Laura+Draxler

1201109361 toc =Biography=

E-mail
drax42@ku.edu

Personal
I am a junior at KU studying chemistry secondary education, grades 6-12. Chemistry has been an interest of mine mostly because it explains everything I ever wanted to know about how the world works. When I grow up, I hope to be that teacher who gets students interested in chemistry by blowing stuff up and getting excited about it. Aside from the sciences, I also enjoy art and music. I like to make my own jewelry, play the piano, and I have been a member of the KU Marching Jayhawks for three years.

Technology
My experience with technology is moderate at best. I can manipulate word, powerpoint, and excel (thanks to my very particular chemistry lab classes), but I still live in the dark ages. I usually type things in Microsoft Works 97, copy it into Wordpad, and then e-mail it to myself so I can edit it and print on another computer that has a non-expired copy of Microsoft Office. I am new to HTML and other computer languages. Usually I get things figured out on the computer by trial and error. I feel that technology is of growing importance in the classroom as e-mail has become the major form of communication. It starts with e-mail, and then the rest is history. If students don't learn it now, they eventually won't be able to function or communicate with the rest of the world. A technology I would love to learn more about is anything related to classroom presentation that isn't powerpoint. It's time to move on.

My Horror Story
Whenever I go home to my parents' house, I fear the computer. Despite the unbelieveable deal of unlimited internet access for $8.95/month, K-Mart Bluelight Dial-up Internet Access is NOT the way to go. Pages could take upwards of three to five minutes to load, and downloading anything takes a minimum of three hours. = = =Assignments=

Web Exemplars
Purpose: To examine best practices in web design/ Instructional Design To develop web searching skills

Instructions: Using the search engine of your choice find 2 exemplar websites on the explorer Columbus (age appropriate for the level of student you will be teaching). One website should be great, the other horrible.

Post these websites below. Include a 1-2 short paragraphs for each site explaining why the site is great/horrible. Write up a description of the process you used to find these sites. Point out tools or tactics which make the search easier or more difficult. Present findings to Class.

http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761568472/Christopher_Columbus.html Using the Google search engine, I searched "Columbus, Christopher" and found this MSN encarta website. This website is your average encyclopedia article, but its easy-to-navigate features make it a great source. At the very top of the article, it has four options that would appeal to any student looking for research information: you can find it, print it, e-mail it, and/or blog it. Having a quick way to manipulate information makes source documentation much easier. This site also offers 21 links to other multimedia about Christopher Columbus, and the outline of the article is linked below that, making the page very easy to navigate. The outline presentation of the information makes it simple to find exactly the information specifics you are looking for. Also, certain sections of the outline can be printed by clicking the link. The text is easy to read, and there are also external links for select terms within the text that provide the reader with more information. At the bottom of the page, there is a link that will even tell you step by step how to cite this website as a source.

http://www.columbusnavigation.com/ Using the same search process as before, I found this website. Not only is this site created and run by some random guy, but also the site just doesn't catch my eye. The headings are pretty lame and none of the information really stands out. Sure, there are links at the top for a site map and site search, but all the blue text just puts me to sleep. The site does not use the screen space very well; everything is left justified, and it seems like the right side of the screen is just wasted space. Perhaps the biggest turn-off of this website is the fact that the biggest and most impressive link on the page (in giant red letters) leads to the list of website "awards" this guy has received. He might be a big deal, but his website doesn't live up to such standards. He also doesn't list any sources of where he obtained his information on Columbus, so I wonder if anything on the site is legitimate.

1-25-08 - Talk Topic
Reading about Courtney's good website choice as well as other classmates, it seems like the general qualities in a good instructional website are pretty consistent. Sites that have bold headings, are easy to navigate, have little or no distracting advertisements, and are clear and easy to read are usually the winners. The link to Courtney's website did not work, but she talked about these same good qualities listed; therefore, I guess I would have to agree with her assessment and good website choice. She does not have a bad website listed, but the class discussion focused on poor color choices, distracting links, and bad organization as qualities of a bad instructional website. I guess the process of evaluating an instructional website should include the following questions. 1) Is the quality and layout of the information easy to navigate and to understand for the grade level? 2) Is the information readable and the site design effective? 3) Is this website a window for students to find distractions in side advertisements?

3-5-08 - Site Design
When organizing a website for use by students, the most important thing to consider is ease of use. The links should be clear, concise, and not too many in number. The students also need to be able to know where everything they need is located and how to interact with the site in order to satisfy teacher expectations. A good rule to follow would be to make links short and simple. Each link should make sense as well as the information contained by those links. For example, an "assignments" link should have a place for current assignments as well as an archive section. You wouldn't put something like the class syllabus under the assignments link. Another good rule is to have a place where parents can access any course information so they can keep up with what their student is or should be doing for the class. Having the course syllabus and expectations in a clearly labeled link will ensure that the parents are on the same page with you.

Alex's site design looks really great. He doesn't have too many links, and the links he has are clear with everything listed beneath them related to the link above it. I really like that he has organized the archive of class notes by chapter, making it really easy for students to quickly get the specific information they need. The only thing I would change would be to remove the "parent resources" link beneath the "parents" link and just put the contact info and school policies beneath the main parents link. Also, the same thing for the technology link. I would just put the how to guides directly beneath it instead of using unnecessary links to lead to them.

3-7-08 - Site Design
I feel like Pynchon's article was one intended to enlighten the reader about the history of the term "Luddite" and how it continues to evolve along with our society. He used many historical "pop culture" references to illustrate his points, like Mary Shelley's //Frankenstein// and the implications of that new humanish technology on society. Also, the industrial revolution is mentioned, helping him to make a direct point justifying the fears and tantrums of the Luddites over possibly losing their jobs as well as their humanity. I felt like this article was more a commentary on how the Liddites came about and attempting to predict, in a very sarcastic way, what their reactions will be to future technological developments. For me, this was a history lesson with a vague warning about the danger and implications of technology as well as the benefits. Because this article is rather lengthy, I would probably have students read it in class to make sure that they would be able to stay focused at least a little better than they would at home. But before they read it, I would have them engage in a historical discussion about technology as it related to the Industrial Revolution and today's "digital age." I would ask them how people viewed these changes, what their reasons would be as for or against the change, their hopes and fears about technology. Having this framework, I would then have them read the article. Afterwords, we would use Inspiration as a class to draw parallels from the article to what they know about history to get a more visual understanding of what the author was trying to say. If this idea wasn't feasible, I could also see breaking this article down into a really not-crappy powerpoint to make the main points easier to grasp.

4-01-08 - Universal Design
Name: Pancake griddle Problem: To make decent pancakes that are perfectly cooked and easier to flip, it is important that the griddle is hot enough before you pour the batter onto it. I always jump the gun and pour it on too soon, and my first pancake looks terrible and falls apart. Modification: Put a built-in temperature sensor, maybe on the handle, that tells you when the griddle has reached the optimal temperature for pancake-making awesomeness. Universal Design: Everyone will know when it's time to pour the batter for their first pancake, eliminating the horror and embarrassment of an ugly and distorted pancake. This will make the art of pancakes easy and more user-friendly.

Wikispaces Project
Chemistry Class Wiki

Media Project
iMovie on my class wiki iMovie: I chose to use this technology in one of my standards assignments. I will have the students conduct an experiment illustrating phase changes at home and film it using a video camera. They will be asked to edit their video in iMovie to incorporate observations and other relevant graphics as part of the editing process. Some pros to using this program are that students can learn how to create a movie from start to finish while doing something scientific in the process. In my experience trying to conduct this experiment and make a movie, I encountered a lot of problems, such as access to a mac that had the technology and just overall ignorance of how to use a mac. This technology may not be the best for use in the classroom because all students may not have equal access to the program to edit their movie, and they may not know how to use it effectively (I sure didn't). However, if the students are comfortable with media technology and the mac system, this could be a great assignment to let them be creative observers to make their own scientific video.

Communities Project
Skype on my class wiki Skype: I chose to incorporate this technology into one of my standards assignments. I will have the students interact with a professional in the chemical industry via a skype conversation to learn about gas properties. They will be asked to come with three questions for the speaker, and they will be required to take notes on the answers they get to their questions and any other important information that they learned from the presentation. This is a really positive technology because it presents an opportunity for students to interact with the leading experts in chemistry without having to leave the classroom; also, because Germany has historically been an important location for developments in chemistry, we can talk with someone at the head of the latest discoveries without flying them across the world. The only downside to this technology is if the classroom is not properly equipped to facilitate a skype conversation. Other than that, I see only benefits to using skype in the classroom. YouTube on my class wiki YouTube: I chose to incorporate this technology on my class wiki as sort of a fun educational tool for students. I posted "The Element Song" to help them learn the elements in a more exciting way than flashcards. I would also incorporate new movies of cool, dangerous experiments that should not be demonstrated in the classroom or other fun things that are relevant to our current unit. I think YouTube is a great technology because it is a way to share any kind of information, and it adds a new dimension to the students' understanding of chemistry through visuals. The possible downside of using YouTube is that these videos, if improperly posted, can have links to inappropriate and distracting material. To avoid this, I would have to edit the videos using iMovie to eliminate those links. Basically, I want to show them that chemistry can be fun, and I think YouTube is a great, student-familiar technology to illustrate that.