I am looking forward to using my new RSS account. I chose to go with Google Reader mostly because it seemed the easiest to set up and follow. I chose to follow just 4 blogs to start since that is what the book recommended, but I know I will be adding more to my feed soon! I am excited about using RSS because it will be a way for me to follow all of the blogs I have found and enjoyed, but don't have enough time to check daily. I think this will be a great way for me to get more involved in the blogging world. We will see how it goes after the first few weeks.
I uploaded my first few pictures to Flickr today as well. To tell you the truth I am not sure how I will use my Flickr account in a school setting, but I am always open for trying new things. I can see my class using Flickr when doing presentations and it will be a great tool to teach them about Copyrights, but other than that I don't know how we would use it.
I am excited to spend more time on Google Sites. I created a Google Site for one of our previous classes, but have yet to do anything else with it. At the TIES Conference, that I attended last week, I went to a class on how one area high school is using Google Sites with their 9th- 12th graders. They have them create a portfolio site of their best work and then when they are seniors they sort through all of their work and pick their best work. When they are applying to Colleges they are giving the URL to the school in order for them to access multiple samples of their best work.! I thought this was a great idea. I can see in a few years all College asking students to provide them with a link to their portfolio instead of submitting them electronically or in print form. I hope to incorporate something like this in my classroom next year!
Monday, December 19, 2011
Saturday, December 10, 2011
CEDO 535 - Week 2 - Wikis
I feel like I am getting a better understanding on how to use blogs in my classroom. Truthfully, I keep this blog (because I have to) and we are doing a 6th grade events blog at school, but neither one of them feel like effective blogs to me. I am hoping to change that as the weeks go on. I do think blogs are a great way to get kids writing and collaborating, but I do feel like my kids still need lots of guidance when it comes to blogging.
Now when it comes to Wikis.... I am lost. We do have a staff Wiki at school where people can share things they find interesting. We have had it for 2 years and there are maybe 8 things on the wiki. 3 of which I have added. I understand that Wikis are used to share information, but I never thought of using them with my students. I liked a lot of the ideas in the book on how to use wikis an I enjoyed looking at some of the sample wikis available, but I don't think I would use both blogs and wikis in my classroom. If I had to choose I would rather have my students blog, but maybe the more I learn about wikis and if I actually tried it with my students I would change my mind.
Overall, I love all of these new ideas, but I don't have the time to implement them all. I see my students for 30 minutes in technology every other day and 50 for reading. We have so many things to cover in that short time frame as it is. I have noticed this year with the blog we needed a few class periods just to figure out how to use it let alone the class time we need to contribute to the blog. I wish I could do everything we learn about because I do think they are effective for students, but there is never enough time in the day!
Now when it comes to Wikis.... I am lost. We do have a staff Wiki at school where people can share things they find interesting. We have had it for 2 years and there are maybe 8 things on the wiki. 3 of which I have added. I understand that Wikis are used to share information, but I never thought of using them with my students. I liked a lot of the ideas in the book on how to use wikis an I enjoyed looking at some of the sample wikis available, but I don't think I would use both blogs and wikis in my classroom. If I had to choose I would rather have my students blog, but maybe the more I learn about wikis and if I actually tried it with my students I would change my mind.
Overall, I love all of these new ideas, but I don't have the time to implement them all. I see my students for 30 minutes in technology every other day and 50 for reading. We have so many things to cover in that short time frame as it is. I have noticed this year with the blog we needed a few class periods just to figure out how to use it let alone the class time we need to contribute to the blog. I wish I could do everything we learn about because I do think they are effective for students, but there is never enough time in the day!
Tuesday, December 6, 2011
CEDO 535 - Week 1 - Blogging
After completing the assignments this week I realized that I am not an effective blogger. This is the first blog I have done and I thought I was doing ok since I haven't had too hard of a time coming up with things to write about. After reading Will Richardson's book, Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and other Powerful Web Tools for the Classroom, I realized I am more of a journaler than a blogger. I mostly just write my thoughts and opinions on certain topics and don't add any extra referencing or links to expand upon the idea. I hope to get better at that as we go on.
This week I took a look at three different blog hosting locations. The ones I chose were ePals, Edmodo, and Edublogs. I don't have any experience with either of them and I was pleasantly surprised. I just started a blog this year with my 6th graders. So far we are just blogging about what is happening in 6th grade and in the school, but we hope to be blogging about our book club books after Christmas. The blog we are currently using is part of our school website and I am not very excited about the options it offers. After researching other blog hosting sites some of the other sites allow alot more options that I would like to use. For example, I like how in Edublogs you can have each student have their own blog that you monitor. I think my students would feel more ownership over the blog if they each had their own instead of all contributing to one. Some of my students don't contribute very much while others contribute a lot. If they each had their own they couldn't rely on the other students to do it for them.
Overall, I am excited about blogging, but I think I need to do some more research in order to become a better blogger. I wish I had a day to just devote to looking at and searching other people's blogs. I think that would help me become a more effective blogger.
This week I took a look at three different blog hosting locations. The ones I chose were ePals, Edmodo, and Edublogs. I don't have any experience with either of them and I was pleasantly surprised. I just started a blog this year with my 6th graders. So far we are just blogging about what is happening in 6th grade and in the school, but we hope to be blogging about our book club books after Christmas. The blog we are currently using is part of our school website and I am not very excited about the options it offers. After researching other blog hosting sites some of the other sites allow alot more options that I would like to use. For example, I like how in Edublogs you can have each student have their own blog that you monitor. I think my students would feel more ownership over the blog if they each had their own instead of all contributing to one. Some of my students don't contribute very much while others contribute a lot. If they each had their own they couldn't rely on the other students to do it for them.
Overall, I am excited about blogging, but I think I need to do some more research in order to become a better blogger. I wish I had a day to just devote to looking at and searching other people's blogs. I think that would help me become a more effective blogger.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)