Module Nine

Social networking - I've become addicted! It's taking me away from programming so I better complete this module and move on! Scootle - love it. I've been using it for a while now in class and have seen the improvements in the site since last year with its sharing function. I never used to tag my pathways , but now realise the benefits of doing so. I have found it a good way to differentiate learning - with different learning paths for different groups. Find that searching for the right resource can be time consuming - that's why I will start to tag.

Facebook - wow! For years I tried to discourage my kids from using it until I finally caved in last year. Now a whole new world has opened up to me. I can see online what is going on in the lives of my daughters and their friends (although I'm not allowed to add any of their friends!) I've managed to keep track of what my cousin is doing on her overseas holiday, and I've even made contact with cousins in Canada that I've never had prior contact with (- much to the delight of the grandmothers on both sides!) Now my daughter can practice her French language skills to talk with family on the otherside of the world. It's really opened my eyes.

I wonder if any teacher has create a Facebook page for their class? I don't know if I would use it as a teaching tool - kids would easily be distracted by the social aspect of it. In that regard, a class collaborative blogs or wikis would be much more useful as a teaching tool.

I found Second Life too much to deal with at the moment. Trying to navigate through it made me anxious. I found it overwhelming but saw the potential for older students. I can see it being used in subjects like History, Geography and Visual Arts. I need to go back and explore this further at a later date. But currently it would have no place in my classroom.

Twitter - my kids tell me it's bigger with adults than children. It's OK, but I don't think I'll be a follower. Not quite sure who to follow? Once again I feel this application is quite limited in regards to classroom use.

Module Eight

At last I know what that funny little orange sign on my page means. Prior to starting this Web 2.0 online course, I had never read a blog before. However as I have progressed I'm finding reading blogs has become an important part of my professional development. Google Reader is a great way in which I can keep up with my favourite blog sites. I didn't have much luck with adding our Wiki to my reader - a strange magazine site kept coming up instead - I'll need to investigate more. But that is no different to anything else I've encountered during this course. - You need to play a bit - reflect a bit - work out how it can help you- and then go back and play some more! - and that's where I'm going now....

Module Seven

Social Bookmarking - I can definately say I need it. Until now I really haven't saved bookmarks on my individual machine but rather used the bookmark feature on Myinternet. I have found this quite useful. However Delicious offers the benefit of sharing with others. (The only problem with the networking feature, is knowing who to share with and what their username is.) It would great to be able to get the children into the habit of using this feature - but would that mean that I would need to install the tool bar on all of the school computers?

http://delicious.com/deanne.distefano

It was quite interesting that when I was doing the recommended reading for this module, I became impatient with the amount of text to read. I have seen myself as a learner change while working through this online course. I have become someone who wants the information "now" and my change in learning style has helped me relate to my students who also seem to want instant information.

Module Six

I wish I had known about Bubbl.us earlier. I've been looking for a tool like this for a while now. (And this one is free.) It makes mindmapping fun! It's a great tool to encourage children to brainstorm collaboratively. Having them create their own mindmaps gives children the opportunity to make the topic connections for themselves - it encourages them to link their ideas together. It is also a great tool for whole class summarys. I can see myself using it on my interactive whiteboard - can't wait to get back to school to give it a go ( Oh how sad is that!) It can also be used as an effective assessment tool in pre and post testing.

Glogster is also a great way to encourage online collaboration between students. A simple way to stimulate creativity - especially for those students who don't have the best "fine motor skills". The glogster education registered area is a great way for teachers to keep track of what students have created. Not quite sure how it would fit into my Year 2 classroom - but I'm sure with more time I'll find a way! Actually I just thought - I might show it to our Year 6 class and get the children to poster themselves ready for graduation night. I found that Glogster is a bit slow to run. (Don't know whether it's Glogster being slow or my frustrating new computer that my husband bought for me to stop the fights over the who gets the laptop - I want my old computer back!!)

Web 2 Course Half Time!

Well I'm half way through the Web 2 Course but over the past few weeks I haven't started any new modules. The reason - I felt I needed to put into practice what I've learnt! I've started a class blog - using Blogger. This has challenged me to recall things I've learnt and it has been really handy to go back to my Myclasses page to rework some of the things I had "forgotten" how to do. I chose Blogger purely because of my "familiarity" with this particular blog - however I don't think it was the best choice for my classroom practise. This site requires a gmail account which I couldn't give to my students. So what I have done is created an account using my details but used a class name ("Classmate") and password for all the children to use. I've asked the children to sign their names after posting just so I can keep track of who is saying what. Oh well trial and error - it's all about my learning journey!