What, when, where and how are you doing m-learning now? I use my mobile device, in particular my iPhone, mostly for web browsing, social networking, emailing, and posting and modifying WordPress posts. Three Math classes I’m currently teaching have a class blog. Whenever there are things I need to modify, I use the WorPress app […]
Continue reading [DAY 1] What, When, Where and How…? Posted in: Week 11: Mobiles Take a moment to write your final post about which PBA future emerging market tool (product or service) you have used and which one you would like to see more of. As some of the coursemates have mentioned in their posts, I would also like to see more of blogging. Blogging is the area that […]
Continue reading Final Post: Blogging and Cloud Computing are Ways to Go Posted in: Week 10: Product-Based Assessments
Hello Deb,
I agree that next steps could be developing rubrics and assessment for PBA assessment tools. Creating a Web 2.0 tool that offers examples. That would be an interesting business opportunity….
Verena:)
Deb & Ver
Very interesting take on the issue. The rubric would certainly add some form of standard even the aim is not to standardized these assessment. The aim is to keep them as informal and authentic as possible.
Everton
Hi Deb,
I also agree that blogging should be used more frequently in classrooms for students to use. I think it’s a wonderful way for student’s to be creative and express their thoughts and learned knowledge.
Jenaca
Do you think that the iPad lacks ‘information production’ – the word processing capability that we are used to on PCs? Before discussing whether the iPad lacks ‘information production’ or not, we need to consider the differences in the use of the iPad and the netbooks/laptops/PCs. Although I spend a lot of time with my […]
Continue reading Discussion #3: Understanding the Difference Posted in: Week 09: iPad Apps
Hi Deb,
Good points. Functionality and purpose do indeed distinguish the ipad from the pc and the information production capabilities. I do agree that the ideal would be to somehow fuse PC and ipad capabilities. However, as you pointed out, the different technologies serve different purposes and like you, I and many others I know, look to technologies during the day to support responding to, editing and viewing of information rather than actual production, which we do at sit down times. However, I wouldn’t mind doing some content creation as well as the demands for time increase. I also believe that creation/production apps are the way to go.
Kerry-Ann
Thank you, Kerry-Ann.
You are absolutely right that “creation/production apps are the way to go”.
Hi Deb – The fact that we are considering buying some kind of keyboard support for the IPad for my daughter…proves your point. all users need to be able to have ease of use in creation and production. Excellent points. It’s true, I too use my Dell LapTop and my IPad for “different” things. There is room for growth!
Verena:)
Thank you, Verena.
Hi Deb,
I absolutely like the comparisons of the PC/laptops/notebooks and IPads. I think the list of differences you mentioned were factual and gave readers a platform to make a valid choice of the electronic device they should purchase. In regard to word processing software for IPad, there are some Apps available which allow you to perform tasks similar to MS. You could visit this site http://www.iPadWordProcessor.com, it currently hosts a resource center for Apple’s iWork Pages, Office² HD, Quick Officeand iA Writer. These software are useful word processors for Ipads.
Conroy
Conroy,
Thank you for the website address. I’ve never used any of the Apple products other than my iPhone, so that’s always been one of my concerns for purchasing an iPad. I use MS Office a lot (for my teaching practices as well as for my assignments), but it has occurred to me that Apple doesn’t provide such a good program that’s compatible to MS. I was looking for apps for the iPad that you mentioned (e.g. iWork Pages, Office² HD, and Quick Officeand iA Writer) because I’m planning to purchase an iPad in the near future.
Thank you for the tips.
Deb
I enjoyed reading your post as I posted a discussion around the same answer. You also pointed out that PCs and iPads are different devices with different intentions behind their designs. I mentioned at the end of my post that PCs are going to become the workhorses of digital content whereas mobile devices will be used day-to-day. True, you can take notes on your laptop with MS-Word, but you will never us 98% of it’s capabilities in doing so.
You also talk a little bit about some of the difference between PCs and iPads, such as the portability. One could argue back, what about Netbooks? Just as portable and they can run MS-Word. But why haven’t Netbooks caught on with the vigor that iPads have? The answer is, I think, because the iPad was designed specifically as a easy to use, fun, mobile device from the start. The Netbook is just a continuation of the miniaturization of the desktop PC. The iPad breaks free of that desktop paradigm like no other device, I think.
Jim,
I agree with you that the iPad is easier and more fun to use than the netbook as the netbook is “a continuation of the miniaturization of the desktop PC”. I mentioned “portability” because the iPad is lighter in its weight than the netbook. Also, it doesn’t take as much time to turn on as the netbook. You press the button and it turns on right away.
Deb
This summer, during my sixth MET course (ETEC 510), I had a month-long contract with the Vancouver School Board to teach an elementary-level computing course, which I named the Web Wandering Workshop. It was a great opportunity to take some of the ideas I was learning on-line, and practice them in the classroom. Due to […]
Continue reading Web Wandering Posted in: Week 08: Files in the Cloud
Hi, Kyle.
Interesting summer workshop – did you have any daily stragglers, or were all students interested and quick to finish? When I have my kids in the computer lab, I always have a healthy mix of steady workers, easily-self-or-externally-distracted students, lazy students, and totally disinterested / off-track students. One of my curses is also the forgotten password of programs I have them try out.
I like programs like Glogster which allow me (with the paid version, anyway) to manage all student accounts / names, etc. It can take a little while, but I like creating accounts with the same names and passwords that students use to get on to our network.
I first started blogging in 2006. In some ways it was an educational experience, where I was blogging about my trials and tribulations on building a sea kayak. From this, I turned my blog into a general purpose weblog, which is a bit of a no-no. However, I use my blog to communicate with friends […]
Continue reading Day 1 on Day 3: My blog experience Posted in: Week 07: Blogs
wow..you definitely have a lot of experience with blogging and the various products available to do that with! I like the idea of linking the blog (and some link a wiki) to the class website – adds another dimension to the site. I have not explored Drupal or Joomla yet , but from some of the blogs I researched, they are popular for content management. I too am a Twitter-for-professional learning fan – I have found more interesting blogs and articles from my network – maybe I should call Twitter my door to the world of my interests based on who I follow. Thanks for your post!
Doug,
Very informative. I need to check out a few of of those sites you mentioned. I also use my wordpress site as a CMS too. Using it for this purpose have given me more leverage to transform my space into more classroom-like setting. As a result, I am able to do more with my courses and even add things that are not a part of the courses.
Everton
Your considerable exposure to a wide variety of blog platforms gives you a valuable perspective, Doug. It reinforced my initial impressions of several plateforms, and will definitely influence my future blog forays. What is “microblogging” – the equivalent of a blog “tweet”?
Thanks,
KJ
Doug, thanks for your informative post! It definitely sounds like you have a lot of blogging experience, something I can learn from! Blogging is very new to me, so I will definitely be checking out your blogging sites, and hope to gain more experience on blogging!
Jenaca
Hi Doug,
Thank you for sharing your experience in using blogs. Joomla and Drupal are new to me and I intend to research on them. Your post has given me some useful ways of using blogs in my classroom
I’ve discovered blogs are pretty cool in the classroom. I’ve used them in a few different ways but I have yet to use a blog in a way that I actually want to – as portfolios for students, but I digress. I’ve used blogs as places to store my own course material. I did not […]
Continue reading Day 1 and Day 2 blogging Posted in: Week 07: Blogs
I have used Weebly too – but felt that it was just a web page builder and didn’t feel like a blog – that is where some of the ventures blend into each other – like Facebook and blogging – an interesting merger!
I too tried out weebly but wasn’t interested as it was more like a shell and never offered what I wanted. A blog should be simple and cater to the user. Technicalities breed confusion and that should not be a part of the modern classroom.
Everton
Hi Tamara,
Interesting how you used a blog for a webquest. How did that work in your classroom? Was it a successful endeavour?
Juliana.
I think Weebly is not a good blogger. Indeed, WordPress is more comprehensive as a blogger and a site to post content.
Once I returned from Japan, where my wife and another friend started blogging and showing me the ropes, I began my Bachelor of Education at UBC. Not only did each teacher candidate have to figure out WordPress for our e-portfolio by the end of the program, but I was hired by the Teacher Education Office as […]
Continue reading e-Coaching and The Pedagog Blog Posted in: Week 07: Blogs
Thanks for your insights! Sending out the invitations individually? Wow! That must have taken a while. You probably would have lots to say on this, but is there anything that the blogging platforms could have done to improve their usability? Also, do you think that the blogging endeavour was successful? Did many people start intereacting on the blogs?
Juliana.
Hi Juliana,
When I think about the repetitive task of inviting classmates to blog, I think of the stories about a young Bill Gates at Harvard with all those IBM punchcards – the longer you perform any task (10000 hours seems to be the magical number) the closer you become to being an expert at it. Similar to the design wiki for ETEC 510, the more practice you get typing out HTM instead of using copy & paste, the easier web design becomes.
For the Pedagog Blog, still in use for the most recent EDUC 420, I’m sure cloud computing will make a difference. It would have been one way to improve upon weekly posts and discussion threads if it were easier to respond on any device. I am quite pleased that our ETEC 522 blog shows up nicely on my iPhone, even uses the red-circled numbers to let me know how many new responses a post received. As much as I miss being in a lecture hall hearing classmates discuss a topic, I noticed with the Pedagog Blog there were more students willing to contradict others (politely) on-line, which makes for a far more lively discussion.
I look forward to reading more of your team’s ideas on blogging – are we supposed to go through AdVentures in Blogging day by day, meaning that Tuesday will be the only time to discuss Use of Blogs?
Kyle
Hi Kyle,
You can participate in one discussion topic + the “blog market” topic. We decided to give everyone a choice of the discussion topic (ie. day 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5) that they wanted to participate in, but we did want everyone to participate in the “Blog Market” discussion topic, which talks about what needs to be done to move blogs from good to great.
We decided to split the topics up by days, but you do not need to be restricted by the schedule. If you would like to move on ahead, please feel free.
Juliana.
So do you prefer wikis to blogs? I hear mixed opinions on this!
Wikis to blogs… I’d like to hear your opinion as well, Kyle. 🙂
Deb
Hi Brenda and Deb,
If the whole class is on-board and willing to mix things up with the way they learn, wikis can be fun, but can also be like getting blood from a stone if the class isn’t into them. I prefer blogs for their personal, presentational aspect; ideal for student-centered projects.
How ’bout youse?
Kyle
I can definately relate to the blood from a stone comment on the wikis!
I agree with you that blogs are ideal for student-centered projects, but it’s also ideal for class discussions just like Wiki.
I wonder if Wiki can be ideal for both student-centered projects and class discussions.
Deb
I have to confess to being a closet blogger. That is, I personally have used blogs to organize and collect things I’ve done and learned online, but I admit to not using them that often in my classes. My first blog was created using Blogger in 2009, but its lack of ability to make pages […]
Continue reading Creepy blogger! Posted in: Week 07: Blogs
Karen,
Nice work! I also like blogs that allow me to be in control. As a result, students think about what they plan to post as it will be deleted or not published if guidelines are not followed. I have also noticed that if the blog is not frequently updated and social media features integrated, students will show little or no interest in it.
Everton
Karen and Everton,
I agree with you that I also like blogs that I can control.
I agree with you Karen that Blogger Dashboard was much harder to use compared to WordPress. I’ve been using WP for my classes since 2 years ago and students like how I’ve set up the blog.
Everton, you are right that students would not be interested if a blog is not updated frequently.
Deb
Hi Karen,
Thanks for the compliment! And I agree that sometimes blogs can look a little overwhelming. When there are long pages of text it can definitely get overwhelming and sometimes the page options of WordPress can decrease the overwhelming feeling.
I agree with you about Drupal and necessity of downloading everything to your computer. In a school system where you have to meet with IT requirements, a system like Drupal can be very cumbersome. I get the feeling that if you were looking at blogs like a venture that was targetted for the K-12 environment, you would prefer to see a cloud-based system. Is there anything else that you would like to see in blogging platforms to make them even better for your applications?
Juliana.
Hi Juliana,
I am glad for this opportunity to investigate different blogging platforms, and find myself preferring the ones that start to look more like multimedia webpages, i.e. Edublog and Posterous. I think the ability to impose privacy limits for class- or educational-only access is important in all web applications that are used for teaching, although that could be seen to impede a real community of learning, I guess. There is a definite approach to encouraging student participation in blogs, as Everton points out above, and I think it’s a case of me needing to play around a bit more in order to tailor the medium to my students’ learning styles and preferences.
Thanks!
KJ
Hi Karen,
Thank you for your post. I think in this day and age, it will be very important to have some sort of security features on blogs. I think that is a definite drawback for some of the free ones out there.
You also spoke of encouraging participation in blogs. What challenges have you seen with respect to participation?
Juliana.
I agree with you that in the MET program we can be overwhelmed with the multitude of requests to create a blog for our eportfolio, but do you see the benefit for students to do the same thing? and would they too be overwhelmed if various teachers requested the same assignment? I am glad you are exploring the various platforms that are available for blogging – our question will be, is there a tool that would do an even better job?
Hi Karen,
It sounds like your class is the digital village for the digital natives of today. Good job! I enjoyed reading your post! particularly because I found a lot of things there that I could relate to myself, e.g. reading other peoples blog and not making mine public. I find that the way you use blogs in your classroom resonates with my ideas about using blogs in the classroom. I am not a teacher but I completely agree with having Moderator rights to review posts before they are published. I like that feature because I think it will make life easier for both teacher and students in preventing inappropriate comments.
Ifeoma
Before you publish your posting, please make sure that you select a category (eg. Introductions) as well as assign some meaningful tags (keywords).
David William Price 11:43 am on November 18, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Wow, it seems you’re quite mobile. You say “I spend most of my day outside”…. that’s quite different from a majority of our posters who spend most of their time at a desk with a computer.
It sounds like the convenience of your mobile lets you keep up with work through the student blogs. How many of them use mobiles to post questions or do other learning activities?
Sounds like the Bible app serves as a performance support… and you can “share” your mobile in your meetings by having it guide discussions. Very cool!
How might you integrate a more mobile-supported learning model (being out of the classroom and roaming) with your students? Math is everywhere… how might it be made an authentic experience?
Deb Kim 3:02 pm on November 18, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Hi David,
I also spend half of my day at a desk with a computer as I’m a teacher. But considering that it’s usually 9 or 10pm when I arrive home due to other work and activities I do, my iPhone is always in my hand.
I don’t know if my students use mobiles to post questions/comments, but emails I receive from them are sent from their mobiles quite many times.
You raised a great question at the end, but I haven’t come up with good ways/methods to integrate a more mobile-supported learning model, especially for math. I personally think that Math is one of the most difficult subjects to teach when it comes around technology. Most of the apps that I see target young children so you can only acquire basic math skills. I think more apps targeting high school students should be developed in order to help students maintain their attention span.
Deb
David William Price 9:03 pm on November 18, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply
I remember what exciting me most about calculus was the real-world applications for it… I could calculate the terminal velocity of a penny dropped off the CN Tower. ok, that does sound a bit weird and that doesn’t excite me 20 years later, but math problems are always about real world issues… and I think mobiles are a potential way of scaffolding people through recognizing, confronting, re-enacting, and experiencing those problems and their implications.