Eric+Ammerman

toc 1181053370 =Eric Ammerman=

Contact Info
erammer@ku.edu or [|www.facebook.com] and search for Eric Ammmerman

Phone:       (913) 710-1615

About Eric
Senior, Shawnee, KS

Secondary Education, English

I enjoy all young people, but I like early high school the best. It seems as though Freshman are still trying to find their place within the high school and I think that it is an exciting time in life. I would like to return to Kansas City to student teach and teach professionally.

Technology
I feel as though I'm fairly proficient with most every type of technology. I'm no computer genius, but I know how to do a good amount of programs. My favorite form of technology would probably be TV. Although, my Nintendo 64 and I are good friends.

Technology is vital to all classrooms in this day and age because the world in which we live is full of technology. Most everyone in the United States uses technology in way or another, and if someone wishes to function at a high level in society they must be aware of technology and how to use it.

A new technology I would like to learn more about is the Smart Board that a lot of classrooms have now.

Technology Horror Story
Accidentally typing a row below where I meant to and typing booble.com instead of google.com in a busy computer lab.

Web Exemplars
A good example of a website on Christopher Columbus can be found on this page: http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/famouspeople/standard/columbus/index.shtml#focus I believe this is a good website because it is very interactive, and therefore interesting to explore. The information is presented in a slideshow type of format where the user continues to click and learns more small facts about Christopher Columbus. I like the way the website presents the information about the explorer in small chunks, which helps all learners understand better. Each slide has an illustration of the fact it is presenting, and on many of these slides the user can click on objects outlined in green and learn more about them. A glossary also appears whenever a new, possibly difficult, term arises, and the user can also click on that and learn more. One of the best feature though is the quiz that the user can take at the beginning or end to test their knowledge of Chrisopher Columbus. The slides also have a help button if problems occur. The website is aimed at younger users, but I believe that it is a very good website because it is interactive and presents the information in an interesting and easy way.

A bad example of a website on Chrisophter Columbus can be found on this page: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04140a.htm\ I believe this is a bad website because it presents the information in an extremely boring way. It has a vast amount of interesting information, but it isn't very much fun to read. Another problem for this website is that there are many links, which would seem like a good thing, but a lot of the links are on words that have nothing to do with Christopher Columbus. There are links to such words as war, queen, and soul, which just seems unnecessary. I also don't like how there are no pictures of anything at all. Unlike most websites, this website has a very low amount of graphics, even at the top of the page there are relatively no images. A lot of information, and probably very hard to find tidbits are in this website, however, the information is presented in a very boring way which makes the user want to go to a different site so that they can be entertained and learn at the same time. Last but not least, the website offers little help if the user is confused, which would be difficult considering there isn't a lot on the page, but nonetheless a help area should be offered.

Process: In conducting my search for both the good and bad website, I conducted a very basic search. For the good website, I searched for Christopher Columbus on both Google.com and Yahoo.com. On both search engines I found several websites, which I examined considering ease of use and how interesting the presentation was. I chose the good website based on the reasons above, but I also chose it because both Yahoo and Google listed in the websites found. For the bad website I did much the same thing except that I only searched in Google. I examined most of the results on the first and second page. I examined them for how easy to use they were, how the information was presented, and whether I would honestly want to read what was written. I chose the bad website I did because of the reasons listed above.

Link to Eric's Wiki
http://ammermanenglish.wikispaces.com/