Friday, April 1, 2011

My creation of a Curriculum page

A way to communicate with today’s “Networked Student” is through a curriculum page.  The type of software that a webpage can be created from can vary, but the platform used for this particular curriculum page is wiki based.  Now wiki is sort of a strange word and it may be asked why this should be a top pick for teachers to use as a maintained curriculum page. The idea of a wiki page is to compile a collection of pages, files and other important items that a teacher wants students to view.  It provides such features as easily collaborating with all students by creating a page that can be commented on.  All of a sudden you have created a blog, without having a separate site.  I used a site called PBworks.com there is also another site called wikispaces at www.wikispaces.com .  The start of my curriculum page is:



            I used a template, which is a guideline for specific tasks, to create my page.  Looking ahead I made pages for a project to have students create a digital story, in order to summarize a story that they have read, or plan to read for this presentation.  These pages include a main page that introduces my project, provides some information about the wikisite, and has a sidebar or menu on the side that directs users to other places.  This contains some planned future projects like a lesson plan, a grading rubric, and a place where student’s work will be displayed.  I placed my own Prezi, to give students and explanation and example of what I wanted as a baseline for their project.  One of the most interesting ideas presented was how I can compress files, like a can, to make more room.  This is called zipping which may not be used right away, but as time goes on and more projects are added, I will need to make space for future projects.  The reason why I need to make space is because like attaching files to e-mails, as we all like to e-mail pictures, compressing files is a must because I am aloud only so much storage space on the site.  This is how some software can fit on a single disk, you may notice when installing a software application that a message says that “unzipping” or “unpacking” is being executed in order to install the application  
            As I started the process of creating a Wikispace curriculum page, I felt it didn’t give me enough creative elbow room.  I then created a PBworks curriculum page, and felt it was more challenging, but I had more options.  I did however, spend more time learning the ins and outs rather than creating.  I wanted to be sure that it was the right fit, even though it is harder I think to use and I probably should stick with Wikispaces, I think that I’m going to try to give myself a bit more of a challenge.  The purpose of these wikis are to give a more user friendly way to create a website instead of having to use HTML code.  As I used some formats from a site called Web Quest at http://webquest.sdsu.edu/templates/lesson-template1.htm.  This was very helpful as were the examples that past students had completed and our instructor provided.  Which looking at the projects I saw a much broader spectrum of designs.  I felt that the Wikispaces had some of the same themes, and I wanted something more unique.  I observed the PBworks projects and saw such variety I had to try it.  So that leads me to what improvements I need to make.
            I will need to spend more time just figuring out the capabilities of my wiki, part of which I discovered was how to correctly embed a Prezi.  I tried the embedding process that I used on my blog, but that didn’t seem to work.  After some trial and error I found out that I needed to “insert” the HTML code for embedding provided by the Prezi site.  As when I tried just the code I got a blank screen telling me that my Prezi didn’t exist.  So going back into what I have learned so far this semester I solved the problem and figured out the HTML was the basis of the wiki and inserting the code directly would have a positive result.  I additional will add such projects as a Rubric to grade students’ projects.  Also, I add my lesson plan which contains directions on how to repeat this with the standards coved by the activity as well.  Lastly, I think some different backgrounds or wallpapers on the pages will dress up the site in addition to some graphics, to incorporate more multimedia into the wiki.  I think a good base has been established now the rest of the pieces need to be built up.

1 comment:

  1. You said, "As I started the process of creating a Wikispace curriculum page, I felt it didn’t give me enough creative elbow room. I then created a PBworks curriculum page, and felt it was more challenging, but I had more options."

    I also had this experience with Wikispaces, but I stuck it out and dealt with it. I am glad to know that PBworks is a more flexible option, though. What, specifically, did you like better?

    You said, "I tried the embedding process that I used on my blog, but that didn’t seem to work."

    As much fun as Prezis are to make, they don't seem to play well with other websites. I had problems when trying to embed my Prezi into my blog as well, as Prezi doesn't like Wordpress very much. I'm kind of disappointed to find out this is true with other websites as well.

    By the way, I like the layout of your wiki. The right-hand sidebar makes it very easy to naviagate.

    Thanks for your post!

    Kelley

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