Find out about what goes on inside your PC

Click on the link and download System Information for Windows to see how efficient your computer runs. You can check any computer that runs on Windows.

My Online Portfolio

I have put together an online portfilio for all my work and projects that I have created for my M. Ed. at Lesley University. This portfolio will be updated regularly and new work from upcoming classes will be added. On the left under the links category you can click on the LESLEY PORTFOLIO link to take a look at it.

Wikiversity is amazing

As I was exploring Technology Integration for my Unit Plan "Berlin 1930s to today" I developed a fascination with Wikibooks and Wikiversity .
So, I decided to do my Presentation on...

WIKIBOOKS and WIKIVERSITY

1) Highlights of interest - what makes this resource interesting?
The Introduction to Wikiboks was very helpful. It explains how one can search the entire site for an interesting Wikibook; browse the subject-oriented bookshelves; look through the list of books; or try the age-themed Wikijunior, Wikistudy, Wikiversity, and Wikiprofessional collections. I found the Guidelines for class projects very helpful in setting up my own concept and in learing about the legal aspects of Wikiversity and Wikibooks. I love the unlimited possibilities to this resource. Over time, my classes can put together a veritable wealth on the history and culture of the German-speaking world.

2) How to purchase or locate: It's available and online

3) Cost: FREE! Ain't it great? : )

4) System requirements: Internet connection and decent size hard drive and RAM

5) Target audience: I think these sites are great for anyone. In my particular case, the audience are high school students in intermediate German classes.

6) Curricular Ideas: The sky is the limit for curricluar ideas. My first unit using Wikiversity is about Berlin from the 1930s to today. As far as other foreign language ideas are concerned, structure, culture, cooking, clothing, student created stories (fiction and non-fiction), projects about famous people or places are great ideas.

Great choice for Videos

A student of mine just introduced me to a great video site that is not yet blocked at schools. Check it out at http://www.veoh.com/. Create a free account and browse away.

Final Project Reflection

After careful consideration of the purpose of this final project, I decided to design a website to complete my school blog. In the past, I have been posting all the links for student assignments on the blog and found the idea of adding the website as resource for my students and source of information as well as point of contact to my students’ parents.

I looked at different free online web design and hosting options like http://www.homestead.com/, http://geocities.yahoo.com, http://pages.google.com, and http://www.weebly.com/ and chose http://www.weebly.com/ to host my website. The site is published at http://fraubell.weebly.com/ . It consists of eight pages including a home page, one each for the three levels I teach this year, one for the parents, one for links and the last one is to publish a portfolio of work I am currently creating in my ECOMP 5106 class. Once that course work is completed, I plan to hide that page from view and will use it as an online archive of my work.

Weebly.com was easy to use and after a few hours I had the “system down”. No knowledge of ht ml codes is required to build and publish a website at weebly.com. The design, settings and layout is created with drag and drop features. There are some limitations to what one can insert on the site, but they are minimal. I enjoyed creating my site and have received approval from the school district to attach it to my blog at my high school.

Overall, I recommend weebly.com as web host. The customer service is very helpful and professional when problems arise. My problems all were related to lack of knowledge and my trying to “wing it”. : ) The only drawback of weebly.com is that occasionally the loading and publishing of pages takes a long time. I have no reference to compare to as I did not try out the other web hosts I considered in the beginning. The extended loading times might just be normal when big or numerous files are being published. I had a lot of fun finding interesting plug-ins and pictures to add to the site. My students will enjoy comparing the German and the English world clocks.

Final Project Proposal: Educational Web Site Design

I have finally come to the conclusion that a web site would be the most useful and meaningful final project for this course. I am designing a site that will be used regularly by my stundents and that will serve as point of contact for my students parents. I will try to get this site linked to my school blog so that my students have all the information they need at their disposal here rather than on my blog. My web site can be found at www.fraubell.weebly.com It is still under construction, but progress is made regularly.

Pretty Flowers, but no PowerPoint : (

Deutschland WebQuests

Don't forget to check out all the WebQuests on My FURL

Observations and a couple of thoughts on Gypsy and Rebecca's Web Site Evaluation

Gypsy and Rebecca chose http://www.brainpop.com/ to evaluate. Gypsy is a science teacher and was partial to evaluate the science part of this site. Schools do have to subscribe to this site to use it. The site links to the national standards for all subjects on the site. We had a lot of fun watching a video about the cloning of "Dolly the Sheep". We learned about DNA and the process of cloning. Dolly had arthritis and died young, poor thing. : (
But the fun continued when we had to take a quiz on "Dolly". We went for "the grade" as a class, because we paid attentions. We scored 10 out of 10! We are amazing!!!!!
It looks like a great site for learning a fun way. Its design is very playful and a great reinforcement of a lesson. Finally, we watched a little cartoon video on the history of the Internet and how it works. Rebecca, a music teacher, found the segment pertaining to music a little "cheesy". Great Job Gypsy and Rebecca!

Web Site Evaluation - Update

I am sticking with www.bbc.co.uk/languages/german as my web site to evaluate, however, my partner will not participate.
I am always looking for a good site to send my students to for vocabulary and pronunciation practice.

ADDITIONAL READINGS: POSTED ON 7-23-07

I read A FUTURE FICTION by David Warlick
Warlick, D. (2004) A Future Fiction. Library Media Connection.
Retrieved May 26, 2005 from http://davidwarlick.com/ff_article/

…and here is what I think about his little story:
I actually was quite amazed at the potential accuracy of the author’s predictions for education in the future. I was glad to see that education was taken to a higher level with the help of technology. Teacher and student tools seem to have developed into close to perfect networks of information distribution and processing resources. As far as the administration of the school is concerned, surveillance seems to have reached perfection.
If such a system were to be put in place, there would be no more “gray zone,” seemingly no more room for mistakes or forgiving thereof as every step a person takes is monitored and recorded. I find the complete lack of privacy a little disconcerting and at the same time comforting, if that makes any sense.
All the glitches seem to have been worked out and technology has become user-friendly and reliable. I would be very excited to be part of such a school in only seven years.

I also read the article THE ABCs OF WEBSITE EVALUATION
Schrock, K. (2002) The ABC’s of Web Site Evaluation: Teaching Media Literacy in the Age of the Internet. Classroom Connect.
Retrieved February 22, 2004 from http://school.discovery.com/schrockguide/pdf/weval_02.pdf

…and here is what I think about this one:
This article is a list of resources to do the best job possible at evaluating a website It is not an actual article. I find it to be very useful and linked it to my blog as resource for my website evaluation assignment. I will also put it as link on my student blog so that they know what I know and what I expect them to do with their assignments . Setting standards and clear guidelines also will prevent problems with plagiarism.

Required Reading 2: The Student WebQuest

I read the article by M. Yoder (1999) The Student WebQuest: A productive and thought-provoking use of the Internet. Learning & Leading with Technology, 26(7), 6-9.52-53. Retrieved January 8, 2004 from http://www.lesley.edu/faculty/myoder/webquest.pdf

...and here is what I think about it:
Considering that our final project is to design and pubish a WebQuest for our students, I thought that this article was very useful. At first I felt a little overwhelmed by the project, but now I am confident due to the step by step instruction and the good advice by Yoder. I liked how the author picked particular WebQuests and illustrated the steps with examples.
I really like the concept of WebQuests and believe that my students are going to like to explore subjects like geography, famous German people and culture using a scavenger hunts on the web. I teach a Germanl 3 / German 5 combo class and see this activity as a life saver for me because I can plan the activities well ahead of time and don't have to worry about how to keep one group busy while teaching the other.

A Fair(y) Use Tale

Required Reading 1: ..about Blogging and RSS

I read: Blogging and RSS — The "What's It?" and "How To" of Powerful New Web Tools for Educators by Will Richardson, Supervisor of Instructional Technology, Hunterdon Central Regional High School
…and here is what I think about Blogging and RSS
About three years ago a friend on the West coast told me to “check out his blog,” and I was clueless as to what he wanted me to do. Today have a four blogs myself and have become a big fan. I think they are very useful tools for communication and collaboration, especially in the classroom. My students know that they can find links to all their assignments and much more very useful “stuff” on my blog. Sometimes, I require them to post comments on readings or answers to questions on the blog.
And then there is RSS. I am a relative newbie, but very excited about it. Being a teacher and therefore always somewhat overloaded during the school year, RSS seems to be a great way to efficiently bundle information that I am interested in. I have already put a link to my bloglines on my new blog.
Claudia

ECOMP 7007 Web Presentation

Julie Nowak and I will be working together on this project. We have choCsen a foreign language learning site published by the BBC. It can be found at http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/german/
Claudia

Good video for teachers

Check out this video on TeacherTube. It is a great tool if you need to convince your school's administration about Student use of blogs.

http://www.teachertube.com/view_video.php?viewkey=be6ec9b852b0a542e2f3

Great source for us visual folks

Here is a link I found out about in my M Ed. class this weekend. It is to an amazing online picture archive. http://www.flickr.com/

This is just the beginning

Hi everyone,
I have put this blog out here so that everyone can see my latest and greatest pictures and thoughts. This picture of the gazeboo was taken on my recent trip to Korea.