Week 3 Engagement activity and Reflection 2.

Engagement activity: Websites for many purposes 

 Weebly Website

Weebly is what is known as a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) website builder. This means that you build the entire website with the tools provided and what you see when you are building, is what the site will actually look like once it has been published. Other web creators (such as Google sites) need the builder to flip back and forth between editing mode and preview mode to see how your website will actually look after publishing.

Weebly is a user friendly, drag and drop website builder. This means you can literally drag certain elements (such as a video or an image) into your screen when you are building your website. This drag and drop process takes away the necessity to understand how to apply code which opens the web design process to a much larger group of people and classrooms certainly fall into this category. 

Screenshot from Weebly 'build' page

Weebly is available with basic tools for free with the option to upgrade for a fee if more tools are desired.
The team from Weebly have kept web design relatively stress free with a moderate number of tools which are all capable of producing an attractive and functional website.

In addition to the Web building tools Weebly provide a broad range of templates which then allow you to build a professional looking website. 

Screen shot from Weebly template page

Weebly also provides access to their HTML / CSS editor so that modifications to the website design can be accessed by those people who feel capable and comfortable to do so.

Below is a YouTube video which is a guide to creating your own website using Weebly:

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               

Reflection 2 - Week 3: (Wikis, Websites and Blogs)

Group tools 1 - Websites (Weebly)

Weebly is ideal for creating classroom websites, student e-portfolios, and websites for classroom tasks or assessment pieces. The use of the drag & drop website editor is relatively straightforward to use, and appropriate for use with students of all ages. Weebly facilitates students in their ability to express their creativity using various multimedia features, all within a safe and monitored environment.  

Technical aspects of Weebly

Weebly website creator has a number of features that enable the students to feel comfortable and confident through to the simplicity of the interface and tools. The following list has been adapted from the Weebly website http://education.weebly.com/

• Easy, Drag & Drop Website Editor:Videos, pictures, maps, and text are added by simply dragging them to your website. 

• A Managed, Protected Environment for Students With Weebly, you can password protect all your students' websites with one click. 

• Powerful Multimedia Features: Add pictures, videos, audio players (upgrade version), documents, maps, and photo galleries easily by dragging and dropping. Use Weebly's unbranded audio and video players so that you and your students do not need to venture out to YouTube or similar services to add high quality audio & video to your sites. 

• Flexible Blogging Features: Post class updates, homework assignments, and news for parents using blogging features. Blogs are also great for students to express their thoughts and receive comments from others.Weebly supports an unlimited number of blogs within your website, with full comment moderation features allowing an open, moderated, or closed conversation 

• 70+ Beautiful Designs (or Customize Your Own) Weeblt offers dozens of beautiful designs to choose from and add more regularly.You can completely customize the template of your site, or build your own with HTML & CSS, right in the Weebly editor. 

My experience with Weebly

Screen shot from my Weebly site 

I felt that the best way to properly explore this web creator was to create a site for myself. This way I was able to fully understand the process and tools used personally to fully identify their strenghts and weaknesses.

Below is a link to my faux Weebly site. 

                             

Enter   

     

Weebly in the classroom

Weebly can be used as a tool for project based learning:

  “Designing your curriculum around project based learning is a dynamic way of engaging learners and of cultivating                     their powers of  imagination, creativity and enquiry" Sir Ken Robinson, Learning futures patron.

These sorts of websites can be used in conjunction with standard teacher direct or discussion based lessons. For example I have personally designed a website to be used by students and teachers and is based on the unit of work surrounding Natural Disasters. The learning area is Technology, however through to the use of ICTs so much more is available to the students.

Home page of my Technology website

Enter Technology site here

Weebly facilitates learning in a variety of ways:

• Keeps students developing and enhancing their 21st centruy skills.

• The use of Weebly provides students with the knowledge of the value of media beyond advertising and entertainmnent.

• Class blogs. Students can use blogs as an assignment or as a subject based tool. For example, science sites documenting experiments or illustrating concepts, such as the water cycle.

• Classroom/parent noticeboard. Providing information on upcoming events, rules, news and so forth.

• Create e-portfolios that can act as a repository for resources, completed tasks and assignments and other information that may be relevant to tracking learning outcomes (Shaltry, C., Henriksen, D., Wu, M., & Dickson, W.,2013.)

• "Visual essays;" digital biodiversity logs (with digital pictures students take) (Teachers First, 2013). 

• Personal reflections in images and text.

• Picture stories on themes from various subjects

Curriculum Alignment

In accordance with the Australian Curriculum through the use of a Web 2.0 interface student ICT capabilities are supported and enhanced. In addition, student learning across all areas of the curriculum is further benifitted (ACARA, 2012). With the exploration of technology through the web design and manipulation, students develop and apply ICT knowledge, appropriate social and ethical skills (ACARA, 2012).

Image sourced  from ACARA Information and communication technology (ICT) capability document.

Below is a YouTube video that discusses the advantages of Weebly in the classroom further.

This video was used as part of a workshop promoting the importance of website use in the classroom, further information regarding this workshop can be found at http://wonderfulweebly.weebly.com/

ICT for learning

With limited classroom experience I am not qualified to say what works in regards to ICT use for learning; however, what I have discovered is the added engagement that the use of Websites can produce if used properly. In order to establish this I have used a SAMR model to analyse whether Websites are a beneficial tool within the classroom.

Example of the SAMR model developed by
Dr. Ruben Puentedura, Ph.D.

Redefinition  Technology allows for creation of new tasks, previously inconceivable	A classroom is asked to create a documentary video answering a focus question and posting it on the class website. Groups of students research sub-topics and then collaborate to create one final product.            Students learn content and skills in support of important concepts as they pursue the challenge of creating a professional quality video.
Modification  Technology allows for significant task redesign	Student tasks, assessments or information may be presented in various ways such as Podcasts, Blogs, Vlogs, YouTube videos; the scope for variety is abundant.              Students are asked to write an essay based on a particular theme. An audio recording of the essay is made and then presented in front of an audience made from school staff, parents or other stakeholders.
Augmentation  Technology acts as a direct tool substitute, with functional improvement.	Images, digital photographs and graphics are easily incorporated into the overall design of student work, allowing for curriculum links with using multi-modal tools.             Students use the collaborative tools in Weebly to peer edit essays or other student work.
Substitution  Technology acts as a direct tool substitute, with no functional change.	Weebly substitutes the paper and pencil tools that students are familiar with.             Text books and other such reference material give way to sources such as Weebly.             Student work is printed rather than handwritten. Students can save various drafts of their work and can produce multiple copies of the finished product without using a photocopier.

References:

Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA), 2012. Information and communication technology (ICT) capability Retrieved from http://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/GeneralCapabilities/information-and-communication-technology-capability/organising-elements/organising-elements

Shaltry, C., Henriksen, D., Wu, M., & Dickson, W. (2013). Situated Learning with Online Portfolios, Classroom Websites and Facebook. Techtrends: Linking Research And Practice To Improve Learning,57(3), 20-25.

Teachersfirst.com,. (2013). TeachersFirst Review - Weebly. Retrieved 16 July 2014, from http://www.teachersfirst.com/single.cfm?id=12342