ACTIVITY 5

I was unsure about what to reflect upon but moodle has suggested to reflect on your favorite technology.  However, I have reflected on a group B tool in the blog before this (texttomindmap).  I have appreciated may forms of ICT whilst doing this subject, but the one that stood out was weebly.  This site is used to make your own internet page and all you need is an email address.  The internet page which I have been showing alot on this blog is http://calljusticeleague.weebly.com/.  I have done a blog previously on weebly however I do not recall what I have written so I will be interested to see how far I have come since that blog.  

One of the advantages to weebly is that it is a free service which gives you an option to upgrade but its not annoying.  Some free resources constantly have advertising popping up etc, weebly does not have these annoying advertising pop ups.  Weebly is very easy to use, whatever you wish to use you can drag onto the screen from the bar on the left 

 Above shows that there are heaps of options for you to choose from.  I think it is these options that make weebly a wonderful resource.  You can embed alot of the resources discussed in this course.  Students do not have to open up heaps of different resources, it saves alot of time and makes things easier as everything you need in one area.  Below is a table which shows some of the things that can be embedded,

EMBEDDED EXAMPLE	ADDRESS
POWERPOINT SLIDES	http://calljusticeleague.weebly.com/fatality.html
A POLL (INVOLVES STUDENT VOTING)	http://calljusticeleague.weebly.com/fatality.html
PICTURES	http://calljusticeleague.weebly.com/round-1.html
GLOGSTER	http://calljusticeleague.weebly.com/process.html
VIDEOS	http://calljusticeleague.weebly.com/round-1.html
FILES (WORD ETC)	http://calljusticeleague.weebly.com/answers.html
PASSWORD PROTECTED FILES	http://calljusticeleague.weebly.com/answers.html

The most important aspect of weebly which cannot be taught, is planning.  Everything is easy to use however if you do not have a plan of what you would like on each page, it becomes very frustrating.  If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.  I think what people do not realise is that you do not have to use your weebly like a normal web page, you can simply use it for a way of storing multiple forms of information.  An example is below where I have spent under 10 minutes on the webpage below.

http://ictexamples.weebly.com

As can be seen from the above, these resources took under 10 minutes to embed into the weebly, the actual longest part was finding the resources etc. It reflects the things you can do (e.g. color change, different sized texts, pictures etc).  After talking to alot of people in the class, the issue people have with weebly is that they are concerned about how to make a good internet page.  But this is not reflection on weebly, it is a reflection on people's ability to plan.  If you want to use multiple resources without students opening up a thousand different things, than you can do this with weebly.  People need to not be so comparative to other websites, you make weebly you own.  Like all technologies, it needs to be used appropriately but I feel people are scared of it because of all the other websites out there.  They shouldn't be, I have seen people use weebly as a form of storing videos, this saves them having heaps of youtube windows or tabs open.  If you do not have a go, sadly you will never know and you may miss out.

Now, there are some potential problems with using weebly, I luckily already work in boarding at a school and the students help my gauge whether my weebly got my message across (http://calljusticeleague.weebly.com/).  Some of the issues I had are in the table below, 

Problems	SOLUTION
You cannot put objects next to each other	Things must go underneath each other
The writing for every new page is grey	Highlight the words and make them black
Cannot embed hd videos	Upgrade the site (will cost money)
Too many things on one page can make the page take a while to load	Bigger is not better, keep things simple, use other formas of technology but do not overdo it
There is no spell check	I copied all the writing into Microsoft word, but be careful with American spelling
Some of themes are difficult to adjust the layout	Choose the right theme, but remember you can always change it at any stage.  Look carefully at all themes because I realised that it is pointless trying to alter a theme when they already have the one you’re looking for.
Check to see if student’s can access it through the school’s internet	Ask IT department to make an exception, use your own internet stick to show the students on a projector the materials

One thing I have apreciated about ICT's so far is, the more work you put in, the more work you will get out of it.  I personally dislike glogster, but I know in time with enough practice, I can learn to like it.  Weebly woeked for me cause I saw first hand the effect it had on school students.  They were engaged, asking questions, having fun.  I had one strudent who does not even study legal studies ask questions about the court system etc.  To me that is what it is all about.  Below is an SAMR table reflecting how I would use it in a class.  

Substitution	Augmentation	Modification	Redefinition
Weebly can be used to show students information or resources you have embedded on a projector or hdmi cabled screen etc	Students can now access the website on their own devices	Students can make their own website about the topic of lesson by implementing new technology	Students get into small groups and post ideas into a wiki, which then is implemented into a website to show group knowledge of a subject area