QuestGarden

I chose do do my WebQuest project in QuestGarden. QuestGarden has been easy to maneuver through and I like that all you have to do is type in your information and then the program puts it in a standard format for student and teacher pages. There are however, some limitations that I have noticed such as the layout of the words changing from the screen that you type in, to the actual page once it is complete. Also, there aren't as many editing tools for graphic images so you would have to edit them in another program if you wanted more done. But overall, QuestGarden has been pretty user friendly and I would definitely use it again for future projects when I do have my own classroom. 

WebQuest Project

I had been thinking about a good idea for my WebQuest project and I had wanted to do an activity for the book we have been reading in class. We have been reading Go Ask Alice, which is about the life of a troubled teenage girl caught up in the wild life of drug abuse in the late 1960s. The students have been very interested in reading this book, probably because of all the problems that Alice has, from her insecurities about sex and popularity, to her battle with drug addiction. I thought this book would be a good basis for a project since it has so many themes that the students are interested in, and because I work with at-risk youth, I decided to do my WebQuest on the topic of drugs, which would be good for them to know about the dangers and consequences of using drugs. It would cover health standards for alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs, while at the same time, they would be learning how to do research on a subject and creating an informational drug pamphlet, all with the use of technology.

Starting My Master of Arts in Education: Digital Teaching and Learning

I am excited to be starting my classes in Master of Arts in Education: Digital Teaching and Learning.  I am illiterate in the area of technology, so these classes are going to be especially challenging for me, but I am eager to learn how I can implement the use of technology in my own classroom to meet the needs of my students.  Not only am I learning about technology, I am also learning a lesson on how it is for students in my classroom, when they are completely overwhelmed and have no idea what the teacher is talking about!  Like the first day of class when Karen was talking about Google Docs, HyperStudio, Web Quest, and making our own blogs, all of us newbie's to the program were looking at each other like, Huh?!  Well, I have done my first project using HyperStudio and it was pretty cool.  It took me what seemed like forever to finish it and I am hoping now that I am familiar with using HyperStudio, my second project won't be so time consuming.