Since it is a holiday weekend for most, I thought I would take a break from eating chocolate and jelly beans...mmmmmm jelly beans and make two videos on how I utilized my wikispace in the…
t to do. I imagine you would like to have your students write, peer-edit, and read each others' work, and maybe others thoughts as well. Maybe you would like to have them write something such as what we discussed in our staff meeting today:
What did you learn this week?
How do you feel about what you learned?
What motivated you t learn it?
Higher-level questions are the perfect starting point of a blog. You can post links to a classroom blog on a wiki. But on your classroom wikispace, you can just as easily have them post on a page. Then you create a page for each group of kids or each subject area. See some examples of ALL grade levels at Educationalwikis.
And for a GREAT science wiki done by a 6th grade class, go here. This teacher has divided her classes into groups and they have created "clinics" of specialist who tell you all about the major body systems. It really is cool. There are others too on the educationalwikis link above that are for elementary. Add me as a friend and contact me, and I'll be glad to guide you through whatever you need to learn about it. A blog would be great too, but I think you should take it one step at a time. Let's keep in touch!…
others linked to the above. I wrote about a few things that helped make the project work on my blog.
Definitely follow the advice above to set up a wiki and play first. Wikispaces is pretty easy to use and they make it easy to manage student accounts. Check here and here for more info. Then I would suggest setting up a "sandbox" wiki. This is a place you can take the kids in to show them how to edit and they can just get the hang of editing, making new pages... I start it by putting some silly content on the homepage and pre-making enough links for everyone to have their own pages to start on. Let's see, we wrote about Goldilocks, bio's on the three bears, english muffins, how to ollie... you get the picture. They usually need only a day on that then they are ready to go.
We started the above wikis by having a couple of kids begin early and create the first page with links. Students then choose topics (most already linked) and began researching and editing.
From the classroom perspective it is valuable to stop now and then and let the kids get the big picture- put them in "read-only" mode for a bit and teach them to look for the holes.…
ut a private organzition that partners with schools and parents". Yes, probably. But what do you mean by 'schools'? Teachers? Curriculum directors? Superintendents, School Boards? State education departments? In the us, you might have to get good with different ones depending on what you want to put in the schools.
How about he National Council of Social Studies teachers group? Or, in the US we have a huge home school movement. Would you include them?
To me the fastest way to change the culture is to introduce something on the web that teachers will embrace (think Twitter, Ning, Wikispaces) as individuals. If you want to sell a product or service to schools directly, its a long, hard road.
Student portfolios: Here's a paper on the subject: The Student Data Backpack
(Margaret Raymond, p 145) One of the issues here is privacy concerns about schools collecting detailed stuff. Perhaps it would be more acceptable if an outside service was offered to parents?
Of course, kids are very changeable and hard to put into buckets for longer than a millisecond.
At this point I am thinking of eHarmony.com, the dating service, and their 29 Dimensions® of Compatibility. Is this the sort of software needed?
Or do we need something like that system that tells parents how to deal with difficult children, the key phrases etc that will put them back on track?
Lots and lots to think about!…
me very specific questions. If you have used wikis a lot, you just may be the savior that I am looking for. I have used a wiki in an online course I am taking, but I have never used a wiki in my classroom. I have signed up for an account with Wikispaces and have been poking around it to get familiar with things.
Here is what I would like to do:
I would like to use a wiki as a way for my Socials 9 students to present/show their learning on our Native Cultures Unit. I have the assignment already - I will use the ones that I previously used on paper. So...how do I set this up? I have 2 Blocks of SS 9, and would like to have both do the same assignments.
Do I use one wiki for the whole class, and then create pages for each student to work on? Can I have one page for a group or pair of students to work on?
Do I need to create a new wiki for each project and class that I want to do?
If you (or anyone else, for that matter!) have info, I would appreciate it sooo much. And please, do not feel that any amount of instructions would be too simple. I really am a beginner! (But a very keen one!)
Thanks,
Kari…
Added by Kari Duffy at 12:27pm on November 5, 2009
, CSS, Java, C++, etc. That is probably why the position isn't filled yet, no one with enough qualifications has applied. Using an on-line tool to build their site is probably not what they have in mind. Do you have a specific list of qualifications they are looking for?
If a person with limited experience can build a site using a free online tool I'd imagine the hiring company would quickly decide they didn't need a full time developer, they could do it in-house with someone already on staff.
In my experience (years of dotcom work before teaching) the terms "highly qualified" and "developer/maintainer" usually entail pretty code specific knowledge, and not drag and drop like the online site building software.
I love wikispaces for quick and easy online sites. For a more robust website I'd say build your own using something like Apple's iWeb. For an even more involved process try a piece of software like Drupal or Dreamweaver (requires some code and server configuration knowledge).
I say build a site for yourself, a resume site. Use that to hone your skills and then use it a calling card. You might have to do some spec work, or freelance work, before diving full time into developing and maintaining a profit center site for a business.
Good luck. I can't watch the YouTube videos here at work, but I'm looking forward to check them out when I get home.
cheers
c…
these types of interactive applications on a local computer basis using just word processing software. Now that we have "reliable" internet access on site, we are ready to move up to the web-based versions. I've also used Photostory for digital storytelling/reports. Now I'd like to try Voicethread too.
This is the first year I'll officially be serving 1/2 time as a site technology integration mentor. No one else is doing this in my district so I'm hoping to get a few ideas from the many of you who much more experience. Many colleagues would like to begin using web based tools with elementary students and want to know where to start. I started with non web-based applications out of necessity, but I don't think is necessary now for others.
I have two main questions and would greatly appreciate your feedback.
1) For those who are ready to start, where do you think they should begin? Wiki? Blog? Digital storytelling? Other???
2) Do you have favorite 2.0 applications that are fairly easy for a beginner with basic computer skills to use?
Thanks!!!…