHING is and how great it is to have collaboration. My first grade team members are interested in a website as well. I am going to sit down with them during a team meeting and show them how to use Google Sites. :-)


 * April 6, 2011:** I walked the students through the website today using the document camera. I was able to show them how to open up the homework page as well as how to go look at books and websites. We walked through some of the fun websites that are on there they can access this summer or throughout the remainder of the year.


 * April 10, 2011:** I feel like there is more I should be adding to the website, but the parents are happy with the content there now. This has been a great project because it is something I can use for MANY years and am able to continue adding to it as the needs change for students and parents. I am looking into adding the children's little league schedules because one mom mentioned maybe having a social calendar area.