Journal 4 : Project plan

Site title – Mr. Daly’s Agriculture Class

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   Developer – Stephen F. Daly

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  Rational or focus – The purpose of the website is to inform parents, students, middle school counselors and members of the public to educate the three circle model of an agriculture program as it is structured under the FFA Organization.  Students and parents can also be informed of assignments due in class, ideas for a supervised agriculture experience, as well as FFA events which the school chapter will be taking apart of.

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  Main features outline – The main features include:

· Home Page- A description about myself as well as a brief introduction about an agriculture program.

·Side Navigation Bar which will include links to three pages (classroom, SAE, and FFA)

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  Content 

·                  Classroom-

• Homework
• Resources: for class assignments and class discussions
• Class PowerPoint’s
• SAE
• Description including why it is important
• Ideas
• FFA
• Past events
• Future Events

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  Target audience My target audience for the website is towards the high school  parents and the students of the class.

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 Design considerations. I will make the website simple to navigate while considering the least about of literature on it as possible to portray the information clearly. I will make the literature using words that are at a sixth to seventh grade level.

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  Limiting factors : The limiting factors that I might face will be to make sure the website is able to clearly translate into audio for vision impaired students and parents. Another factor that might be limiting is to ensure that the site is user friendly both on desktops and cell phones.

The Case for Social Media in Schools.

Journal #3: The Case for Social Media in Schools. http://mashable.com/2010/09/29/social-media-in-school/

Technology in schools have been an issue for as long as I remember. I grew up in the days where the internet was begging and starting to grow. In the article, Kessler discusses that technology has always been a problem since day 1. Back then the internet first started, they were afraid of predators and pornography and as the article has stated, a classroom without internet access is a hard idea to grasp. I am a believer in utilizing technology in the classroom including social media. It seems like everybody is on the bandwagon to block it but it is not something we can guarantee it wont be a distraction. We, as the educational society must embrace it because it is not going away and teachers are using social media to remind students of classroom assignments or as mentioned in the article, to not be late for those students who are constantly late. The second part of the article made the point that when kids are engaged, they learn better. This is a no brainier in my opinion. So what are kids engaged to? The answer is social media and their cell phones. they are passionate about their facebooks and keeping up with any news by liking their favorite gossip magazine on the social media platform. It is up to us to break the mold of textbooks and lecture and to incorporate, and utilize these social media outlets and see them as tools and not weapons of education.

What are some ways that a school can use the social media as a tool?
A: a school has set up reminders for students who constantly run late to remind them.

Why is utilizing blogs or educational social media sites good for students interest?
A: Through the use of blogs, students are able to not only to express themselves but also gain valuable feedback from fellow students. Traditional methods include a comment or two from the teacher.

RSS Stream

The past week, looking at my RSS stream, I have learned quite a few things. First off, my RSS stream consists of agriculture education items, Angels baseball, Disney, and science items. Through the I F***ink love science rss feed, he interviews people on what GMO's are and showcases people who do not adequately know but they do not or prefer not to eat GMO food. Also through the same website, some scientists are concerned through the growing number of antibiotics given to livestock and those manure produced by those animals which are used as fertilizer for plants. The concern is that of the resistance of the bacteria.

Affinity group

As a future agriculture educator in high schools, I have chose to follow the National Association of Agriculture Educators online community at http://communities.naae.org/welcome . What I hope to learn from this community is problems that teachers in this field faces and information I will be able to use at my school.

Journal 2

Chapter 4-5 Summary

Journal #1: Learning Web Design; 4th edition

Summary: In previous chapters, Robbins helps the reader understand the whole concept of web designer and breaks down the world wide web and a web page. Chapter three starts to help the reader start to build a webpage with various exercises and short readings. Robbins shares the rules of naming extensions which include; using proper suffixes for your files, never use character spaces within file names, avoid special characters, file names may be case sensitive, keep the file names short, and having self-imposed conventions. Other than text, the reader also learns the structure is needed. Robbins instructs tags are needed to create the structure within the webpages. The web page is broke down into the head and the body. the head is the mandatory tile element and the body contains what is wanted to be shown on the web page. Through the chapter, a step by step website is made with the necessary steps and knowledge for success. In chapter  5, lists are introduced by Robbins. There are three lists available to use in an html file. The lists are ordered lists, ordered lists, and descriptive lists. An example of each is given to help visualize the difference. robbins introduces what is known as strong and important. It is important to have these not only for the visual readers but also the auditory readers who have screen readers, strong words will be stressed with a different tone of voice. towards the end of the chapter, tables help with character references as they pertain to the  webpage. 

Chapter 1-3 Summary

Jounal #1: Learning Web Design; 4th edition

Summary: Robbins in this book starts the text off much like an introductory course to not only web design but the world wide web and the common language that associates with it. In the first chapter, Robbins helps the reader to understand the how a web page is made starting with the idea of that it can be thought of like a cake. First a website starts the HTML(Hypertext markup language) or the base of a cake. The HTML tells how the webpage is structured. The CSS (Cascading style sheets) is the second layer of the webpage cake and the CSS tells the webpage how it should look. Lastly is the Javascript which tells that webpage how it should act. In the second chapter, Robbins helps us to understand that the world wide web and the internet are not the same thing. In fact,  web refers to the one way which information can be shared over the internet using hyperlinks or HTML. The internet is the network of computers. The information is stored on what are known as Servers which individual computers with their personal internet protocol address  (IP address) gets served the information from those servers. Robbins helps the user to understand an URL by dissecting the web address into the different parts and explains that the http is implied and does not need to be considered as input for the web address. In the third chapter, Robbins helps the reader to understand some bigger concepts that need to be known for web design which includes the idea that the web devices do not just include desktops and laptops but rather they include, with the introduction access to the web via mobile phones.  With the knowledge of that, the developer must acknowledge  that how the site looks on a laptop will not necessarily look the same on a mobile device.

Q1: What is the idea of responsive web design and why should a site utilize this strategy?

A1: Responsive web design is considered a strategy to aid in the performance and look for a web site. Through responsive web design, custom layouts are produced for devices based on the browser window. This is done by having the HTML go to the correct style sheet depending if the viewer is looking through a cell phone or a desktop. This can be especially helpful when navigating  through a site on a cell phone and the menu as larger selection for tapping.

Q2: What is the idea of One Web for All and why is it important?

A2: The idea of One Web for All takes into consideration the realization that the web is not only accessed by people with no impairments but by all. People who access the web may have a visual impairment, auditory impairment, cognitive impairment, or mobility impairment. It is needed for a web designer to make their web pages accessible by different devices that provide aid and follow government accessibility requirements.  

About Yours Truely

                 (cue James Bond music) The name is Daly, Stephen Daly. I have an Irish background so I am in love with potatoes, corned beef, whiskey, and a nice glass of Guinness. I also am a HUGE fan of Conan O'Brian so here is a clip of him when he went to the Guiness factory. Click here for an Irish overload I was born in Anaheim, Ca raised in north county San Diego until i went to Cal Poly which started my nomad-like movements which started in Garden Grove then to Pomona to Chino and now Phelan. My plan is to work my butt off and be able to move back to Oceanside within a month and a half.I started my education at Reynolds Elementary in Oceanside, followed by the moving up in the world to Martin Luther King Middle School also in Oceanside. Before eight grade started, I moved to Vista where my father and step-mother still live to this day and i attended Lincoln Middle School. For high school, I attended Vista High School where I got Involved in FFA and agriculture (huge turning point in my life). After graduating i went to a two-year called Mira Costa Community College in Oceanside for 5 1/2 years. I got an acceptance letter from Cal Poly Pomona where i eventually graduated with Agricultural Science degree an d now i am working on my teaching credential and Ag specialist and a masters in Agricultural Sciences.

              As far as computers go, I too, just as discussed in class are part of the i want to know the information right away bandwagon. I understand that students are on electronic devices just as much as they are on their feet. I like to think I am semi-fluent in computer talk and geeky stuff but there is so much to continuously learn each and every day. I have and Android phone that I use not for games but for applications like waze or Google Maps. 

            I am not in the Masters of Educational Multimedia but rather the program I am in allows for the flexibility of choosing masters classes to fit our area of interest. I would love to learn how to use some collaborative websites and programs to incorporate into a high school classroom of my own to grasp students interest and creativity.