Wonderful World of Wiki's and Blogs
Wiki's and blogs are super exciting tools to use in the classroom with students as well as for use as teachers. I have used Edu-blogs with year 6 and found it a fantastic way for students to share and collaborate anywhere, anytime, anyplace. It also allowed parents to share in the learning experiences that their children where undertaking in the classroom. One issue I did have was the initial set up. Having to create login's for 50 year 6 students was a little challenging. This is when I created 'Expert' students. I would teach them how to do something on the blog and they would then go and teach other students. This generated a very relaxed, open and collaborative work environment, where the students where the knowledge creators and maintainers.
Ideally I would love to set up individual blogs for myself and the students in my class. They would then use these as online learning portfolios, showcasing and sharing and reflecting on their learning journeys with other students and parents and of course ME! I would then be able to access their work samples, give instant online feedback as well as track their social networking (through blogger) and peer feedback/editing. If they also had delicious accounts I could then feed them websites to use for research assignments and tasks. Oh.... the possibilities are endless... I love web2.0.... now I just need the time to implement these tools!
I am interested to hear how others are using Wiki's and Blogs in the class room as well as the other web2.0 tools.
Happy exploring!
Wiki's and blogs are super exciting tools to use in the classroom with students as well as for use as teachers. I have used Edu-blogs with year 6 and found it a fantastic way for students to share and collaborate anywhere, anytime, anyplace. It also allowed parents to share in the learning experiences that their children where undertaking in the classroom. One issue I did have was the initial set up. Having to create login's for 50 year 6 students was a little challenging. This is when I created 'Expert' students. I would teach them how to do something on the blog and they would then go and teach other students. This generated a very relaxed, open and collaborative work environment, where the students where the knowledge creators and maintainers.
Ideally I would love to set up individual blogs for myself and the students in my class. They would then use these as online learning portfolios, showcasing and sharing and reflecting on their learning journeys with other students and parents and of course ME! I would then be able to access their work samples, give instant online feedback as well as track their social networking (through blogger) and peer feedback/editing. If they also had delicious accounts I could then feed them websites to use for research assignments and tasks. Oh.... the possibilities are endless... I love web2.0.... now I just need the time to implement these tools!
I am interested to hear how others are using Wiki's and Blogs in the class room as well as the other web2.0 tools.
Happy exploring!
Yes, I would love to know how other teachers incorporate wikis and blogs in their classroom teaching and learning activities. I'm also curious about how they go about setting up and monitoring these tools. I love your idea of training up and empowering expert students to help out with these tasks. I think this would certainly make the process more timely and efficient.
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