792- Capstone Seminar
Ann Dearborn's capstone project clearly explained elementary school blogging to elementary teachers. I thought she clearly understood her audiences needs. She repeatedly reassured teachers that she wasn't initially tech savvy. After reading her site, I felt like blogging was something I could do. I especially liked the way she showed student work..the before & after was very effective. I was confused on some pages, buttons were missing or in multiple places. I often wonder if the website template that must be used for all Touro students causes confusion at to where to put things. For example, the student testimonial video was on the how-to-page...I don't know where it should go, but it didn't seem to fit there. I can also see Jane Gould's point about including a blurb next to each reference...a list of names doesn't encourage people to click and read more. Overall, I felt like her website was clear, concise and made readers want to blog.
Lisa Gottfried's site has a very professional feel. She included a lot of data and research. To me, her driving question and lessons had the most specific and narrow focus out of the three site we reviewed. Her audience appeared to be other high school teachers and possibly beyond. There is almost a resume quality to this website. Her home page blurb and video did a great job explaining why portfolios are static culminating products that don't "go anywhere". Whereas blogs can continue to live and can be seen by universities, employers etc. I thought her video was amazing and very informative. The things I found less effective were probably due to the one-template-fits-all aspect. There was a ton of stuff on the Learn More page; about me, know your audience and student work...which sometimes seems scattered. There weren't any blurbs with the references. Overall, I thought this site was very professional.
Karla Vale's website was focusing on fellow teachers as well. I liked her TPACK page. It was simple and clean. There was a link to a video, great graphic an explanation about TPACK. I also though her Reference page was the best of the bunch. I like the bold link and the un-bolded blurb. I want to steal her format. It kept the page uncluttered and easy to read. I was confused on the driving question/focus of this site. I think that the driving question is "safe classroom communities", but I also felt like it focused on "flipped classroom" and "achievement gap". I did see some restorative practices and classroom circle information on the pages too. I don't know if there were too many ideas, or possibly the ideas weren't tied together cohesively enough. I wasn't sure of the intended message.