How The Tides Have Turned: Evaluating A Website Evaluation Site

After looking at several websites in the Google Directory, I stumbled upon this great evaluation site that was not only extremely informative, but it's what I consider an "easy" read.  This website is more geared towards the older crowd such as the middle school or high school students.  In particular, this website especially serves as a great foundation for 'beginner' researchers who have just started to dive into the world of writing a significantly long and in-depth research paper.

The website gives great details on how one can make sure that the online resources chosen are reliable.  What grabbed my attention right away was the first few paragraphs that described how we all should think when it comes to pre-evaluation of a source -- It brought up things that I honestly think never crossed my mind.  This skill eventually leads to screening sources much more quickly.  If I would ever need my math students to do any sort of research, I would definitely have them read through this awesome site (Frankly, I find that most of the evaluation sites on the Google Directory are extremely helpful for my age-range group of kids:)

Wikis & Class So Far...

So we've been learning about wikis... and I must admit, I thought that the word wiki was only associated with Wikipedia.  Now I know that wikis are pretty much a ready-to-edit website and can be great for collaboration among teachers and students.  As of now, I've been hands-on with learning about wikis through pbworks.com and it's definitely been a bit of a challenge.  In fact, I just gave up 5 minutes ago with editing my personal page -- I wanted to place two separate pictures of my cats on the right side of my last paragraph (one on top of the other), and I can't seem to get my page to look "right."  It's really late, so I will try to fix it in about 7 hours when class starts. Yes, I'm always up extremely late -- I'd like think my brain works better after midnight:)  After editing my page many of times over a period of about 2 hours and then quitting because I was "so over it," it hit me: I spent so much time trying to figure things out on my own, that I could've probably saved a lot of my time if I read/watched some tutorials on how to edit my workspace.  I mean, that is what the Help link as well as the tutorial videos are for.  Could it be that I just have no patience for watching tutorials?  Am I a part of the "A.D.D. Generation"?  And does the question mark before this sentence go before or after the quotation marks?... and I diverge...  I've always thought that I could figure most things out myself, so I seem to always forget to look elsewhere for help.

I've recently discovered that I freak out more easily over assignments in this technology class more than I ever have in my past classes.  I think it's because I'm still insecure about my techno skills, and if it seems that I did something wrong, I'm automatically in flustered-&-frustrated mode.  Take for instance my small "freak out" two days ago.  I edited my professor's pbworks.com workspace, and I thought I did something wrong.  Instead of taking another 5 seconds to explore more of this wiki website, I automatically e-mailed Professor Beard about wrongfully editing his webpage... After clicking on the SEND icon of my email, I went back to my professor's workspace and found out that I did everything correctly.  So here I go, e-mailing Professor Beard once again about "ignoring my first e-mail" and whatnot.  This scenario definitely served as a great lesson:  Be patient and really dive in & explore before jumping to conclusions.  I hope that by the end of this semester, I'll be able to shake off this insecurity.

After two weeks of taking this course, I can say that I'm very comfortable with the environment.  The step-by-step instructions coupled with the classroom website has definitely kept me on track with TPTE 486.  I almost don't know what I would do without the class website!  I was afraid that we would zoom by all of the lessons that we must cover within this semester, but I like the speed of the class that it's moving at.  Overall, I give this class a "so far, so good..."

Let's Reflect ~ On What I Expect ~ On This Subject

I started my day by waking up last Thursday (January 14th) and packing up my books for my first day of classes.  Before I walked into the classroom, I read the title of my textbook, "Preparing to Use Technology: A Practical Guide to Curriculum Integration."  First, I thought to myself, "Seriously, this book is the SECOND edition!  Have we really been using technology in high school long enough for there to be a 2nd edition on using technology in school?!"  So obviously, I walked into class scared because I consider myself to be technologically-challenged.  After a fun interactive get-to-know-the-rest-of-my-classmates game, realizing that the professor was very laid-back, going through the syllabus, and a few Hershey Kisses later... I walked out of the class feeling just as scared as I walked in -- Hahahaha.

Today, however, I actually am extremely excited about this course.  I'm a blogger now!  What kind of class assigns me to get online and create my own AWESOME blog site?  THIS CLASS!  I feel like I'm learning so much already, and it doesn't feel like busy work... It almost doesn't feel like doing schoolwork at all, because I'm finally "catching up with the times." I'm getting 'hip to the scene'... I'm starting to get 'down with the get down.' Ok, I know, that's enough.

So what are my learning expectations for this class?  Let's see... Of course, the first thing that comes to mind is to become familiar with all of the facets of technology available to be integrated into a classroom.  I don't remember anyone ever bringing a laptop to class during my years from K-12, so it will be very interesting to see how the dynamics of a high school classroom has changed with the implementation of technology.  By the end of the semester, I expect to be able to utilize effective software in order to create papers for my students such as worksheets, quizzes, and other assessments.  I am also interested in getting to know the "Pros and Cons" of supporting engaged learning through technology.  As of now, I cannot think of any cons, but one of the biggest pros for me, as an educator, would be that my students would hopefully have more 'fun' with learning the classroom material through the use of a digital game or through some sort of online program.  And we all know that fun = attention = memory storage (right?) ... That's why I feel that using technology not only brings in creativity to the classroom climate, but it'll hopefully show students that learning is not always all about constantly writing notes and listening to monotonous lectures.

This leads to the biggest expectation I have for TPTE 486 -- and it's that, for the most part, I'll be learning by being more HANDS-ON with my coursework.  Although we do have to read a textbook, I am having so much fun doing what we're reading.  For instance, I read Chapter 5, which touched on blogging... and after an hour of being hands-on in class on the topic of "web logs," I'm now officially a blogger -- and it's actually pretty fun.  By the time this Spring Semester ends, I know that I'll be so much more confident in my future career as an educator --> all because I'll be up-to-date with the tech world.  I'll end this long post by writing, "I'm very glad I had to take this class, and I can't wait to see what else I can use in/for the classroom."

A Small Autobiography

The name’s Judy, but most of my friends call me “Judy Tran”-- they all feel that saying my full name flows much better than just calling me by my first name.  I have two sisters, two brothers, and divorced parents.  My family came to America from Vietnam in 1982, thus, I do speak both English and Vietnamese.  Most people forget that I am bilingual because I miraculously have no accent.  In fact, although I was born in San Fransisco, California, I did not speak English until I was 6 years old because I began attending public school.  


I was raised in the harsh streets of Philly until my mom (she’s my superhero) decided to make a better living by moving to Nashville, TN.  I am very thankful for this move because I would not be who I am today if the ‘Tran Clan’ remained in Philly-- I went from witnessing shootings between gang rivalries to being spoiled by Southern Hospitality, and I do not take it for granted one bit.  Like “The Jeffersons,” we moved on up (or technically down) to the south side to Franklin, TN where I graduated in the top 5% of my class in 2004 at Centennial High School.  I will admit that I was a nerd and always cared about making straight A’s... and I’m proud to say that I’m still a nerd, but I’ve become more relaxed about making perfect grades.  I guess that just comes with age.  


It was during my junior year at Centennial when I decided that I wanted to be a teacher.  I was fortunate enough to have a Calculus Honors and Physics Honors teacher that inspired me to want to teach Mathematics.  Doing homework, taking quizzes and exams, etc. will never be fun, but I will admit that I looked forward to going to these classes every day because my teachers actually made class enjoyable.  This is why I want to teach.  I want to make learning more entertaining and engaging rather than the usual monotonous lectures.  I have had no experience as of yet in the teaching field, but I hope to be some sort of math assistant this summer at a Knoxville High School.  I absolutely love arts-n-krafts, so I hope to not only be a role model, but to also bring in a lot of creativity and smiles to my future students!