Module 10

Learning Communities, Constructing Knowledge Together in Wikis

Email is not good at coordinating information amongst a group. A Wiki is a website that makes it easy for everyone to change what is on a page. Wikis are great for collaboration. A class wiki could be used for joint construction of a text. This could be used across the KLA’s, for example: novel studies where children build up a character profile or in science where children work together in a group to present research.

One of the wikis I visited was 50+ Web2.0 Ways to Tell a Story. I found this very cool piece on digital storytelling:

Why 50 Ways?

To somewhat mangle the elegant lyrics of Paul Simon
The story is all inside your head
She said to me
The answer is easy if you
Go on the web and see
I'd like to help you in your struggle
With creativity
There must be fifty web 2.0 ways
To tell a story

I joined Wikispaces and this site will be one to which I shall return to investigate digital storytelling further.

A Ning is an online platform for people to create their own social networks. Interested parties can sign up to a network to connect with people who have similar interests. I can see a benefit in signing up to nings that have educational relevance for teachers, such as Classroom2.0.

I see myself as a lifelong learner and wikis and nings provide opportunities for me to connect with other likeminded people. We can learn together in professional online communities.

Module 9

Networks on the Web

Scootle is a great resource for teachers. I have learned how to use a learning path so that students can view and use an activity online using a pin. I am definitely going to use this in my classroom. There is the option of adding learning objects to a secure collaborative workspace which I will keep in mind as I build up my library of learning paths. I can use other people’s learning paths and ratings to help me find what I need more quickly.

I didn’t realise there were so many social network services. Facebook and Twitter are the ones I have heard most about. The benefit of using a service such as Facebook is that you can connect with people who share similar interests. I am still not sold on the idea, mainly because of privacy. I have spoken to friends and colleagues who use Facebook and some say they have had cause for concern when agreeing to accept or block ‘friend’ requests. When do acquaintances become friends? Will they be offended if you decide not to add them? And then there are friends of friends...If you were face to face, would you really want to talk to them? My niece ‘tags’ people all the time. I wonder whether it is a smart thing to let the public know that you are not at home? Is Facebook an identity thief’s paradise? I guess there are always issues that will arise with new technology. I am going to venture into Facebook with an open mind, but with very tight controls, keeping to my family and best friends who are users. Facebook and the like are not appropriate for classroom use but will be used by students at home. I think it is important for me, as an educator, to have an understanding of social networking as it is popular culture. The way young people socialise and communicate is continuously changing. There are issues with misuse such as cyber bullying of which educators need to be aware. We can promote values for acceptable use.   As for Twitter, I don’t have time to be updating the world on my daily doings and I don’t particularly want to know about what someone had for breakfast.

On Second Life... When Second Life came into being I remember reading about a similar offering for children. I have investigated and found reference to CBBC(2007)  and BinWeevils(2010- see My Delicious). BinWeevils promises a safe, moderated online environment for children to create an avatar, make friends, play games, and watch TV shows and cartoons. Users can also read book previews in an online library and enter special competitions. It is billed as a 3D online platform to ‘edutain’ (educate/entertain).  Are virtual worlds of educational benefit? There are certainly many who say so. Second World is not appropriate for primary children. What are the benefits/ramifications of a site like BinWeevils? I wonder if any of our students have visited this site or have encountered Second Life? I intend to explore these questions further.

Module 8

RSS Feeds can help you keep up with what is happening on the web. You use a single website like Google Reader to receive updates from your favourite websites. Google Reader makes it easy to subscribe by searching for a site, or while in a site you can use the RSS icons to subscribe. It is also possible to share your page of feeds with your friends. The Directory of Feeds website is like a menu where you choose RSS feeds. There are some interesting ones that could be used in the classroom such as Nasa Image of the Day. The Podcast directory also has offerings for teachers such as CoolTeacher.

Module 7

Social bookmarking enables you to save your favourite sites online so that you can access them anywhere. I now have a delicious account and have embedded my link list into my blog. This is a great way to share your favourite sites with others and to benefit from theirs. I love the idea of having access to my favourite sites anywhere.

Module 6

Creating and Communicating Online 

Bubbl.us is a free website for mindmapping online. I would use this site for brainstorming as a class using my IWB or the chn could access it via laptops to record and organise their ideas individually or in pairs. Students can collaborate on each other’s projects via the site through ‘friends’ or a link. Once again, this tool can be used across the KLA’s. Projects can be saved as an image file and then used in other documents.

Glogster  and editorial cartoons – Glogster is an online poster. It can be used to make editorial comments on current events or news stories. Chn show their understanding of a current event by manipulating text, graphics, videos, pictures or sound files to create an interactive online poster. This can then be embedded into a wiki, blog, or school /class web site. They can make posters as advertisements, to present their research on a topic or summarise a unit of work. Glogster is a motivating way to share ideas and a great assessment tool to culminate a unit of work.

Module 5

Podcasting...

Podcasting is a hybrid of ipod and broadcast. Personal On Demand- watch or listen at a later date. Storynory looks like a useful site where children can listen to stories. I have added this to my new class blog. I have downloaded audio files before to use in a radio play. Zamzar is a free file conversion site which is useful for converting files to mp3. Using Audacity, teachers or students can record stories, radioplays, tables, counting and more and link to an established website, such as Myclasses, so they can be listened to by the students at home, uploaded to blogger (with parental consent) or downloaded onto an mp3 player.  Children can evaluate their own reading by recording on audacity. When podcast, the teacher has access to a library of oral reading for assessment purposes. Teachers can also use podcasts to provide revision or extension material to students .

Teachers.tv and youtube offer vodcasts which may be useful in the classroom. Today I used youtube to show the children ‘How to Make a Shaker’.  The class wrote a procedure and then used this to make shakers, integrating science and writing. Children can make their own vodcasts using Flip cameras. My students used flip cameras to make a ‘Cool TV’ segment where they videoed each other demonstrating the procedure ‘How to make an Eggbert’ .  Vodcasts can be used across the KLA’s.

I found how to podcast into blogger: http://www.google.com/support/blogger/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=80259 through their help site. Also, iTunes U is a site which offers over 75000 educational files for download from a variety of locations around the world, including colleges, universities, museums, libraries and other cultural institutions. Version 6 of iTunes introduced official support for video podcasting which can contain downloadable video files (in MOV, MP4, M4V, or MPG format), but also streaming sources and even IPTV. Downloadable files can be synchronized to a video-capable iPod, or downloadable files and streams can be shown in Front Row.

Module 4

Flickr allows you to store, sort, search and share your photos online. A content filter ensures you filter the content of your photos into two groups: safety level and content type, so that everyone can then apply filters to searches they do to make sure they're seeing what they want to see. A safe search is a feature that allows you to control what turns up in your searches on Flickr. Tags are keywords you add to your photos to make them easier to find later. Anyone can see your public photos on the Flickr website. Other ways to share are through your blog, by setting up and sharing a Flickr web address or using the Share This button. I now have a Flickr account where I can share my photos with the people I choose or the general public. Here are two photos from my Pacific cruise. NB I dined on the coconut crab thinking it was a type of cuisine before I discovered the prehistoric looking crab living in the bush on a Fijian Island! (They are called coconut crab because coconut is their favourite cuisine.)

 Smartcopying is a useful link to explain copyright issues. Creative Commons applies to resources such as music, filmclips and photographs. It is good to know that schools can generally use these in their projects free of charge after checking the licensing agreements.

Module 3

Google Docs is a free, Web-based word processor, spreadsheet, presentation, and form application suite. It allows users to create and edit documents online while collaborating in real-time with other users. It is accessible anywhere, anytime. Students can work together on the one document. Like blogs, students are publishing to a readership, not just writing for the teacher, so it becomes more motivating.

On attempting to access Google Docs via my iGoogle homepage, I realised I have far TOO many gadgets and it takes far too long! I’ll have to declutter!

It seems to be easy enough to create a document in Google Docs, although I would probably use this application more as an internet filing system where I store the documents I expect I will need outside of my home or ‘home’ computer, or that I want to share with a colleague. I can use this facility to store educational files so that I don’t need to use a USB, and my daughter can access them from interstate to use in her classroom. I much prefer creating my document in Word because the text space is very narrow in which to type. I can’t see the whole document. I cannot use the mouse to move my cursor, just the arrows. On accessing the original document to share and edit I am able to edit more easily but not all of my text is appearing on the page as I type- frustrating. The concept is good though. Revision history and real time chat are great features that make collaboration easy. It is also simple to share and I like that I can choose who accesses the document.

Module 2

A blog on blogging... I see the benefit of educational blogs in the classroom as online forums where children can reflect on their learning and that of others. It made me wonder...how often children in a traditional classroom have opportunities to read each other’s work. Ideally an edublog is a place where children can learn more about their own learning through collaborating with their peers. Blogs could be used across the KLAs for:

·         pretesting – What do I already know?

·         direction- What would I like to find out?

·          reporting on research

·         assessment-What have I learnt?

·         evaluation of the process- How could I learn best in the future?

I found the link http://www.educationworld.com/a_tech/techtorial/techtorial037print.shtml had useful tips for blogging ‘do’s’, such as ensuring the students follow the school’s acceptable use policy and discussing the importance of tone and respect for others' opinions. Another link I explored was http://escrapbooking.com/blogging/class.htm . This provided a wealth of information on how to use blogs in the classroom.

 I was overjoyed to find a ‘lingo’ link in a ‘blogroll’. I realised I have encountered some sites with ‘linkrot’. I fear that I’m a ‘blurker’ as I’ve spent hours lurking on other people’s edublogs soaking up their ideas; however I have left one comment on a colleague’s blog, and now feel I am more in tune with the ‘blogosphere’.

I have spent hours going from link to link. I found this quote which seemed very appropriate:

I think I need to add a blogroll to my blog to organise it all!

Module 1

Hi fellow bloggers,
I am a primary teacher coming back into full time teaching after several years. While out of the game I spent time completing a masters on writing and literature, specialising in children's literature, and was able to explore many areas of interest such as art courses and being a member of a writing centre. This year has been a steep learning curve because so much has changed in the past ten years in classrooms. I now remember the reason I started teaching in the first place - that joy of being on a learning journey with your class and watching them grow in so many ways. At the beginning of this year I knew very little about IWBs. Now I don't know what I would do without one! I was already using some Web 2.0 applications such as Skype, Audacity and YouTube and I love using email. But I resisted jumping on the Facebook and Twitter bandwagon because I was sceptical regarding privacy and I really didn't want to put in the time.My 23 year old daughter spends hours on facebook every day. She gave a chuckle when she found out I was doing this course because she has been trying to get me on facebook for years!
I wonder... are social networking sites timewasters or timesavers? Will they place more demands on my already limited time? Are they enabling us to become more social...or less? Are we more self indulgent? Why do we feel the need to publish every thought that comes into our heads?
On viewing the multitude of toolsWeb 2.0 offers I realise I need to learn another language- I was confronted by a plethora of 2.0speak...widgets, feeds and aggregators, wikis, bookmarking...some I have used but most I need to explore. It's like another world. This link went straight into my favourites. I now have a gmail account and an igoogle page complete with gadgets. I am looking forward to expanding my horizons and bringing this new world to my students.

Module 1