Something Fun is a family blog I created with my children as a way for them to share what they learn with others. The concept of this site came at a time when I was focusing a large amount of time on school work and my children were in need of my time. One day my youngest daughter came to me while I was trying to find a topic to create a website on for one of my classes. She was extremely frustrated, looked me straight in the eye and said "MOM, let’s do something fun." To her credit I could have used a break so we did. After I decided that it would be a great way to incorporate spending time with my children while working on my degree. The contents of the site express thoughts and adventures that we have had together. There are also tutorials that we found to help us learn so we shared them so others could learn with us.

 

This artifact supports ISTE Standards 1.c, 2.a, and 4.c for Teachers for several reasons. First, it provided a way for us to reflect on our experiences and use a collaborative tool to share our understanding of the learning experiences we had. We spent quite a bit of time planning and developing the creative aspects of the site as well as what we wanted to use as content. While most of the original content was created to meet specific course requirements we plan to expand and continue adding to the site. Second, this site allowed me to design and adapt our learning experiences to incorporate digital tools and resources as a way to expand our learning experience as well as share what we learned. Finally, through the development of the site I was able to promote and model digital etiquette and responsible social interactions. There are two components which fit this third aspect quite well. The first is we added an Instagram feed. In doing so we discussed the appropriate use of the feed and what we wanted it to represent. The second is a blog post of a fellow blogger which we shared as a guest blog. This allowed me to teach them the appropriate way to seek permission and then share the intellectual property of others.