Week 3 Reflection

This week has been full of exciting and new things for me! I will be honest and say I was deathly terrified when I read the learning materials this week and it said we had to create a website. Fortunately it was easier than I had first anticipated and I would like to think this week has been a success! If you would like to comment on my blog with some feedback I will do the same for you. I hope everyone else has had a great week full of rich E-Learning!

Web 2.0 Tools and Online Spaces

Week 3 of Managing E-Learning focused on Web 2.0 tools and online spaces in the classroom. There were three tools that we had to investigate and they consisted of Blogs, Wiki's and Websites. My reflection is on the creation of these tools and how I could use them in a classroom.
So what is the difference between Web 1.0 and Web 2.0? Trust me, I asked myself the exact same question. In simple terms, Web 1.0 is a 'read only' web. This means that the content (text, videos, images, multimedia etc.) that is added is solely from the webmaster. Web 2.0, however, is commonly referred to as the 'read-write' web. This means that individuals and groups can publish, share, network, upload or download user-generated content.
It is important to distinguish the difference between these three tools to ensure an understanding of why each one is used. These differences are outlined in the table below.



Source: Fodey.com

A blog is a website where individuals or groups can create ideas, opinions and present facts on a regular basis. They can be great tools to assist students with their learning. Education Queensland provides a set of these tools in secure environments through 'The Learning Place' to assist with this. I have provided a PMI chart (which can be viewed below) about blogging in schools.


Creating a blog is a simple process and if constructed effectively, it will aid in student learning. It is important to ensure that when designing a blog the layout is appropriate and easy to follow. Having a blog that is legible will not only make it easier for the person constructing the ideas and content, but for the other students who are trying to navigate around the page. 
Being able to embed and link in blogs is what makes this tool so effective. Instead of just having written content, blogs can have links to additional sites with further information, they can have pictures to support student's ideas, videos, multimedia and a number of other interactive tools such as Voki or GoAnimate. The list seems endless! 
The interaction capacity of blogs is also quite high. Students and teachers alike can view sites and then comment on what they feel is appropriate. Unlike a Wiki, however, a blog does not give you the power to edit and change ideas that have already been provided. This means that interaction can only take place through commenting.
As a learner, I have found blogging extremely effective and interesting. Majority of the students I will teach will be digital natives like myself, so I believe using a tool such as this will be highly effective in the classroom and will allow for higher order thinking. Blogs can be used to support learning in a number of ways and these may include:

• PMI charts
• De Bono's 6 Thinking Hats
• collaborative authoring
• Ranking tool
• SWOT analysis
• Y- Chart
• KWL strategy   

A wiki was a tool that was introduced to me in week two of this term, however, I never had the opportunity to properly investigate it until earlier this week. When I first saw the layout in the technical manual for setting up a wiki, I was worried that it would be challenging. Through the clear and detailed instructions I managed to set up my own wiki that I am quite happy with. You can view it through this link. I believe that if I can easily navigate and set up a site such as this, my students will be able to as well. Unlike a blog, a wiki ensures collaborative learning through the use of editing, modifying, adding and removing information that has already been presented on the page. It has a number of features used to customize the site to suit what the learner wants. For example, the default colour was red and black but I wanted to ensure a consistent colour theme throughout my pages, so I chose my own colours. I have developed a SWOT analysis to help identify what I believe are the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats to using a tool such as this. It can be viewed below:

The beauty of an online space is the freedom to create and add whatever content you believe is appropriate. Some of these things may include:

• Links (to other wiki pages or websites).
• Images.
• Tables.
• Posters.
• Maps.
• Slideshows.
• Documents.
• Spreadsheets.
• Calendars.
• YouTube videos (or your own videos).

In terms of pedagogy, I believe that having a wiki in the classroom would be a great tool to assist with student learning. As you can see in the opportunities section of the SWOT analysis, I have outlined various ways I could use a wiki in the classroom. The ones that stood out for me the most and I would be more likely to incorporate into my own classroom are:

• Peer editing- students can upload there drafts and ideas and get other students to review them.
• Group projects- I would use this as a source to store collated group data, information and research so that all notes are easily accessible by all students.
• Noticeboard- here I would put a calendar with all important information such as assessment dates and monitoring dates and a list of classroom policies and rules created by students via a wiki.
• Glossary- Students could access this page if they were unsure of definitions.

A great site that offers many more options is 50 Ways to Use Wikis for a more Collaborative and Interactive Classroom.

The final online space that we were introduced to this week was a website. As I said before, I was deathly terrified of creating one. I am very happy to say though, that I did manage to create one and I had such a positive experience that I will definitely be using websites in the future. The company I set it up through, Weebly, was perfect for beginners, as it helped me through the publishing process, step by step. You can view my very own website through this link. Websites have many great uses, especially in a learning environment. If someone were to ask me what you would find on an classroom website, the first thing I would say would be information and details. If I were to use a website in my classroom, that would be its main purpose. As I am teaching secondary, I would have a website for each different class that I teach. I would be sure to include assessment details, due dates, current classroom events, school events, a blog or a calendar etc.
The beauty of Weebly, is that it tracks all of the websites I have published so I will never lose them and they will all be in one convenient spot. I have inserted a screen shot of this below.

I also love that Weebly has made sure that the websites we create are compatible with mobile phones. If I am teaching in an environment full of teenagers this will come as a massive benefit for me, as they can access school details through their phones.
There are many uses for websites in the classroom and it is not limited to providing details to students. Students can use them to express their own creativity. For example, an assignment could entail creating their own website where they could display all of their knowledge and embed material, as well as show competence in ICT.

All three ICT tools provided to us this week show that it is possible to create a fun and interactive classroom. Although each tool has distinct differences and uses, they all share one common feature. That is: they can engage students and provide higher order thinking.

Tuesday Tutorial

Transcript: This week in our tutorial we looked at three ICT tools we can incorporate into our own blogs. Experimenting with these tools was a lot of fun and now we will be able to not only apply them in our own blogs, but in our own classroom as well.

This week we looked at Voki, Wordle and Fodey as tools that we could implement into our weekly blogs. As I had already used Voki in my weekly blogs, I focused most of my attention on Fodey.com. It creates a number of things from newspaper clippings (as you can see on the right), to talking tomatoes, and text written by ninja's. It was great that we were able to be exposed to tools such as these because I will be able to use them when  I am out teaching by myself.  

 

 

 I can't wait to see what is in store for us next week! I look forward to reading more week 3 blogs!

Hannah

References:

Presenter Media [animation]. (2009). Retrieved from http://www.presentermedia.com/index.php?id=120&target=category&start=20&maincat=animsp#listing_of_items

Fasso, W. (2013). Learning Material. Retrieved from CQUniversity FAHE11001 Moodle page, http://moodle.cqu.edu.au/mod/page/view.php?id=145980

Hirche, C [animation]. Retrieved from http://www.fodey.com/generators/newspaper/snippet.asp  

Feinberg, J. (unknown). Wordle. Retrieved from http://www.wordle.net/

Smart Teaching.org. (2008). 50 Ways to use Wikis for a more Collaborative and Interactive Classroom. Retrieved from http://www.smartteaching.org/blog/2008/08/50-ways-to-use-wikis-for-a-more-collaborative-and-interactive-classroom/