For my final project I created a wiki:

aofjobshadows.wikispaces.com

This wiki is to be used by a small learning community, the Academy of Finance, at San Diego High School of Business. This group is made up of about 60 juniors and seniors each year. The Academy students go on two job shadows per year. This wiki will be used throughout this job shadow process. First, students will research what job shadows are available by visiting the wiki. After completing a job shadow, the students will then re-visit the wiki, this time leaving a comment on their experience. Then, in the future job shadows, students wil be able to look at those students’ comments about their experiences as they select which job shadows they would like to attend.

Watch the videos to learn more and visit the wiki:

project-podcast-part-1

project-podcast-part-2

Enjoy!

Evaluation of Job Shadow Site:

How will you know if this site is helping your users reach the objectives you’ve defined for them?

I will need to wait until round two of the job shadows, most likely, to find this out. After the students have attended their first job shadow and commented on it, the students will utilize the site in order to select their second job shadow choices. Once the students return from their second shadow visit and enter in their comments, there will be more of a variety on the wiki for the people the next year to research. I will survey the students after their return from the second job shadow to see how/if the wiki helped them to select their choice and was true to what actually occurred when they visited the site. Again, as the comment section continues to grow with each job shadow, I believe the wiki will grow to have more value. I will continue to survey this twice throughout each school year.

Implementation of Job Shadow Site:

How will you introduce this to the class?

Our first job shadow will be in November. During early October I will introduce the Academy juniors and seniors to the wiki. I will first go through the site with them using an LCD projector. I will go through the home page and then review the different areas of service for them and look at a few of the pages related to one or two areas of service. From there, I will have the students each at their own computer (juniors one day, seniors another) and have them go through the site to review the job shadows available (I will provide them a list of which companies are available and are going to be utilized this time around). After their review, I will have them give me their top four choices.

Once they have returned from the job shadows, I will again bring up the site on an LCD projector and model for them how to fill out a comment for the job shadow they visited. I will go over expectations for them on what types of things I expect them to write about (and not write about).

What do you have to do to get permission from the powers-that-be at your school?

I have an excellent principal who is very technologically savvy, and he is going to be excited for me to be introducing them to this new technology. Therefore, administratively, there will be no permissions needed. Additionally, my classroom houses the computer lab, so I have all of the technology readily available for whenever I choose to use, so I won’t need permission or to sign up for lab use, etc.

Development of Job Shadow Blog:

What tools (or combination of tools) will you use to support the site?

I have decided to go with the wiki over the blog for this site. This will be easier to manage with so many different businesses, and I am going to organize them by area of service.

What customizations will you need to do to your site?

If a new business is utilized for a job shadow, a new page will need to be created and the contact information entered.

Are you happy with how well it turned out?

I think the wiki turned out great, and I am excited to have students use t in the Fall. I am debating whether or not to have students from last year enter in their information, as I am not sure how accurate their descriptions will be 6 months and 12 months later. It is going to be a great tool for them to select which job shadows they would like to attend.

Here is the practice 1-minute podcast. I completed this podcast by using it as a recruiting tool to describe a small learning community to prospective students.

Enjoy!

Informational podcast for the Academy of Finance

After planning the design for my final project on Thursday, I couldn’t help but thinking that a wiki might be better. I think two things were steering me away from doing it as a wiki:

1. I am SO unfamiliar with wikis and afraid I would botch it all up.
2. I have a web site already for the program, so it seems strange to then add a wiki (which seems to me like another form of website, maybe not though, back to my little understanding of wikis) to a web site already in existence.

The more I thought about tit yesterday, I was thinking a wiki would be better. Now, after reading Karl’s comments suggesting the same thing, I look forward to talking to him to go over how exactly a wiki will work for my idea.

Design of Job Shadow Blog:

• What do you want users to be able to do when they visit this site?
  Students should be able to go to the correct business’ blog site after completing a job shadow and enter a description and opinion of their experience.

  When it comes time to decide what type of business a student would like to go to for a job shadow, students should be able to go to each available business’ blog site to research which one they would like to visit, based upon the descriptions and opinions of their fellow students who have already visited the sites.

• Is it a recurring effort, or a one-time project?
  This blog will be recurring and is ongoing; twice a year students complete job shadows, and many of our businesses take students every time. This way students will be able to look at all of the options available and decide what area best interests them.

Analysis of Job Shadow Blog:

• Who are your users?
  Users are 11th and 12th grade students in the the Academy of Finance at San Diego High School of Business. There are approximately 50 – 60 total juniors and seniors in the program each year. These students apply and are accepted to the program, agreeing to focus on more technical classes while taking more rigorous courses in order to earn college credit.
• What do you want them to be able to do as a result of using your web site?
  Upon completing a job shadow experience, students should go to the blog set up for that particular business (linked to the Academy web site) and describe what they did on the job shadow as well as their opinion of the business.
  Each semester students will be able to look at these business’ blogs when deciding which job shadow they would like to experience next.
• What have others done that is similar?
  Currently, I have had students stand up (typically only one, whereas normally 2-4 students go to each business at a time) and describe their experience with the group as a whole.
  This is not the best way, as students are nervous when in front of such a large group, so they may not be giving up the full experience of the day. Additionally, some of the students that went on the job shadow may sit quietly while another student describes their experience at a business and not share their own.
• What performance drivers might prevent them from learning with this tool? (skills/knowledge, motivation, environment, incentive)
  Students may not end up visiting each and every blog in order to find out what each business is all about, rather use that time to surf the net. They may not read more than one entry per business, when people have different tastes and two students could go to the same job shadow at a business and one loved it and one hated it.

I have two ideas for a final project, both involving blogging and are similarly related. First, a little background:

I am in charge of a small learning community (the Academy of Finance) at my school made up of about 60 11th and 12th graders. The entire group of students do different events together throughout the two years in the program. Each student goes on a job shadow to a local business twice a year, and each student is offered the ability to complete an internship after their 11th grade year. Now for my two ideas:

1.  In theory, by the end of their senior year, the students will have completed four job shadows by visiting sites. Many of these job shadows we use over and over each semester. I was thinking of setting up a blog as a space to discuss the job shadows students have been on. I could do this in one of two ways: a)set up a blog for each student where they would write about each of their job shadow experiences, or b)set up a blog for each place of business where job shadows are held, and require the students to enter in a blog entry after visiting one of the sites.
Either way, the information would be linked to the Academy web site so when the time comes for students to select which job shadow they would like to go to, they have a resource to go to and learn about the company, what their fellow classmates actually did on the job shadow and their opinion of the experience.

2.  This idea is similar, though deals with the internship experiences rather than the job shadows. Currently, I meet once a week with the students who are interning (16 this summer) and have them journalize their company’s information, their responsibilities, and weekly experiences throughout the internships. They type up this information and either email this to me or print it out to turn in. At the end of the internship commitment, students compile an essay from these journal entries encapturing their entire experience to share with others and as a portfolio piece for their required senior exhibition presentations. I am thinking that I could have each student start an individual blog where they would record their journal entries throughout the experience and then write their final essay based on the compilation of their blog entries.
Students who will be interning the following year will have access to these blogs via the Academy web site in order to see what internships they want to interview for, based on the experiences written by the previous year(s) intern.

I do realize I need to make this more interactive though, with others providing feedback more regularly. I am thinking the job shadow blog would be good for this, possibly set up by the business, and that way each semester at least 2-4 students are visiting the site and writing about it in the blog. Additionally, I could have an intern write into it at the end of their internship experience if it is a job shadow site as well.

I am a Business Education teacher at the School of Business at San Diego High.  I teach many electives, though during the upcoming school year I will be teaching Introduction to Business (with a Finance emphasis), Accounting, and Computer Applications.   I have been teaching  at this school for the last 4 years, and  prior to teaching I used to be a public accountant for KPMG, LLP.

I am very excited to learn about blogs, wikis, and podcasts, as I am very unfamiliar with all of them.   I have blogged before, though only once when I was introducing students to blogger.com, and then when I set up a new account in blogger for Terri’s EDTEC 572 course as an assignment.  I would love to blog more and involve my students, though I worry about how current and up-to-date I would be.  I have heard the term wiki throughout this EDTEC Master’s program, though I still don’t understand exactly what it is and I have never created one.  I have heard of podcasting and know some of my friends upload them to their ipods, though I have never heard one or created one.

I have two ideas for my final project.  I will either utilize it with either my students I teach, or with my students who are in an Academy of Finance program who I am in charge of and an Advisor to.  Until I learn more about what wikis and podcasts are, I am unsure of what exactly I will use.  So at this point my plan will be to utilize blogging.

If I include my Academy of Finance students, I think I will set up and have them blog comments on the different events (field trips, job shadows, etc.) they take part in.  This will give me feedback on my planning and allow them to reflect upon the events as well.  I would be able to do this with them over the summer as well.

If I utilize this with my students I would have the students set up any/all of the blogs, wikis, and podcast learned through this class in my Computer Applications course.  Otherwise I might have my Accounting class be involved as they are all on computers in a lab everyday.