Website Process and Reflection

Screenshot from Checkpoint #1

I am glad that I decided to create my website using Weebly for Education.  Weebly allows you to be as creative as you want to be.  I was able to alter one of their templates by adding an Avatar of myself that I created using Bit Strips - http://www.bitstripsforschools.com/

Content seemed to be the biggest obstacle for me in creating my website.  First, I had to decide what I wanted my website to offer.  Since I am not currently teaching, a class website was out of the question for me. 

At first, I really wanted to be able to offer lesson plans to teachers that integrate technology.  I soon realized that that would be a daunting task, and that it may take months to a year to create that kind of content.  (This may still be a potential goal for me) 

So, I decided to concentrate on content that I’ve already created, either in this class or others that I’ve taken.  I finally decided that I wanted to share what I’ve learned with others.    

Screenshot from Checkpoint #2



I’m glad that I had the photos on hand to create the content for this page.  The assignment was to include a photo sharing site to our websites.  I decided to use PhotoPeach because I had never used it before.  I like the spiral staircase effect with my pictures.  My slideshow also included music, but I was a little disappointed that the music, by default is turned down.  Visitors to my site may not know that they have to turn up the sound in order to hear the music. 

Screenshot from Checkpoint #3

By checkpoint #3, I was beginning to struggle with creating content, again.  I decided to create this sleep survey in order to point visitors to my tutorials and cheat sheets on creating forms within Google Docs. 

Screenshot of Final Website: http://www.laurabenfield.weebly.com/

I enjoyed searching through http://www.widgetbox.com/ for the extra touches to my website.  As you can see from this screenshot, I added a Google search widget and a counter to help me keep track of how many hits my website gets. 

I also went to http://www.voki.com/ to create an Avatar to introduce my website to visitors. 

As I said before, I plan to continue to work on this website by adding more content on a regular basis.  One thing I learned from this project is that “Content is King”.  Without content, you have nothing. 

Now that my website is “Live”, I plan to “Babysit” it more and make sure that the content stays current.

Professional Learning Community (Entry 3)

I did enjoy the time I spent exploring the resources posted within Classroom 2.0.  However, I do not expect that I will remain an active participant within the PLCs on this site.  One group that I joined, Google Apps for Education, had an active group of participants, but I found that they were all mainly new to Google apps.  It became clear early on that I would not learn much from them.

I’ve always been able to find great information from the individuals that I followed on Twitter.  The only downside is that many of the people I used to share information with have stopped Tweeting.  Oh, well. ;-)

Professional Learning Community (Entry 2)

It seems my desire to participate in the groups within Classroom 2.0 has fizzled out a bit.  I’ve also noticed others within the groups I joined seem to be getting bored.  There has been very little activity during the past few weeks. 

However in looking though the past posts, I have been able to find a gem for teaching history.  There is a series of videos titled, “We Are History”, that you can only access through YouTube.  I will definitely hang on to these in case I go back into the classroom.  They are very entertaining, and only about 10 minutes each.  What do you think? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jHzQMSmYh4 

Enjoy! :-)