Jun
30
2009
Having access to this toolkit has been particularly helpful for me. Since I teach in a F2F environment I don’t have alot of call to utilize online communication tools. The ability to try out a few of these tools has shown me that there are a few applications in my classroom where they could be utilized.
Inspired by this toolkit I spent a couple of lab periods at the end of the year using iChat at school. We are a Mac district so this is readily available to me. What I found useful was the ability to utilize this tool in the lab so that students could collaborate without physically sitting next to each other. This not only made for an engaging experience for my students but also worked as a management tool to help keep the noise level down in the lab. This served two functions. First, it allowed the kids to focus on their work without distraction. Second, and best of all, the absence of noise for a short period of time for their beleaguered teacher! : )
The downside of this experience was also a management one however! Thank goodness for Remote Desktop software!!
Jun
30
2009
Thanks to the MET program I have a fair bit of experience with working with a number of wiki platforms. Here are a few that I have created individually or as part of group …
For ETEC 510 I authored this page on Information Literacy as part of a collaboratively created design wiki. As I am concurrently working on achieving a specialization in Teacher-Librarianship the issue of new literacies is one that I am very interested in.
Information Literacy wiki
Here is one for ETEC 511 on the Economics of Educational Technology…
Here is a wiki that I worked on for ETEC 512 on Cognitive Learning theory….
http://etec512cognitivelearning.pbworks.com/
Reflection…This work in the world of wikis has inspired alot of enthusiasm for the use of wikis in my future classrooms. The ability to work collaboratively while creating a polished and attractive finished project is one that has a huge number of benefits for students and teachers. Not insignificant in this lesson is the opportunity to demonstrate for students how easy it is for anyone to publish information on the web and the subsequent need for critical analysis of the source of all information that they encounter.
In my own work with these wiki platforms I found them to be unanimously user-friendly and intuitive. The use of a WYSISYG environment makes them usable for students even at the mid-primary level. The most surprising aspect of wiki creation was the number of freely available sites to use. With decreasing budgets the school districts are unlikely to spend any money they don’t deem “necessary” and the availability of open-source products makes the pitch to use them that much easier for tech-focused classroom teachers.
Jun
01
2009
I never really thought I would “get” the whole blogging thing but it turns out I am really enjoying it. I don’t like the fact that I have 4 going right now for different courses and I wish I could keep one that would be easier to keep track of but when I get past the MET requirements I should be able to achieve this.
Going through the blog toolkit led me to some really great blog links. I was so impressed by Edublogger that I have added an RSS feed to my blog (one of them anyway!) so I can keep up with it. I had no idea what an RSS feed was a couple of weeks ago never mind how to add one to my blog so I am really feeling quite proud about this. I can’t wait to get my own class (hopefully in the fall!!) so that I can try blogging and a host of other applications with some real kids.
May
23
2009
It used to be on flights that you got a bag of honey-roasted peanuts but the poor peanut has gone the way of the Dodo these days. So too, do technologies and applications come and go. This week we have to decide between Moodle and WebCT/Vista. An interesting set of choices when you don’t really know anything about managing either of them.
I had a discussion with a team member who said that he didn’t want to focus on the cost aspect of LMSs as they tended to cloud the other issues. My concern though is that we, as educators, must be grounded in reality. Unfortunately, in days of dwindling budgets cost may just be the biggest deciding factor for many decisions…including the choice of a learning management system for a school.
My decision to choose Moodle for my LMS was simple. It was free. My school district is out of cash and the reality is that if Iwent to them and said that I wanted to spend money on another platform the answer would not be positive. I have used Moodle before as a student and am somewhat comfortable with how it functions.
Setting up my own Moodle course has been interesting. I have found the toolkit instructions to be very user-friendly and Moodle itself to be fairly intuitive. I have had some trouble getting the discussion to show up as “graded” but will hopefully sort this out.
At this point I am not sure what I am going to design this course for because I am an elementary teacher without my classroom so don’t really have a target to shoot for. This still needs to be worked out.