Journal 5 - Using Twitter

I feel that all social media is important to use in the classroom nowadays; especially with junior high and high school age students. They are most likely going to try to sneak a peak at their devices during class anyways; might as well tell them to use their devices for an educational purpose.  I think attention span overall has dwindled.  Students have to feel that something is exciting in order for them to focus their attention. 

Tweeting is relatively easy.  It is also concise. This is extremely helpful because it gives students information in soundbites and digestible morsels.  Yes, there is a negative side to this.  Where is the indepth research and concentration?  Are we to dummy down everything?  Good questions indeed. 

I feel that students enjoy games.  They try to win at games.  If we make education a fun game, they will work very hard to be the "winner".  Of course, this does take a lot of "designing" on the part of the teacher.  But, if the goal of school is truly to teach, then we must keep up with the times and teach in a way that reaches the most amount of students.

GED 512 - Final Project

Here is my Final Project for GED 512:

http://www.csupomona.edu/~nnelhaj/512/

Journal 7 – Professional Learning Network

Blog 7 – Professional Learning Network

This has been a very useful learning experience.  I enjoyed using Digg Reader to gather information on topics of interest.  I had never used a tool like Digg before.  It was wonderful to be able to identify the types of information I wanted up front, add the sites of interest to Digg, and then watch how Digg pulls the most current information into a one-stop shop for my use.  Not only was this a time saver, but it was an excellent way to stay on top of cutting edge news without having to actively search for it each time.  The sites that I added to Digg Reader were related to my areas of interest:  ESL, investing, and current job opportunities in the educational field.  

I also enjoyed becoming a member of TeachersPayTeachers.com.  I consider this an affinity group.  It is an ever-expanding group of teachers who either sell or post free versions of lesson plans they have developed.  What an amazing way to tap into others’ creative powers. It is also a great way to share what has worked for me.  This is a great version of a “think-tank” in a way. 

I checked out the Adult Education ESL materials and found many good tools.  I also began thinking about things that I too can share with teachers. Throughout the years, I have utilized many successful ESL teaching methods that may be of benefit to others.  

Teachers are the best resources for what does and doesn’t work in a classroom.   I have purchased many useless resources created by removed publishers and content writers.  TeachersPayTeachers.com is going to remain a resource I cherish throughout my teaching career.

Blogging was also extremely fun.  I always check to see how many people have viewed my posts and where they are from.  I don’t know how people in other parts of the world come across my blogs but they do.  I think I will continue blogging long after this class is done because I can keep adding useful information for people at large to utilize.  Some topics of interest I would like to continue blogging about include Skype and ESL.  Other topics that I would like to begin blogging about are website design and Microsoft Office products.  I believe my God-given gift is teaching.  Once I grasp a subject, I know how to make it easy for others to grasp it as well.  So, I think I can keep blogging a part of my life forever.

Twitter was interesting.  I am not sure that I want to post daily and check for comments for social reasons only.  I may utilize it for educational purposes down the road.  I can see the potential benefits, including engaging hyper students who may not have the attention span to focus on a lecture. It may be a good way to engage them and sneak in some education through a medium they already utilize.

I feel that educational multimedia must be used in today's classroom.  The more that a teacher knows in this area the better off she will be.  Why fight what students love.  They love Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Youtube, and searching the Internet.  If we can reach them using methods and tools they already embrace, we will be able to get them to learn more.  In contrast, if we insist on books, pencils, and paper, we will have lost them before even beginning. 

I have started an ESL blog that I plan to continue adding material to.  I would love to use my final project ESL website as a foundation upon which to build and add more materials.  I also love how Dr. McGarvey uses a learning management system to keep things organized and to archive and repurpose lessons, tweaking them as needed.  Why keep reinventing the wheel and losing lessons?  I would love to take on the challenge of utilizing a learning management system, creating an excellent ESL program, and teaching my students how to access their lessons online.

 

 

 

GED 512 - Final Portfolio

My GED 512 Final Portfolio is in progress.  I have included the link below.  Be sure to check it periodically as it is in the process of evolving.

http://www.csupomona.edu/~nnelhaj/512/EslWebsiteNadineElhaj.html

GED 513 - Web Programming Portfolio -

Look what I found on my Cal Poly server.....the other class I took with Dr. McGarvey.  My project for that class is attached below. I am really enjoying learning about web design and programming.

http://www.csupomona.edu/~nnelhaj/

Journal 6 - Self Reflection re: Course - 1st 5 weeks

I would like you to reflect on your learning over the first 5 weeks of the course in a blog post. Your reflection should demonstrate your fundamental understanding of html and css. Share what was the hardest and the most rewarding assignment you have completed in the course. Provide links to the actual assignment (book exercise or lab) hosted on your cal poly account.
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I really enjoyed learning about building websites from scratch using Notepad and Dreamweaver.  I had already taken the more advanced course with Dr. McGarvey over a year ago.  So this class was a relief as it went over the basic fundamentals that I struggled with in the advanced course.

It is truly such a thrill to see that by learning coding, I can literally create a customized website from scratch using my own hard work and imagination. 

I particularly enjoyed learning about designing layout, plugging in navigation bars, and importing my favorite images into the website.

The hardest assignment was going back and finding all my labs and homework and getting the links to work as I linked them all into 2 separate tables (one for homework; one for labs).  It's one thing to create.  It's a totally other thing to make sure that links work.  I believe, by far, learning how to get things to link properly is the hardest but most rewarding thing we can learn in website development.  Here are the tables I created and linked my book assignments and labs to:

http://www.csupomona.edu/~nnelhaj/512/tablesforbook1.html

http://www.csupomona.edu/~nnelhaj/512/tablesforlabs1.html

I now have a fundamental grasp of what HTML and CSS are.  HTML is the structure and CSS is the style.  HTML includes the head, body, headers, paragraphs, and other sections.  Style can be included within the HTML.  But, it is considered better practice to have the style in a separate CSS that links to the HTML.

Journal 4 - Project Plan

Here is the Website Project Plan for my Curriculum Project

• Site title - ESL Basics for Teachers.
• Developer - Nadine Elhaj
• Rationale or focus - The purpose is to give ESL Teachers some basic, workable ideas about what to teach and how to teach.
• Main features outline - images, text delivery, navigation between pages, internal hyperlinks, and CSS 
• Content - There will be six main webpages:  Home page, Video page, Story Lessons page, Dialogue Lessons page, Vocabulary page, and Evaluation page
• Target audience - My target audience is first-time teachers
• Design considerations. I want the layout to be plain, basic, and very easy to follow.  I want the teachers to feel like the navigation of the pages is highly intuitive.  I want to minimize any struggle they may have in regards to backtracking and locating information
• Limiting factors - The limiting factors are my minimal knowledge in web design.

Here is the Wire Frame

Journal 3 - The Case for Social Media in School

I believe that social media is an important part of the educational process.  Students feel that their teachers are out-of-touch dinosaurs until proven otherwise.  What better way for a teacher to speak her students' language than to engage them in social media activities.  The teacher will be transformed from a dinosaur to a rockstar.  This isn't a popularity contest; but it is a contest to win over and capture students' attention and focus.  Teachers can either innovate or lose their audience.  Anything can be used for both good or bad.  It's time to draw out the good that social media can do.  For example, a teacher can post a lesson on Facebook-like social media outlet.  Students can upload their assignments.  The experience can be interactive between teacher and student as well as student and student.  Of course, there would have to be established boundaries and consequences for bullying or inappropriate behavior; but I think that students would be so overwhelmed with gratitude towards their teacher's efforts to engage them that most of the students would probably behave without much warning.

Blogs where students can post responses to teacher questions and gather teacher and peer feedback would be another idea.  The exciting thing about blog posts is that students can also see who else out there is reading what they have to say.  Many students feel that education is a daunting experience.  I feel that blogs and other social media outlets can help students learn topics in bite-sized chunks, voice their confusion, gain perspective from teachers and peers, and eventually contribute something of value themselves.

Q:  Do you think that there is any good that can come out of using social media in the classroom?
A:  Yes, I believe if a teacher is creative, she can use social media to catapult the learning curve.  Learning can become a game.  Students love games.  They especially love games that they can play with their peers.  Who doesn't like a little friendly competition.  A teacher could potentially create a 24/7 educational portal if she is clever enough.

Q:  How could you ensure that students do not use social media to bully each other?
A:  A teacher can establish "game rules" and hold herself and all her students responsible for reporting any breach.  Teacher and students can use a breach as an opportunity to discuss internet safety and bullying.  With established and enforced rules, the teacher is covered, the students are covered, and social media is open to be used for educational purposes as well as for entertainment and friend-connect purposes (already being utilized by students).

Journal 2 - Affinity Group and Digg Stream

 

 

 

 

Affinity Group:  

I joined the affinity group, Teachers Pay Teachers at: http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/   I first heard about this group from Dr. McGarvey in class.   I think joining a collective brain trust or think tank, even at the level of an interest/affinity group, provides people with an outlet for their creativity.

I am also all about repurposing knowledge for cash. This can be my “retirement plan”.  I can help myself while helping others.  Besides the monetary reward, it is very affirming to share ideas and potentially have people say how much they appreciate you.   

Digg Reader:

Digg Reader is a wonderful, timesaving tool. The topics that I find fascinating at the moment are ESL and investing.  I currently teach ESL, own a great penny stock (ticker symbol JAMN), and day trade (in simulation for now).  This week, I saw job postings for ESL teachers, learned about the latest hot penny stocks, and read an article about billionaires and how they think and do business.  I am excited to continue logging in to Digg in the upcoming weeks to read the articles it has retrieved and to continue to add areas of interest to my list.  

Question 1:  Why is it important to join an affinity group?

Answer 1:  It is important because it connects you with likeminded people who may or may not exist in your geographical area.  It gives you access to a more “global” community and allows you to learn and share on topics of mutual interest.

Question 2:  How can Digg Reader become an invaluable tool?

Answer 2:  If you are always on the go and in need of the latest updates on certain topics, accessing all that information in a “one-stop” shop is priceless.  You can always add new areas of interest, delete old areas of interest, or refine your search criteria.  It is a great way to save time and energy in retrieving information that could potentially put you one step ahead of the crowd.

 

 

Journal 1 - Chapters 1, 2 and 3 - Learning Web Design: A Beginner's Guide to HTML, CSS, Javascript, and Web Graphics

Robbins, J. (2012).  Learning web design:  A beginner's guide to HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and web graphics (4th ed.). Sebastopol, CA: O'Reilly.

Chapters 1 through 3 provide us with a basic foundation for understanding websites. 
Web design has become much more standardized which is invaluable in light of the fact that people will be accessing websites from a variety of device  

A web designer creates a base that can be read by any device or web browser; then adds layers upon layers of features.  This layering approach allows all to at least access the basic information on all devices.  Then, depending on the person's device capabilities, more and more details can be seen. 

A person can be a jack-of-all trades or can specialize in a specific area of web design.  The main aspects are related to:  design, development, content strategy and multimedia.

I am extremely interested in creating websites, both by hand and by using out-of-the-box technology.  I want to put them side by side and see if I can tell the difference between an original and a cookie cutter.  I think the main things that would be different are the graphic elements.  If someone is a true artist and knows how to translate that art into digital media, the visual element will be far superior to an out-of-the-box basic design. 

Still, I want to perhaps, outside of class, put together an out-of-the-box website so I can quickly identify all the moving parts, focus on SEO and selling a product; and then backtrack, using this as a model, to create an original that is more intricate and pleasing to the eye.

Question 1:  When a person says "web design" does it mean just one or all of the below?
Visual (graphic design); user interface and experience design; web document and style sheet production; scripting and programming; content strategy; multimedia.

Answer 1:  It means all of those things.  A person does not have to do all of these facets.  A person can pick a specialty and utilize a team for the remaining items.


Question 2: What are the 4 main categories of web design?

Answer 2:  Design (how it works), development (document, style sheet, scripts, images), content strategy (website text and its organization), and multimedia (sound, video, animation, interactivity)

Question 3: What are the basic suggested tools for a would-be web designer?  

Answer 3:  a computer, memory, large monitor, scanner, digital camera, 2nd test computer, and mobile devices for testing.

Nadine Elhaj - Intro

Hello, this is Nadine. Just wanted to share some highlights. I was born in Beirut, Lebanon and came to California when I was three years old. Between the ages of three and eleven, my family traveled back and forth between our home base in California and Algeria, Kuwait, and Greece. I attended American schools abroad so that my education would be cohesive when I got back. I finished junior high (Sandburg), high school (Glendora HS), and community college (Citrus) in the city of Glendora. I then attended Cal Poly Pomona to begin my B.A. in English and ended up finishing it at Cal State Fullerton. Upon graduation, I applied and was immediately hired as an elementary school teacher. The first year, I bounced from second grade to first grade to kindergarten. I stayed in kindergarten for the remainder of my elementary school teaching career. This included teaching at a regular public school and later a brand new charter school. I taught in the day and went to Cal Poly Pomona at night to fulfill my obligation of taking classes towards obtaining my multiple subjects teaching credential. After three years of teaching, I entered the administrative world as an executive assistant in various settings including Citrus College, USC, Green Dot Corporation, and Panda Restaurant Group. While at Citrus, I worked as an executive assistant by day and a Citrus ESL teacher by night; while at USC, I worked as an executive assistant by day (did it again!) and a PUENTE Learning Center ESL teacher by night. During this time period I also owned four rental properties. When the market went haywire, I had to let them go. But it was a valuable learning experience and I now know what to do and what not to do the next time. I am back in education, teaching at Citrus and assisting at Mt. SAC in the ESL programs. I am also completing my Master's in Educational Multimedia.

I have grown to absolutely love and adore technology. Gadgets, gizmos, timesavers and streamliners capture my attention and enthusiasm. I am in awe of Silicon Valley young bucks (many who are actually college drop outs LOL) who have seemingly become overnight sensations with their ingenious inventions. I recently had my ESL class add a translation app to their phones so that they can continue learning at home. I want to introduce my students to all kinds of technology that will help them to improve the quality of their lives.

I dream of creating a mobile app or game that will fill a need and take the world by storm. And in the process make me an overnight sensation as well! I am thrilled that I am now learning how to create websites, audio/video edit, and photoshop (among other things) in this Educational Multimedia program. I am learning lots of things and I want to really focus on what my passions are in this program. My goal is to narrow that focus, hone my skills, and find a niche that my expertise can serve. I will be thinking about this during the upcoming months as I dive back in to school.

Course Description - 512 GED

Course Description: Course examines how the Internet, and its tools and resources be integrated in educational settings for delivering course content, providing access to resources, expanding the classroom, and supporting learning styles. Students learn how to plan, design, develop and evaluate Internet-based learning activities/course websites.  3 seminar / discussions; 1 three-hour laboratory. Office Hours: 3:00-4:00 4th Floor conference room (near elevator.) I will also make a habit of being in the class chat room during this time. /onlu View this online at: www.johnmgarvey.com/online