EDLD+5365

[|Armon Hewitt's Site Launch for EDLD 5388]

Click on the Amaya link to view Armon Hewitt's Web Inventory Assignment 3 / EDLD 5388





EDLD 5388 Discussion Posts Week 1 Based on your readings and the lecture, what do you see as the most pressing legal and ethical issues for Web site in K-12 schools today?

I agree Elizabeth, schools must have control over all aspects of what a student does during the school day. Schools are liable if the student does something wrong or gets hurt in some way while under a school's care. Many parents and their school children think they should be able to do the same things at school that they do at home but that's not reality. What is reality is that schools are held responsible for what students do while on the school's watch. I know many individuals who are not on a school campus think students should have privacy but in today's lawsuit filing society administrators must take a position to protect the district. I always told my students when they griped and complained about some rule that I or the school had was that school was not a democratic society but a dictatorship and if they did not like those rules then get a teaching degree and run their class as they want to or stay home and be home-schooled. That's why schools need to control the content of what students have the ability to access. I know when access is limited so is learning and it seems like schools that are in more rural areas censor more than the urban schools. I agree with Amy that copyright infringement is one of the most abused practices on the internet and it is an immense problematic issue. Because the internet contains so much information, many people assume it is free for the taking. However, unless it is clearly stated that the photos and information are public domain, it should be considered copyrighted and treated as such. When publishing your own information or student work to the Web, I think it would be a good idea to include a copyright notice to make it crystal clear that the information is not allowed to be copied without permission. I also think that all material should be reviewed by appointed staff members before being published to the Web. Dr. Michael Dobe stated in one of our video clips this week that, “Your first task in taking over the web leadership role is to review the school’s web policy with your Web Committee.” That’s why school must make sure that their policies address the legal requirements which pertain to web sites? Solomon, G., & Schrum, L. state in their book //Web 2.0: New tools, new schools that,// “Use doctrine does not mean that students have the right to use someone else’s work without attribution.” To avoid civil or criminal penalties, which are a reality with today’s laws, students and teachers must take steps to be copyright compliant. References: Dobe, M. (2010). Lecture video clip Jay, when I was teaching at Centerville the website looked exactly as it does now. The technology director does all of the technology work by herself, software, purchasing, updating, repairing, etc... for a small stipend. She also teaches BCIS, compiles all of the annual information for outsourcing, and is the webmaster. The district brought in a technology expert a few years ago without telling her. She found out that she had a replacement during the assembly the first day of school when they announced the new technology coordinator's name and position. Long story short, the new coordinator got angry at the administration at the end of school and sabotaged the system which caused the server to crash which was not backed up. This caused a real hardship on the school educators because it was at final exam testing time. The former technology director was given her spot back and the district started backing up the information with an off-site server and back-up system from the Region 6 Service Center. Week 2 What are the most important practices for information architecture that you have learned about this week? While reading the articles in __Deliver First Class Web Sites 101 Essential Checklists__ by Shirley Kaiser, she described a bunch mistakes that I make. In fact almost everything she described as wrong, I do it! Kaiser states to “Update your homepage content frequently—even by refreshing a hyperlink to new content.” I am the worlds worst about updating my home page at work. I know I should update it every month or so but I don’t. By using Google Analytics I have the ability to view my traffic and when my content gets old my unique viewers start to drop drastically. When I add new content to my site the unique viewer numbers increase. This tells me her statement is accurate. One of the things she described as wrong on web sites and is something that really aggravates me is not being able to find the link to register as a new user without a great deal of searching.Kaiser states that “Direct links to login tools, registration forms, and account information are particularly important if your web site sells products, or requires users to register and login before they can access content or functionality.” One aspect that troubles me about this book is that I don’t know some of the terms used which shows how technologically behind I am. Kaiser, S. (2006). //Deliver first class web sites: 101 essential checklists.// Collingwood, VIC, Australia: SitePoint Meritte, I think it's so much easier when you have a small site like the one a Centerville. When you only have 20 teachers, 3 administrators, 130 kids, and 4 clubs on campus there is not a great deal on information that has to be put on the website. Schools with large numbers of students, teachers, administrators, clubs and other things that need to be published must be a nightmare for a web designer. I guess the more you design the easier it gets. Week 3 Roger, I feel exactly the same. I like learning new things but between working 70 hours a week at my first job and then spending 20 or more hours a week on "this" second job I don't have the time to learn program writing. There are so many avenues in which one may obtain web designs that are affordable and some free. If you put these concepts into real world practice most individuals don't learn be a mechanic to fix their own cars, or get a medical degree to diagnose and treat their own illnesses, or even obtain a law degree to fight their own court battles so why learn programming to build their own web pages? 1.Do you have a programming background?How long do you think it would it take you to master HTML, XML, and CSS for standards-based page development? <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">The only programming I have in my background is my first computer class.It was called data processing and we used data punch cards to run programs.I’m telling my age now.That was in 1975 and the computer filled up a whole room in the building.I quit school not to long after that and didn’t start again until 1997.A whole lot had changed from 75 to 97.After this week’s assignments I would hate to have to master program writing.Even thought Kaiser makes it sound easy, her directions were not very concise when I was trying to figure out what to do.I felt like a fish out of water.I will hopefully in the future use some type of service to do any programming I need to do.

Kaiser, S. E. (2006). //Deliver first class web sites: 101 essential checklists//. Collingwood, VIC: Sitepoint. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Week 4 <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Meritte, I also like the idea of video podcasting your mouse strokes and any other tasks that take multiple steps to complete. I use a program at work called EZ Analyze to disaggregate data. As an employee of the Texas A&M System we use a webinar site called Centra for some of our professional development trainings. Live webinars are recorded so employees can view them later if they miss the live broadcast. Before I started using the EZ Analyze program I watched a training webinar for help. The webinar can be watched, paused or stopped. It cannot be backed up to review something you already watched which means it must be started over if you need to view something again. I had to watch most of these pages multiple times. I tired of starting over every few minutes so I finally solved the problem by pausing the frame and using the print screen and copy feature to make my own copy of the webinar recording. This process took an hour or more and was extremely frustrating. If I had only had a podcast video with the information I needed it would have been so much easier for me. I could have stopped, re-winded, backed up or anything else I needed to do. Podcasting video is the way to go. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Karen, recording the sessions with your flip cameras was a great idea. I bought a flip cameras last year and love it. The flip camera technology makes uploading homemade videos an easy task. I use it to upload educational videos to send as emails for 4-H members view. I record things like livestock and horse judging classes, member animal showmanship for review, and other things that I deem important. I now email them to my members but if I could download them as a podcast anyone could have access to them. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Centerville currently does not offer any podcast recordings as a learning tool. As I have stated before we are on the bottom end of the technology boom as are many schools in East Texas. For some reason many administrators and teachers do not want to be 21st century educators. After our assignment this week I saw that podcasting is a great tool. It was so easy to use I don't know why all educators don't utilize it. I suspect it is because they don't know how. This class has shown me so many new ways to utilize free technology tools that I was not familiar with. I hope to convince the administrators of our county schools to take advantage of these web tools. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Week 5 <span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">2. Is Survey Monkey a good tool for assessing customer satisfaction with a school web site? Why or why not? <span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Survey Monkey is a great tool for assessing customer satisfaction not just for school but for any business that wants to perform a customer satisfaction survey. I use Survey Monkey to conduct many of my surveys. The basic service is free which allows a maximum of ten questions. There is no software to download and everything can be run from a browser. The site allows you to use any format for question types, true/false, multiple choice, short answer, and essay are a few. If you don’t want to write your own questions they have pre-made templates to use. If you need a survey to take with you it can be formatted to PDF and printed. When online surveys are completed by the recipient real time results are almost immediate and the site will analyze them and give results. If an unlimited amount of questions and more detailed results are needed, Survey Monkey offers a very affordable upgrade for a low monthly fee. The site also offers a pro upgrade which allows much more customization for survey designs, ability to export results, customer service, adding a custom logo, and much more. <span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">I have accomplished all I needed to with the free plan but if this survey tool was used in a school setting the pro plan would probably need to be used so the school logo could be inserted. **<span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Reference: **<span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"> Kaiser, Shirley. (2006). //Deliver first class web sites: 101 essentials checklists//. VIC Australia: SitePoint. <span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Newschoolspaces.net, <span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Has anyone else had problems with their new school spaces site? My stuff all worked properly last week but when I looked at it today the things I uploaded were gone and other people's uploads were on my site. <span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Jamie, <span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">The educator buy in is what we have trouble with locally. Some teachers use technology frequently but many others don't use it and don't want to use it. I know these teachers must realize that they are not helping their students by not implementing technology tools into the classroom. The teachers at Trinity ISD where my wife taught had to complete 8 modules a year to be technology certified for the district. A few of the teachers retired and a some left because they did not want to complete the modules. The rest of the teachers completed the modules but still use a limited amount of technology in the classroom. What's the answer? I don't know.