What Have I Learned About Evaluating Websites

I learned that it is not always easy to locate necessary information, such as, the last revision date of a website. It is also sometime difficult to specify who the author of a site is. Evaluating the credibility of a site is important and sometimes it takes a little fishing around to get the facts.

As I plan to teach high school math, it is very hard for me to see how I would use these skills in my classroom. It is beneficial to be able to effectively evaluate a website. However, I can not think of how this will help my students excel in solving math problems. On the other hand, I will most likely also be a "home room teacher" for at least one hour per day each week. During this time I will probably be expected to assist my students in improving their reading levels. It would be possible to integrate the usage of web resources in this sort of class, so it would be beneficial for my students to be able to evaluate websites. Writing a research papers is a requirement for most introductory English courses in colleges, so this would also help my students be better prepared for college work.

Website Evaluation Site

I found a pretty cool website evaluation site. It is from the Teacher Tap website so it automatically caught my eye as a useful resource for us future teachers. It not only gives basic website evaluation guidelines, but it provides examples of hoax websites and links to of useful website evaluation sites!
Check it out
This site also has links to other awesome teacher resources provided by the Teacher Tap website.

What's Up With Wikis

I am excited to learn more about wikis! It is not as complicated as I initially thought. However, I did have trouble deleting a photo that I uploaded (this may be something that only certain users can do). If anyone has information on how to do that I would greatly appreciate it. I am not a big fan of the limited variety in the font styles. Maybe there is more variety when you get one of the more expensive packages. I look forward to learning more about privacy settings. I feel lucky to have so many options available to me with technology and I can wait to experiment with it more in my classroom!

Course Expectations

I look forward to working with technology and becoming more comfortable with using computers. I am not a big fan of relying on computers for anything, but I realize that times are changing and in order to keep up, I must become more comfortable with using computers. I know how to use computers for basic communication such as e-mail and writing papers. I would like to learn more about creating and sharing videos. I also am interested in finding ways that computers can be helpful in teaching a high school math class. It is easy for me to see how technology can be useful in other subjects like science or for younger students. My goal is to be able to use technology to make things that I already do faster or easier.

All About Me

My name is Cassandra Reed. I am originally from Chicago, IL, but I have lived in Tennessee for most of my life. I spent most of my school aged years in Chattanooga and that is the place I call home.  I work at Krystal on the strip and I have been working there for almost four years now. I live in north Knoxville with my black chihuahua, Corona, and my boyfriend of two years. I have always wanted to be a teacher and I look forward to teaching high school math. Being a teacher is something that I am very passionate about because of my background. My goal is to prepare young people to be successful adults by providing information and acting as a positive role model. I first used google as a classroom tool last semester in one of my math classes, and I became very excited to one day use technology in my own classroom. I am not very technologically advanced, but I look forward to being exposed to ways technology can be used to enhance learning.