I've been spending a lot of time today creating my WebQuest. I found this article, which I thought was very helpful. http://www.educationworld.com/a_tech/tech/tech011.shtml This biggest problem I was having with my WebQuest was trying to figure out how to start it. There is so much I want to include, so it seemed overwhelming. I also needed to make sure I was addressing the goal for the Webquest and that me students would reach my goals. The education world article helped me figure out how to approach the whole process. In the article, there is a link to a WebQuest pre-writing page. I was able to answer some important questions about my WebQuest before I started to evaluate the projects effectiveness. One example of the questions I answers is, "Is this quest worth your effort and the students time?" That's a great question to think about before actually making the project. Is it worth it? Are the students actually going to learn from this? Which, after all, is the ultimate goal. After looking through this page, I think my WebQuest is going to be a great tool for my students next year. I'll post the link to it once its finished! 

I was just reading the discussion board on the wiki topic and it got me very excited about the idea working with google apps. In February this year, I did a lot of research on google apps in the classroom. There are so many different applications and it seems like the students really gain a lot from using it. Unfortunately, the technology department wasn't excited about the idea of switching in the middle of the year from Microsoft 365. After talking to a group of teachers, I realized very few people at our school are actually using Microsoft 365, and the ones that are are the English teachers for writing papers. Teaching math, I can see so many uses for google apps in my class that I wouldn't be able to do now. I plan on trying to pitch the idea of being a google school again at some point this summer, so if the wiki for this course is on google apps, it will give me something I can present to them to help show all the possible uses and benefits for our students education. 

I've never really blogged before, so I'm excited about trying it for the Instructional Applications of the Internet course. I been in the process of working on my Webquest proposal. I wanted to make sure whatever I created would be something I would want to use next school year. I needed something to tie into the topics I teach but more of the applications of Algebra 1 rather than straight forward problems. The question you always get as a High School Math teacher is "when am I ever going to use this?" and I know it is very hard for some students to see that they are using the process of algebra in many daily events without the formality of setting up an equation. I hope my webquest can help students make this realization.