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.