Mapping Information Activity

The searching I conducted before the mapping activity is something I would consider to be average. I believe that I knew enough information about searching to find some of the items that might be needed.  Before completing the activity I would have never took time to notice the makeup of URLS. I had no idea that they are made of up based on domain name and extension. The extensions also are compatible to the business in which you are researching. Examples include extensions as such as, “edu”, which means educational organization, “com” which means company, and “org” which means any organization. This information is very important and will also help me to explain to my students that this information can help when searching for various webs sites. I also did not know that there is a website that gives you certain credibility’s as such as the authors of websites. When conducting the siteing of sources it can be very difficult to find all the information needed to complete it.

The searching that I will conduct now after the mapping activity would include being more knowledgeable about the different search engines. Before I would just use google because that was the only one I was knowledgeable about. Now that I know we have more than one way to search, I can now use “Yahoo” which is the web's oldest directory, “Ask Jeeves” which gained fame for using "natural language" search engine that let you search by asking questions and responded with what seemed to be the right answer to everything and, “HotBot” which provides easy access to the web's three major crawler-based search engines: Yahoo, Google and Teoma. With new knowledge of the different web search engines, I now have more resources for finding information that I may need in case one may not offer may exact search. I also learned that the websites history can provide you with great information that can help with your research. Usually when I look try a website, I go by what’s given on the page of where my information is located, but I also noticed that many of those pages don’t give me all the information I need. From now on when looking for certain information, the history of the web page will also be an option to help in my findings.

After learning all this new information about searching I know I will most definitely be making changes on how I search in the future. The information given gave me more options and knowledge on searching for information needed. I learned that the web has lots of meanings and reason for its being. I hope that with the new information I will be able to teach my students new tricks in searching for information. I also plan on always giving a full lesson on searching before have my students to go and research information. My students will not only have the opportunity to learn how to research information for school but also to help them in the future with the endeavors of searching for anything they may want or need for their own personal reasons. I value the opportunity to learn new ways to not only better my future students but also myself. I want to be very literate in technology so I can use all my resources create the best activities for proper learning. I am too excited a being a future teacher and also providing all this new information learned in order to help them.

Citations

Incisive Interactive Marketing LLC.( 2011). Major Search Engines Directories. Retrieved from http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2048976/Major-Search-Engines-and-Directories.

November Learning. (2011). How to Read a Web Address. Retrieved from http://novemberlearning.com/resources/information-literacy-resources/iv-how-to-read-a-web-address/

Me and ETEC!

My name is Terra Brown and I am future middle school math teacher. I am a hardworking, dedicated, individual who spends time reading, studying, working as an event specialist, and also helping young children around my neighborhood.  Currently I am a senior at Texas A&M Commerce and will be entering internship next semester. I will be graduating in fall 2012 and I am more than ecstatic. Right now I am currently pregnant and will be expecting a beautiful baby girl on October 29! She will be name after by my biggest motivator, my grandmother, who keeps me pushing and exceeding all my goals! I am too excited about becoming a mother and has over bought items for her based on my addiction to shopping. I’m afraid when I have my baby shower very soon that most of the items I have will be doubled!

My version of technology in classroom would consist of all the new items invented that can help with enhancing education. As you know, most of today’s world is made up of technology and must of the things that we must use, desire knowledge of them in order to secede in everyday living. It is important that teachers of today are technology inclined so our students won’t fall behind in today society. It is important that we implement technology in some of the lesson that we give. Have your students to go home and think about all the activities we participate in everyday that would not be useable for people who are not inclined in technology. My students would also be able to let me know what different types of technologies that might want to use while learning. These are things such as blogging, videos, music and much more. This makes class and learning fun for your students and also gives the students a chance to continue to like school and the subjects that they are learning.

My goals in this class are to become more knowledge able about technology. I also want to get new ideas that I might be able to add in my classroom. Before this class I never have really create a blog. Overall I Think it is really cool and can have my students to create one and go home or in class, discuss some of the things they have learned, how they can use it, and what they like or dislike about it. This will give them a chance to use the computer and also blog which is something that a lot of them do on their computers. This will give them a chance to get away from the usually pin and paper and also gave them ideas on creative things they may want to do with blogging in the future. I would also like to learn some easier ways of creating a web page that my students can go on and get assignment that we did a class or for parents to get a look at what we are working in the classroom. I created web pages in the past but they are very tedious and require too many steps. Hopefully I can learn a different way of creating one and hopefully my students and parents will appreciate it.