Week 11 Reflection

This week was really nice to me, now that I am finally off track I was able to work on my website and to make the changes to it that I needed to get done. I wanted to make the pages to my site in the same format that the index page was in...in order to create similarity. Of course there were a couple of pages that needed to stay in the same format that it was in. I enjoyed getting the chance to talk to all of you at the last meeting and to get some feedback from other professionals. At my school site, I am one of the few that have created their own site, so it makes it hard to get the feedback that I need. They all love my site their because it is something that they don't have. So I hope that my changes impress you all tonight. I think of all the classes that I have taken for this MA program, this class has really prepared me to get my project moving.

Week 10 Reflection

This week has been good to me. I am officially off track now, so that has allowed me to get some things completed. I am almost done with my PPT for 692. I have started to work on my web page to get it ready for my next year pilot class. I am also still working on the program that Bobby has to create surveys on. I hope it works out for me. I did create one on freesurveys.com and it was very easy. See you all on Tuesday.

Week 9 Reflection

I can't believe that we are at week 9 already. Time flies by when you are busy. This week I was concentrating on revising my MA proposal and searching for survey website to design a survey on... then comes to find out that Bobby has a program to create surveys. Go figure. I did create a general and small survey for my parents this year since they were in essence my pilot year. I asked them what they thought of my website and how it helped them to communicate to me as well as to their child. I also created one for the students, which I will pass out later this week to get feedback from them. I hope with the surveys that are returned to me that I am able to make corrections, perfections and add or delete options that were not used. Then going into next years class, I will be able have a website that will meet all their needs.
I have also been organizing my Power Point Presentation for ETEC 692 and for this class on what my website is going to be about. The one for ETEC 692 will focus on my hours that I have committed to during the MA program.
Other than that, I had a wonderful Memorial Day Weekend and I hope all of you did too.

Week 8 Reflection

This week has been a very busy week for me. I finally finished all the IRB training, I felt that it was easier to read all the articles and then to do all the quizes. It sure was a lot to read. I am happy that it is over. I worked on my application but I have a few more changes to it and then I will be submitting it. Other than that, I have been working on creating a survey for my parents and students to fill out about my teaching and their suggestions about the classroom website. I will hand out my real survey next year for the project, but this is more for suggestions on how I can make the website more useful to my parents and students.

Reflection Week 7

This week I was able to find a fee online survey to be able to create a survey for my parents, students and teachers about my project. I have also been working on my MA proposal to have it resubmitted and a PowerPoint Presentation for ETEC 692. I also started the IRB training and I haven't finished any of it yet since this weekend was rather crazy and busy.
Since I already have my website completed and formatted in a way that I like and is useful, I am working on filling out the planning diagram on what my website actually looks like. Other than that....I did the Revlon RunWalk this weekend and my school fund raised $2555.00 toward cancer research. It was great!

Reflection Week 6

Well this has been a crazy week for me. I hosted my Buy Back Day on web hosting and web designing. It went real well, all the teachers that attended later developed a classroom webpage. most of the teachers are using a free web hosting sites- teacherweb. One teacher is interested in purchasing some software and creating a specialize domain name. I will be moving to a different school next year that is not as tech savvy as this school- so needless to say, I will be doing a lot of training there as well.
I have reading articles all week long and I picked a few good ones to include in this literature review. I am sure that I will be getting more and adding to it as time goes on. I am pleased to see that I am able to hit all the topics of my thesis with these articles. At first I thought that it was going to be too large of a search, but I took Dr. Baek's advice and narrowed my search to hit certain things. So that has kept me glued to the laptop for quite some time now.
I hope all of you are wrapping up your literature reviews and I will see you all on Tuesday- well the SB people :)

Reflection Week 5

Literature review...wow! I was surprised to see how much information I was getting after I started looking at my thesis in different angles. I looked up parental involvement in the classroom...the good, the bad and the ugly. I looked up technology as a form of communication and more. The thing that surprised me the most was a lot of it dealt with the classroom environment. Most of the research support what I was trying to prove which will make my Ch.2 section easier to complete. I used the schools search engines and also Google Beta Scholar and other search engines such as Yahoo. I found a few articles that discussed the cons of technology use in the classroom and most of what they stated are areas I was already planning on looking at.
I felt very comfortable about the research that I have found this far and now it is all about putting it together in a Ch. 2 format. I just need to now sit down and write down all the wonderful information. I think that this will be the most time consuming part of my project. However, it is the heart of the thesis.

Refelction Week 4

This week I have interviewed a few teachers at my school site on what would benefit their students the most in the form of a classroom website. I was able to get some very interesting answers. I will be hosting a buy back day on web design and web hosting coming up soon. I am preparing for that and trying to create a PowerPoint to demonstrate at the training.
I am also finishing up some internet research to go along with ym lit reivew. I have also been working on myy MA proposal.

Reflection Week 3

Reflection Week 3

This week I worked on getting more articles for my thesis and I collaborated with Lisa on how to write up the prelim thesis. I found it to be harder than I originally thought to write up the first portion of the thesis. I think on some ways my problem may be too big but then again- they go together. I may have to drop one of my points of view. I will see when I really get diving into this.

Other than working on the thesis, I bought a new laptop, new car and my Internet went down... so needless to say it has been an exciting week.

Week 2 Reflection

This last week, I was unable to get the blog list off BlackBoard, so I apologize for not commenting on any of your pages. I have it now, so I am up to date.
I worked on what my project is really going to look at. I talked to several teachers and with the help of my friend Lisa H :) I was finally able to narrow it down. On the next post you will see that I have outlined it out to what I am going to look at.
I began my research of lit. articles and websites that support my thesis and started reading them and pulling information from them to see what I want to use versus what I don't need to include.
Glad to have my Blog up and working again.

Outline for Project

Increasing Parent Involvment and Student Achievement through the use of Technology:

1. Parent Contact
A. Benefits
B. Challenges
C. Examples: website, email, blogs, wikis, etc.
D. Research on what has already been done
a. what worked
b. what did not work
c. problems faced
E. Types of involvement
a. effective involvement
b. ineffective involvement
2. Compare and contrast
A. different types of communciation programs available through technology
a. compare and contrast between each
3. Technology- Web guidelines
A. Wed design guidelines
B. ADDIE


Thats it...any help is wanted :)

ETEC 644

For my Masters this far, I have began to pilot my project out to my students. This year I developed and implemented my website which I designed for my students and parents. I want to increase the communication and parental involvement in the classroom, so that is why I worked on this website to see what my parents were looking for and how to help my students. Throughout the year I have added and taken things away to make it user-friendly and informational.
I started my literature reviews last quarter and I will continue to gather more information about my topic. I will be sending out a survey to my students and parents this year and at the end of the year I will accumulate all the data that I have collected and added it to my thesis.
I will also interview some administration members, teachers as well as parents to see what they think about my website and to see if they feel it serves the purpose of what I want it to reach.
I have enjoyed the process thus far and can't wait to get closer to the end.
Please leave any comments and if you would like to view my website, click here www.msokelley.com and you can check it out too.
Thanks!