Final Reflection. WoW!

Final reflection:

Wow, Web 2.0! Somehow or other I survived to tell the tale! Actually as I am not “tech savvy” I made it with the assistance of several patient people who I'd like to publicly thank!! Matt and Mel and my many fellow travellers along this path, thankyou!!

However having said all that, I've learnt soooo much, it is an opportunity I would encourage others to complete. 

Now that its done and the self imposed pressure is off, I am looking  forward to investigate tools at my own pace, leisure, interest and requirements of my students.

Many tools challenged me but I could see many were immediately accessable, useful to my role and really helpful to assist in student's learning. I have begun to incorporate these into my resources. Others that will take more practise I hope to develop and include in my repertoire in the future.  Some, I see are being used very successfully in the classroom. I have today, posted a 'PS' on the google docs module. 

There were many advantages to learning in this manner. The flexibility, allowing it to fit around my life, the U tube explanations were invaluable, the availability of reading other's blogs and learning from them.   The “on line community” is a valuable avenue for sharing ideas when there is little or no time in a busy school environment. I liked the way the modules were set up along with access to the theory behind children's learning ie Bloom's Taxonomy.  

Above all I found I was surprised at how exhilarated I became by the successes and the free tools available to assist teachers and students.             

It is astonishing, the changes in the learning environment we are witnessing. We are being given the opportunity to challege students in a unique way, which also assists us to keep them engaged in their world when they are used to so much stimulation. 

How lucky are these students, to have a myriad of opportunities to display their learning, and become independent learners.  To the less gifted child, a new world is being opened, where he/she can engage at their own level, and to some degree, pace. They too can be introduced to tools to accommodate their learning style, to be involved and fully engaged in parallel tasks highlighting their abilities.  The possible autonomy now available to students with regard to their own learning is incredible.
 To all those involved in the designing and implementation of Web 2.0 thankyou!! 

Wikis!!!

Module 10.  Wikis!!!!

I have been looking forward to investigating wikis as several teachers at our school are employing this tool to work on assignments with their classes.  One teacher in particular, created an eye catching wiki, and the year 7 students appear to be loving it as the “conversation” between the students and their teacher is really worthwhile. It also revealed some humour between students and teacher which is encouraging the development of a really healthy and productive relationship with the younger members of our community. These are often the short conversations that do not occur in a busy classroom. So much more than questions and answers is happening!! You can tell I was really impressed!! 

So, wikis not only encourage the communication and collaboration between class members, it also gives a platform for the quieter and/or less confident students to observe their peers and “speak” to class members.  This would also include the students who find some tasks difficult: they may have under developed research skills, know nothing about the subject or where to start, have difficulty putting their thoughts and ideas into writing...all those kids who are not necessarily our special kids but require some form of assistance.  For special education students, this is a fantastic  tool. Work could be modified so as not to highlight their inabiities, providing a vehicle for them to access parallel tasks.

Using this tool, other teachers may visit the wiki and check on a student's progress/attitude/involvement in this particular subject. An opportunity to enlarge the teachers knowledge of a student.

Well, guess what?. With the help of one of our IT  clever people, I have created a wiki to assist a particular student with some specific tasks to assist his development. Within the wiki we created three pages. His keyboard skills need practise, so we created a page offering exercises to assist him, as well as web sites offering games to encourage these skills (the exercises offer the additional advantage of  enhancing his vocab.and spelling). We included a page to assist him with future research for some assignments. This page will be used for filtered research so he is able to access relevant information more readily. It may include user friendly websites as well as research specific to his topic and his level. The third page will be used for maths revision as well as maths topics he finds difficult. The typing page is ready to go, the other two will be ready by early next term.

We discussed access. Apart from the student involved and myself, both our IT specialists have access as well as some specialist staff. His class teachers will also have access as an assignment in their subject is attempted, using this forum. 

Wikis give this student the opportunity to be  challenged at a level relevant to him,    in an unique way, and hopefully it will enhance his enthusiasm.  He will also have access to information which will save him possible embarrassment from peers.

Scootle!/Social networking

Module 9 
Scootle! I'm not sure about scootle yet. All the blogs I follow seem to value it, but the couple of searches I tried were unsuccessful. I found I couldn't refine the search to find what I was looking for. My searches resulted in a broad range of info totally irrevelent for my professional needs. I imagine the resources are there somewhere, but I couldn't locate anything. Might indeed be valuable, I'll try this at another time.

Social networking: mmmm! Have huge reservations about some of these sites. I may use twitter to explore personal interests in the future, but have no need at this time.

PS
I have had another search through some of the Scootle activities anad have found one or two activities that may be of value to some students in the future. So with more exposure I will develop the skills to become more time efficient in my searches.

RSS! Good fun!

Module 8.
RSS! I had noticed this icon but with so many new visuals to negotiate, I had ignored it for the present. I can see this would be a great personal tool for keeping up to date with favourite sites and to view my colleagues' progress through the course. I have perused some sites with the view to adding them, but I think I will wait and further my research as I can see one might need to be very selective with subscriptions. When I do begin to subscribe, used wisely, I can see it will be a huge time saver in keeping up to date.


For students, I think this would save class research time, would be a great tool for group work and, for our special students, an update from their favourite podcasts for example, auditory stories might be a highlight.


PS.
I have now subscribed and have also deleted! At his point I have saved one subscription to an education site, and have found the huge amount of information is very broad. I will need to learn to refine this tool. Good fun!

Module 7. Delicious!!

Module 7.
. Delicious is a great resource. One can build quite a library of useful websites, and have access to them on any computer at any time. This is a great way of sharing sites with friends and colleagues as well, saves e-mailing them or copying them down and getting them wrong, which I've done!

. In addition, having access to other people's endless searching is so generous and what a time saver. I can see this as a great resource for saving students' class time, searching for relevant information. I'm not sure how many sites would need to be offered for a whole class to search within the same class time.

. Expanding this idea a little, for students with limited research skills and/or learning disabilities, a limited number of sites, or sites specially chosen, with the students' abilities in mind, is a possible way to accommodate our special students.

My Glogster Page.

 Module 6.

Bubble.us. This tool would definitely suit some students' learning style. Great tool, for example, for the kids that have trouble with the written word/spelling/reading slabs of information. I had a dabble and can think of many uses for the student/classroom.. Many of the same reasons, I could apply to glogster, and did so! I created a Glogster, and found it easy to use, but being inexperienced in many tools, found it difficult to save to my blog.


Click here to view my first attempt at a 'Glogster.'

Kids Love Stories!!

Module 5:

Kids love stories!

Having recently acquired an i pod it was fun to dabble with downloading music, but I had no idea such a wealth of resources were available in digital stories. Kids love stories!  So off I went searching, and found loads of stories for a student of every age, ability and interest. In our school i pods are available for some students to access the class novel. One of our students has an interest in castles, kings etc, and so while the class is studying Macbeth, this particular student is going to enjoy an audio story about a king. An accompanying work booklet is now almost complete to enhance his learning. And, the i pod is ready to go! He is looking forward to this special task, and is hoping to be the envy of his more able peers, with access to an i pod during class!  

This is a great tool to engage students,  it gives students the opportunity to use a much loved tool in the class. Those that find the written word difficult to access have an alternative. It can enthuse a flagging interest and/or refresh a student's interest in class work, and... it gives the kids a break from the teacher's voice and the written word.

I have seen Utube used very successfully in the classroom and I've had a quick look at Teachers Tube, School Tube and Teachers TV and can see some huge advantages for students and teachers. It must be very time consuming to investigate so many resources available, and I am looking forward to looking at Delicious in the next module to assist here.