5365+Reflection

Part of the "Shared Vision" of my campus is that we must communicate with parents as much as possible (Harris, S., Edmonson, S., & Combs, J., 2010). The simplest way to do that is by using school website that is loaded with relevant content. This class was the one I was most excited about when the program began. I wanted to develop skills designing a simple website, just to see how it is done. As I went through each week, I was a bit disappointed because many of the assignments did not make much sense to me. I realized that trying to learn code language takes a really long time to master. It seemed as though many of the activities expected us to know how to create these sites without a whole lot of background knowledge. I became frustrated and had to resubmit my assignments more than once. I got very discouraged with this class and ended up not wanting to work on a website at all. I finally realized that was not actually creating a site, I was going through the process of designing a site if I chose to actually make one in the future. There were many lessons I could take away from that portion of the program. My theory was that people got paid a bunch of money to create sites and maybe I should just let them do it and mind my own business. I realize now, that I was being silly. I ended up completing my assignments and probably building some character along the way.

In ISTE's Technology Standards it states that we should "demonstrate knowledge, skills, and understanding of concepts related to technology" (Williamson, J. & Redish, T., 2009). I definitely had to learn skills and gain knowledge many of which my of my colleagues are unaware. This class was significant because it brought the entire site building process to life. I had no idea how much planning, budgeting, coding, etc. was involved in such a project. The process is certainly not an easy one. We did not focus as much on the coding, within a school district, that is usually outsourced to outside company. The educational leader has to think about the design, content and feasibility of the website. Obviously, information needs to be readily available and a site should be fairly simple so that anyone can find the information they are seeking. Websites should be efficient, clean and not overcrowded because they need to appear organized for the public. It would quite frustrating for the tax payers to see a district/school website in disarray. They would think the happenings at the schools are also disorganized and that could cause some serious problems for the district.

Specifically, we had to learn how to upload different media types such as images, audio, HTML, etc. The process was not exceedingly difficult, but it was a bit tedious when you consider how many things could be uploaded to a web site. We then came up with a launch plan. We had to decide who would fill which role regarding the site. This process mandated that we use a team to get the site ready for launch. We had to go through procedures for a pre-launch test, launch, and post launch administration. In the prelaunch test, we had make sure the site worked with multiple web browsers (Kaiser, S., 2006). During the post launch administration we were required to make sure the site was up-to-date with recent events, and future information available (Kaiser, 2006). This simulated what it would be like to actually design school website and open it up for the world to view and use. The goal of the site was to be simple, useful, and reliable.

References:

Harris, S., Edmonson, S., & Combs, J. (2010). //Examining What We Do To Improve Our Schools//. Larchmont, NY: Eye on Education, Inc.

Kaiser, S. E. (2006). //Deliver first class web sites: 101 essential checklists//. Collingwood, Vic: SitePoint.

Williamson, J. & Redish, T. (2009). //ISTE’s technology facilitation and leadership standards: What every K-12 leader should know and be able to do//. Eugene, OR: International Society for Technology in Ed