Wow, it’s been a while since I used WordPress. More of a Weebly guy. Gotta get used to everything again.
Hello everyone – my name is Nicholas and I am excited for this class. I am not in the ONID program but have had an interest in online instruction for some time now. It is the future, after all. I’m a grad student in the School of Ed and just finished my student teaching last year, and am hoping to finish my Master’s this year.
Because I’m not in ONID, I don’t have a personal portfolio website yet. I’ve been using LiveText only. I’ll get one built and put up this weekend and link it here in a comment.
Got one: here it is.
I did maintain a classroom website last year had some online components to it which worked…sort of well. It had a sort of awkward blog function (private because of FERPA etc.) that students would post assignments on.
I spent a large chunk of my free time as an undergrad, and part of my time last year, developing the framework for an online class revolving around Alaska Native literature, oral traditions, and history. Eventually I hope to send this course out to districts around the state so that they can use it at will. My hopes for this course are to see how I can take what I learn here and push it towards that project.
My twitter and diigo usernames are both “nmarkevans” – my twitter is protected (even though I don’t use it much) but that may change for this course if that turns out to be a problem. Just follow me and I’ll approve it pretty much right away. I protected it this year because students kept sending me messages. I also use Pushbullet if anyone else is into that. I’m also on G+ with my UA username (nmevans).
Looking forward to working with everyone – have a good long weekend!
Hi Nicholas, and welcome!
Glad you made it here. Your Alaska Native Lit course sounds like a great endeavor. Creating an open course in that area would be hugely useful for educators across the state, I would imagine. Glad that you’re bringing this project to the course.
Your course site:
https://www.destroytheteacher.com/classes.html
Is great. Very nice. You’ve created a great resource for your students and their parents. Did parents participate in the blogs?
I look forward to seeing more of your work! Again, welcome to the course.
-Owen
“Did parents participate in the blogs?”
No; unfortunately, Weebly only allows you to have one site-wide password for restricted areas. Plus you can’t have visitors get registered usernames with personal passwords. That made it difficult logistically to involve parents because I didn’t want them to be able to see work from students in other classes (etc.). I’m still looking for ways around that in the future. I’d love something that mixed blog functionality and personal grade/portal functions (Blackboard) with a more secure vBulletin style of forum, but I don’t think that exists. Yet.
Yes. I’d love something like that as well. Blackboard is great for its assessment and organizational functions. I am even OK with the discussion boards in Bb. But the approachability and overall aesthetic is a bit crushing.
WordPress is very nice for a small group, such as ours, but with a lot of students the comments and vBulletin type functions get pretty cumbersome.
I’m completing work on a course in Canvas – I really like it. But it isn’t great on the blog functionality. You can take a look here:
https://canvas.instructure.com/courses/941859
-Owen
Nice work on creating your blog site also!