I looked at two Department of Curriculum and Instruction websites from different schools, the University of Nevada Las Vegas and the University of Southern Mississippi. The UNLV site was plainer and easier to read, but the USM site seemed more sophisticated and more attractive. I found the USM website to have significantly more visual appeal than the UNLV site with the use of non-conventional fonts and graphics. In addition, the information provided on the USM website seemed to be geared more towards getting students to take an interest in the program than the other site. Included in the USM site was a letter from the Chair welcoming prospective students and explaining what makes the USM teaching department so special and what they can offer the student. The UNLV site stated simply that they were amongst the best. They gave no information to back up their claim or to entice the prospective student. Both sites included links to their required courses and to other links on the page, but the USM site turned the entire header into a link back to the C & I homepage. I found the USM site to be far more enticing than the UNLV site, and therefore, more effective.
I am writing in order to create a website that will make the field of education an attractive choice to those who have not decided on a major yet. The tremendous need for good teachers is what is prompting me to write and the desired outcome for this project would be to help increase interest in the field of Elementary Education. My reader desires a career with stability and a good future.
My primary reader will be Dr. Nichols, my ENG 333 instructor. It is her responsibility to make sure she teaches me what I need to know in order to make this class a successful one.
Other readers will likely be those students who have not yet chosen a major or are not happy with the major in which they are currently pursuing. My relationship to my primary reader will be that of student and teacher. It is my responsibility to take the tools I have been given and put them to good use.
My primary reader, being Dr. Nichols is probably very familiar with the specialty, so I will focus on the students that I hope to assist in reaching a decision regarding their major. The students probably only have a passing familiarity with my major, unless it is one that they had thought of pursuing previously. Taking into account my reader’s lack of experience with expressions exclusive to the field of education, I will probably keep the language user-friendly and simple.
I also need to make the website as interesting as possible while answering questions that my reader may have such as, what kinds of classes can they be expected to encounter? Other questions they may have are, what opportunities are there for me after I receive my degree and what does teaching have to offer that is of interest to me?
Most of the questions my reader has will be presented on the home page of the site. Other questions can be easily answered by exploring the links that are on the site. My reader will use the information I provide to make a decision on their future major. By compiling usable information, they will be able to make an informed decision regarding their choice of major.
My reader’s attitude toward my subject will more than likely be one of curiosity. This will be advantageous to me as I can play on that curiosity to introduce them to the positive things that teaching has to offer. My reader will be looking to me to show them what they do not know. I have already decided on my career and therefore can tell them about it and show them what they need to know in order to make a decision.
Other stakeholders affected by my communication will be the websites that I link to mine, such as Teachers-teachers.com, which will have a link on my website for prospective students to explore. By providing students with an outlet to do more research, the owners of the websites I include could see more interest in their sites. Limitations I may encounter will include my own lack of experience where teaching is concerned. I have not even begun my teaching career yet and therefore cannot tell them what to expect AFTER they graduate.
http://ci.unlv.edu/about
http://www.usm.edu/cise/
Saturday, June 26, 2010
Saturday, June 19, 2010
Blog Assignment 3
Dear Webmaster,
My name is Tracy Barron and I am an Elementary Education major at the University of Southern Mississippi. While doing research for a course project regarding No Child Left Behind, I had the pleasure of visiting your website, Wrightslaw.com. I cannot tell you how truly impressed I was with the vast amounts of information that were available to me through your site. I had no trouble obtaining all the information I needed in order to complete my project. However, I did have some difficulties when navigating your site and actually locating information. Therefore, I would like to offer a few suggestions that could possibly help future visitors navigate your site without encountering the difficulties that I did.
Upon initially viewing your site, I was overwhelmed with the sheer volume of information that was available to me. As a first time visitor to your site, I found it rather confusing trying to identify and isolate the information that I needed for my specific topic. The organization of the site itself could use a few modifications in order to make it a bit more user friendly. First, the text that appears throughout the center of the page distracted and confused me when I first encountered the site. I found the heading that I was looking for in the small print at the top, right of the page, but found myself sidetracked for quite a while, after reading through the all this other information. Second, you might consider enlarging the font size of the individual headings along the top of the page and down the left side. This would help in locating information quickly as the small type makes reading the topics a little difficult. So difficult, in fact, that for the first few minutes I was on the site I thought it was simply a website advertising books and other resources for which one would pay. The advertisements, while an understandable necessity, distract the reader from the information for which they are looking. Lastly, the visual appeal of your website could use a little improvement. Upon initial inspection, the site is not as visually attractive as it could be. This could be alleviated with the addition of a more eye-catching banner at the top of the page. This would act as an attention-getter to draw in the reader. For example, when clicking on the link to register for an out of town conference, the reader is taken to another page that has a very attractive banner that immediately grabs the attention of the person reading. This could be a useful addition to the homepage.
On a positive note, the information that I was looking for was contained in one of the headings located at the top of the page. It was nice to have all the information that I needed so centrally located. In addition, it was extremely helpful that the information I was looking for was from resources that were trustworthy and researched. I would also like to mention, your FAQ’s were extensive and easy to follow. This made looking for specific items relatively easy and hassle-free. Also, all of the pages on your website loaded quickly and without errors. While looking through your site, I found no dead links or pages that went nowhere.
In conclusion, I would like to reiterate how helpful your site was while I was researching my project. The amount of information that is available on your site is extensive and thorough and a big help to anybody trying to navigate their way through the legalese of programs like No Child Left Behind and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. My suggestions are meant, not to offend, but to help in making the site more navigable to others like myself who do not have a legal background and may otherwise find the information overwhelming.
With sincere best wishes,
Tracy Barron
Website address: www.wrightslaw.com
My name is Tracy Barron and I am an Elementary Education major at the University of Southern Mississippi. While doing research for a course project regarding No Child Left Behind, I had the pleasure of visiting your website, Wrightslaw.com. I cannot tell you how truly impressed I was with the vast amounts of information that were available to me through your site. I had no trouble obtaining all the information I needed in order to complete my project. However, I did have some difficulties when navigating your site and actually locating information. Therefore, I would like to offer a few suggestions that could possibly help future visitors navigate your site without encountering the difficulties that I did.
Upon initially viewing your site, I was overwhelmed with the sheer volume of information that was available to me. As a first time visitor to your site, I found it rather confusing trying to identify and isolate the information that I needed for my specific topic. The organization of the site itself could use a few modifications in order to make it a bit more user friendly. First, the text that appears throughout the center of the page distracted and confused me when I first encountered the site. I found the heading that I was looking for in the small print at the top, right of the page, but found myself sidetracked for quite a while, after reading through the all this other information. Second, you might consider enlarging the font size of the individual headings along the top of the page and down the left side. This would help in locating information quickly as the small type makes reading the topics a little difficult. So difficult, in fact, that for the first few minutes I was on the site I thought it was simply a website advertising books and other resources for which one would pay. The advertisements, while an understandable necessity, distract the reader from the information for which they are looking. Lastly, the visual appeal of your website could use a little improvement. Upon initial inspection, the site is not as visually attractive as it could be. This could be alleviated with the addition of a more eye-catching banner at the top of the page. This would act as an attention-getter to draw in the reader. For example, when clicking on the link to register for an out of town conference, the reader is taken to another page that has a very attractive banner that immediately grabs the attention of the person reading. This could be a useful addition to the homepage.
On a positive note, the information that I was looking for was contained in one of the headings located at the top of the page. It was nice to have all the information that I needed so centrally located. In addition, it was extremely helpful that the information I was looking for was from resources that were trustworthy and researched. I would also like to mention, your FAQ’s were extensive and easy to follow. This made looking for specific items relatively easy and hassle-free. Also, all of the pages on your website loaded quickly and without errors. While looking through your site, I found no dead links or pages that went nowhere.
In conclusion, I would like to reiterate how helpful your site was while I was researching my project. The amount of information that is available on your site is extensive and thorough and a big help to anybody trying to navigate their way through the legalese of programs like No Child Left Behind and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. My suggestions are meant, not to offend, but to help in making the site more navigable to others like myself who do not have a legal background and may otherwise find the information overwhelming.
With sincere best wishes,
Tracy Barron
Website address: www.wrightslaw.com
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
Blog Assignment 2
In one of my literacy classes we were required to summarize several articles. The article I chose for this assignment was written by Sharon Kletzien and was published in a magazine called, The Reading Teacher. The article entitled, Paraphrasing: An Effective Comprehension Strategy, explains how teaching students to effectively paraphrase what they are reading will help with their comprehension skills. Kletzien discusses the differences between paraphrasing and summarizing, and mentions how paraphrasing is effective in measuring how much of what is being read is being understood. Also mentioned in the article is the fact that simply because one can recite the text of a particular selection, does not mean it was understood or that full comprehension was achieved.
The magazine that this article appeared in is a reputable, professional publication read mainly by teachers. The author of the article was a general education classroom teacher for many years and, at the time of the article's publication,was teaching at West Chester University, in Pennsylvania. The intended audience is the educator in general. The author does not single out any particular grade level or subject because this strategy would be effective across the curriculum and for all grade levels. The article is written in the academic language of teaching. The author uses many phrases that a majority of teachers should be familiar with such as, metacognition, textbase, modeling, and scaffolding. Since the author does not explain many of these terms in the context of the article, it would appear that the writer assumes that the reader is an educator of some sort and is familiar with the terms she is utilizing.
The writer did a good job in convincing the reader of the benefits of teaching students to paraphrase what they are reading in order to build comprehension. The author used multiple strategies to achieve her goal. Kletzien begins the article with a vignette about a student named Heather. This was an effective strategy to gain the reader’s interest and keep him or her reading. The author also employed case studies of two other students in order to make her point. Collectively, this showed three students with three separate situations learning to paraphrase in different ways, but all for the purpose of improving the students’ comprehension. The author also used results of research based studies in order to further convince the reader of the effectiveness of paraphrasing. The author appears to understand the need to approach the reader from multiple angles and utilizing many different strategies in order to show the effectiveness of paraphrasing.
Overall, the writer succeeded in what she set out to do, which was to convince the reader of the benefits of paraphrasing as a strategy for reading. The only that I can think of that the writer could have done differently would have been to explain some of the academic language she utilized in her article. This would have made the piece more easily understood by parents, beginning teachers, or the public in general and therefore, could have ended up benefitting more readers than the author may have previously intended.
The magazine that this article appeared in is a reputable, professional publication read mainly by teachers. The author of the article was a general education classroom teacher for many years and, at the time of the article's publication,was teaching at West Chester University, in Pennsylvania. The intended audience is the educator in general. The author does not single out any particular grade level or subject because this strategy would be effective across the curriculum and for all grade levels. The article is written in the academic language of teaching. The author uses many phrases that a majority of teachers should be familiar with such as, metacognition, textbase, modeling, and scaffolding. Since the author does not explain many of these terms in the context of the article, it would appear that the writer assumes that the reader is an educator of some sort and is familiar with the terms she is utilizing.
The writer did a good job in convincing the reader of the benefits of teaching students to paraphrase what they are reading in order to build comprehension. The author used multiple strategies to achieve her goal. Kletzien begins the article with a vignette about a student named Heather. This was an effective strategy to gain the reader’s interest and keep him or her reading. The author also employed case studies of two other students in order to make her point. Collectively, this showed three students with three separate situations learning to paraphrase in different ways, but all for the purpose of improving the students’ comprehension. The author also used results of research based studies in order to further convince the reader of the effectiveness of paraphrasing. The author appears to understand the need to approach the reader from multiple angles and utilizing many different strategies in order to show the effectiveness of paraphrasing.
Overall, the writer succeeded in what she set out to do, which was to convince the reader of the benefits of paraphrasing as a strategy for reading. The only that I can think of that the writer could have done differently would have been to explain some of the academic language she utilized in her article. This would have made the piece more easily understood by parents, beginning teachers, or the public in general and therefore, could have ended up benefitting more readers than the author may have previously intended.
Thursday, June 3, 2010
Blog Assignment 1
My name is Tracy Barron and I am 36 years old, married, with two great kids. My son, Connor, is 9 and my daughter, Allie is 7. I have been with my husband for almost 13 years. I am an Elementary Education major and I graduate in the fall. After graduation, I plan to move wherever I can find a job. As part of my work-study grant, I was the student worker for three semesters at the Jackson County teaching site until its recent closure.
I have always loved to write and, depending on the subject, I think I am pretty good at it. I do best with writings that allow me to use my sense of humor a bit. I have a knack for finding the funny side of a subject. This gets me into trouble at times because sometimes funny is not necessarily appropriate.
This brings me to the question asked in our assignment regarding writing "breaking down" or failing. This happens to me most often when writing e-mails or text messages. Because I have a dry, somewhat odd sense of humor, I tend to employ a lot of sarcasm. This gets me into trouble because tone of voice, while imperative to convey meaning, does not transfer well through the written word.
Over the last two years that I have been at USM, I have written a lot of summaries and reflections. I particularly enjoyed writing the reflections because they allowed me to write about what I know best, my own opinion. It was mentioned in one of the literacy classes that I have taken, that reflections were harder to write than summaries. I do not agree with this. For me, it is always easier to write about my own feelings, opinions, or beliefs regarding a topic than it is to try to figure out someone else’s motivations or intent. I am hoping that this class will help me in that area.
I have always loved to write and, depending on the subject, I think I am pretty good at it. I do best with writings that allow me to use my sense of humor a bit. I have a knack for finding the funny side of a subject. This gets me into trouble at times because sometimes funny is not necessarily appropriate.
This brings me to the question asked in our assignment regarding writing "breaking down" or failing. This happens to me most often when writing e-mails or text messages. Because I have a dry, somewhat odd sense of humor, I tend to employ a lot of sarcasm. This gets me into trouble because tone of voice, while imperative to convey meaning, does not transfer well through the written word.
Over the last two years that I have been at USM, I have written a lot of summaries and reflections. I particularly enjoyed writing the reflections because they allowed me to write about what I know best, my own opinion. It was mentioned in one of the literacy classes that I have taken, that reflections were harder to write than summaries. I do not agree with this. For me, it is always easier to write about my own feelings, opinions, or beliefs regarding a topic than it is to try to figure out someone else’s motivations or intent. I am hoping that this class will help me in that area.
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