South Carolina and WebQuest

I currently find myself blogging from sunny South Carolina! I have been staying with a friend down here for the past 6 days and it has been fabulous! To be completely truthful, I kinda don't want to come back... :-X Seriously as a single 20-something searching for a house in northern New Jersey I find myself extremely frustrated seeing that I could buy a 4 bedroom house down here for the price of a one bedroom condo up there! If only I could somehow magically relocate my job, friends, and family to Blythewood, SC I'd be set! ;-)

In other, more NJCU related news, I have recently posted my opinion about using Wikis in education (I am an advocate btw) AND my group and I have been diligently working on our WebQuest. Though we thought it would be difficult to incorporate 3 different subject areas into one assignment, it has proved to be a successful endeavor thus far! We settled on the topic of "the cell." The history behind its discovery, the science behind its parts and purpose, and the art of creating a model. I'm very pleased with everyone's cooperation so far, and am finding it easier than I thought to complete a group project without ever meeting with them in person... I guess we should chalk another one up for technology and education!

Alright...off to lay by the pool for a bit more before the sun sets!

Finished the Website

Well, the external link to my blog is obviously working! YAY! Good job, me! AND, I have completed the set up for my website. I believe it meets all the criteria and I have made the changes my suggested on the class discussion board. The first was to provide navigation links on all pages. So, you will notice when you visit my site that you can now access all links at the bottom of the current page! The second suggestion was to increase the visibility of my email link. Unfortunately, FirstClass would not allow me to change the color of the link, BUT I did make it larger so hopefully it stands out a bit more than it did before!

On a more personal note, I am off to visit a friend in South Carolina for a week of relaxation! I'm very excited to be making the 12 hour car trip with my puppy Dexter. This will be his first road trip and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it goes smoothly! I will be taking my laptop with me of course, so that I can stay up to date with my classwork and so that I can let you all know how Dexter handled the ride (because I'm sure you guys will be dying to know ;-).

Till next time... :-)

Creating the Website

Tonight is night 3 of trying to create my website for our Using Internet in Education class. Until it came time to post my blog, the path of creation ran relatively smooth. Then I realized that the web publishing feature offered by FirstClass (the program my school uses to host our sites) can only house one "Home Page" to which everything links...even the blogs. This wouldn't be a problem if the only site I created using the program was the one for NJCU. BUT, that is not the case! I have also created a site for my students to use throughout the course of the school year. So when I tried to add a blog, it automatically linked it to my school home page instead of the one I created for NJCU.
I contemplated using one of the free web hosting sites, and even signed up for a page through one of the sites Dr. Z suggested. I didn't like it. It didn't allow me the flexibility of laying things out exactly the way I wanted them AND I did not like the random advertisements that took up the majority of my screen space!
So what did I do?! I created a free blog through blogger.com and simply made it an external link from the page I created on FirstClass! Fingers crossed it works!