Category: Digital Learning Communities

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8/30/2018

This lesson was designed to encourage the user to find instructional websites and then critique the graphic design elements of the website. The following is a list of instructional websites that I focused on:

SoftSchools.com is a for math and writing worksheets leveled by grade and activity, and this site allows the teacher to design their own materials. I found this site to be overwhelming with information. While it is a valuable resource the information on the main page was too much for the consumer.
Wordle is a toy for generating “word clouds” from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. You can tweak your clouds with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes. The images you create with Wordle are yours to use however you like. You can print them out, or save them to your own desktop to use as you wish. The website was straight forward and easy to use. The minimal graphic design keep it clean and easy to navigate.
Filefolderfun is a great instructional website that allows material to be gathered and distributed through a user friendly folder service. The graphic design of the website will keep most from ever finding what is available for the user. The website is littered with adds that I find distracting.
Funology is a website that focuses on crafts, games, recipes and science. This is a well designed site that is easy to navigate. This site is perfect for anyone looking to incorporate more STEM activities in their program.
Innerbody is a great anatomy site that can be useful in a variety of subjects that deal with the human body. This is a well designed site that is a great resource.
National Library of Virtual Manipulative is a site designed for all ages to learn various math skills through fun games. The real tragedy of this website is the poor design. The games and information are great, but at first look one would be tempted to move on to another site.
Literactive is a good website with resources to promote literacy. The design of the website is overwhelming when you open the page. There is far too much information for a homepage.
The Teacher's Guide is a well designed website with a variety of subjects, easy to implement lessons, and user friendly controls. This website is appealing to the eye and a fantastic resource.
Learn360 is the ultimate streaming multimedia resource for the K–12 educational market the complete district solution. Teachers, students, and parents can access more than 148,000 multimedia resources—including high-quality full-length videos, video clips, images, audio files, articles, activities, worksheets, interactives, and more on any Internet-enabled device, anytime, anywhere. Its enhanced, state-of-the-art platform, featuring the content, navigation, educator tools, speed, and performance that today’s online experience demands, makes Learn360 a powerful tool for flipped classrooms, blended instruction, project-based learning, and 1:1 environments. This website has a great design and is easy to use.
Oneswitch is a gaming website that focuses on games that teach. The website does the same as many other sites, but this site is not as graphicly appealing. There is no white space and what colors are on the page are too bright.

The list, I have provided above has described a number of instructional websites with some being much better than others.

As you can see in this picture of The Teacher's Guide, this website has followed the guidelines of graphic design.

This is an example of how OneSwitch.org is dark, not appealing, and has limited menu items to allow for easy navigation.

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Participate - Joining a DLC

8/5/2018

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Today I want to share with you a few Digital Learning Communities that I really enjoy. Digital learning communities are a great way to learn and share information with individuals and groups whom share the same passion for a common subject matter.

The first is The Criminal Justice Cell - eLearning for CJ Professionals. "The Criminal Justice Cell is a personal learning network (PLN, a site that will encourage discussion and collaboration concerning the topic of criminal justice(CJ); specifically research, practical implementation and education. It is recognized that this is a rather broad subject, so in order to facilitate organization and participation the broader topic of criminal justice will be divided into specific areas of interest. These areas of interest would include, but certainly not limited to issues such as victim studies/issues, problem solving courts, restorative justice, corrections, investigations, special populations, environmental criminology and so on. The intent is to create a safe and welcoming environment that would encourage and nurture the collaboration of criminal justice professionals, academics as well as students."

The second DLC that I find useful is the Southern Criminal Justice Association. "The Southern Criminal Justice Association is a regional organization affiliated with the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences. SCJA is a professional association serving criminal justice educators, researchers, practitioners, and students committed to the ongoing development of criminal justice science and practice. Member states include Alabama, Georgia, Florida, Tennessee, South Carolina, North Carolina, Mississippi, Louisiana, Kentucky, Virginia, West Virginia, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands."

The third DLC I find useful is We The Teachers. We The Teachers has great resources, lesson plans, discussions and much more information that is useful to all teachers. This site allows you to gather information and collaborate with teachers from all over the world.

Teacher Tube is another great site. "Teacher Tube's goal is to provide an online community for sharing instructional videos. We seek to fill a need for a more educationally focused, safe venue for teachers, schools, and home learners. It is a site to provide anytime, anywhere professional development with teachers teaching teachers. As well, it is a site where teachers can post videos designed for students to view in order to learn a concept or skill."

TeachAde is a great social networking site. TeachAde.com is unique because it is one of only a few websites dedicated to supporting classroom teachers, while remaining completely free and easy to use. Members are able to interact and contribute by uploading and sharing a variety of files, including multimedia files and complete lesson plans, for others to download and enjoy. These files can then be distributed to the registered users of TeachAde based upon individual users profiles. This complex back-end system tied to an easy to use "my workspace" page allows for one member, such as a talented fifth grade math teacher in Ohio, to connect to others with whom they can share information or collaborate on current needs, such as a new fifth grade math teacher in California.

I have joined the Southern Criminal Justice Association because of the available research. The Southern Criminal Justice Association represents the area that I live and work in with research conducted in my community. The only drawback for this DLC is the small fee associated with joining. However, as a criminal justice professional the information is well worth the fee.

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Learning Public Safety

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Participate - Joining a DLC

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