Throughout this course I have had a lot of ups and downs writing papers, writing in discussion boards and especially making my Web Quest. At first, while looking into what a Web Quest even was I saw some really nice put together ones and some very quick thrown together ones. I knew this would be an amazing tool to use in the classroom for any age child. I could also tell right away that this is something that I would want to use in my own classroom.
I worked hard to learn the ins and outs of making a Web Quest. This way, in the future when I decide to make one for my own class I wont spend nearly as much time trying to figure out how to put it together. I watched many videos on Youtube.com and looked at many other Web Quests to see what other options are out there that I could use on my own Web Quest.
I really liked all of the new technologies I learned about in this class. It feels as if its a whole new world of learning when we get online with an objective and start digging for more information. The video making and word clouds are great tools in learning and had me wanting to know if there are other sites that do similar things but offer different choices. I asked around the school I work at and found many other sites that do very similar things but have more options, such as Tagxedo.com offers word clouds but unlike Worddle.com the word cloud creator can choose the shape of the cloud, and the size and colors of the words. This allows for much more creativity for students.
By making a Web Quest and adding other links and sites for students to go to, it helps instructors to connect with state standards. The standards are there to help support teachers make lessons that give a child as much education as they can get from it. State standards help us see where a child is at or how they are doing in the education world. It is very important that we have these standards to help the teachers lead the students to success.
One of the most reoccurring questions I noticed in discussion boards was "What if a child doesn't have access to a computer or internet at home?" I think that as often as this question comes up in the boards for this class it comes up one hundred times more, at least, in schools. How do we plan a program online when not all kids can access it at home? I believe this is where teachers need to get creative and flexible with their time. If a teacher knows of a student in their class with out access at home they need to make time during or after school hours that kids can do this work.
All in all, I liked the class and learning about all of the resources that are out there for students and teachers alike. I loved making the Web Quest and I have gained some incredibly useful knowledge in this class. I will incorperate many of the things I learned in this class into my own class in the future by creating Web Quests and having the kids make videos and word clouds. If it was fun for me to make I'm sure kids will love it!
