Week 7

As I turn in what I feel is my completed WebQuest, I still think I could tweak it more if I wanted to. Every time I go back to it, I see something else that could be better; or I see something somewhere else, such as an other WebQuest or blog, that reminds me of my WebQuest and makes me think I’d like to see that element on my web page. Such is the life of a teacher, right? Lesson plans are never perfect. They are tweaked, revised and update constantly. That’s what this WebQuest is: it’s a lesson plan, spelled out for students to lead themselves, in a Web 2.0 format.

It is special because students can guide themselves through the process, with only minimal help from the teacher. It’s special too because it can be shared with peers; and experienced educators can give their feedback as to how it can be improved.

My Delicious account is finished, I believe. This has been a slow-paced, little here, little there exercise that has proven to be most profitable. I spent years collecting various bookmarks on my browser. In the last seven weeks I have amassed an amazing list of useful links that I can access from any computer, anywhere.

I still have some work to go on my e-Portfolio. In that project, I have to choose and master five web tools and reflect upon their use in the classroom. However, the five artifacts I chose originally didn’t make it to the final cut. I changed three of them. I did this because I wanted each tool to be a bit more challenging and peer-based: Because that seems to be the pattern of the NETS standards themselves. Each process is difficult to finish, but exploring and experimenting with all of these web tools has been fun. However, I will say that the more of these web tools I sign up for, the more spam email I get on my Gmail account every day. It all goes to the spam folder, but the sheer amount is scary – 10 or 12 spam emails every day in my junk folder. I would like to be able to figure out one day which sites are selling my emails and which ones are not. Next week, or actually a half-week, my final summer blog. I will have a final reflection on my eight-week course.