The purpose of the website is to provide teachers, mostly new teachers, with some background about what formative assessment is and some strategies and tools that they can use in their classrooms. Using some of the feedback I have from this website, I included a space for expert or experienced teachers to include their perspective and experiences with using formative assessment in the classroom. In addition, I tried to embed some tools and videos for experienced teachers from Edutopia. Ultimately, I hope that this website would become not just a space for teachers to seek out information and ideas about formative assessment, but also a space for them to collaborate and share ideas and strategies they use to provide formative assessment in their classes. I have used wikispaces before, so I liked that it is relatively easy to embed images and videos to the site. It doesn't take much practice or learning to figure out how to incorporate these tools into the site. I also like the fact that I can upload files and make them available to teachers as well. However, I think that the primary feature of wikispaces that is so intriguing is the ability for it to be a collaborative space for users to engage in dialogue as well as a space to edit and work on assignments or projects together. I also like the fact that the lead administrator has the capacity to lock pages to users so that they cannot add content or alter content in any way.
Although wikispaces is easy to use and pretty easy to figure out, the one criticism I have with it is its design features. I think I probably need to experiment more with this tool and spend some more time figuring out how to adjust and customize some of the design features, but I think that its design features are somewhat limited. I would like to also see some more flexibility or fluidity when images or videos are embedded onto a page. I feel like when images are embedded or videos are embedded, they look a little clunky or mismatched. I tried to include some photos from the computer, and when I included them, they were very large and needed to be adjusted or scaled down. It took a while to scale them down, and I could only scale them down by using the +/- tool adjuster rather than adjusting the edges or top and bottom. I also felt like the colors and templates were a little limited as well. I wish that there were more options available, or that I knew more about design and how to incorporate new and different designs into wikispaces.
As for any advice for future students, I think that much of the readings lay out some of the most essential points to consider when including technology in the classroom. Be sure to be purposeful in your choice of tools. Make sure that your learning objectives are aligned with whatever tool you are planning to use. In my case, I wanted to incorporate some degree of collaboration or interaction on my website, so I felt that a wiki would be ideal for this. However, there are some other tools that could enhance the nature of collaboration on this site. To me, this idea of being purposeful in one's choice of technology was a recurring theme in the readings. Another important piece of advice I would also recommend reviewing the 21st century skills or the H.E.A.T. article from the LoTi Group or the LoTi Framework. Using this as a resource to help planning will give you a better sense of some of the objectives, activities and tools you can use in the website design. Those would be the two most important pieces of advice I have for someone else taking this class. The other advice I would have is be patient and be open to learning about the use of your tool. Even if you have some familiarity with the tool or website you are planning to use, try to investigate some new features or ways to integrate these tools or websites into your teaching. Explore the features and do something different.
Overall, I enjoyed completing this project. I felt like I was able to try some new features and do somethings for this website I never did before. In any future iterations of this website, I would like to continue to add more details or explore more features of wikispaces to include on the site. I would like to learn how to make the wiki more interactive for users. I would also like to spend some more time figuring out some of the design features of wikispaces, or learning how to customize design with wikispaces.
