Ideas
So my mind is working on this next project and I am a bit befuddled. I think my main goal at this point is to bring some of my technology learning into one of the units I’m doing with teachers. The possibility that comes to mind is a class of grade seven students, with whom we are practicing some of the reading stategies. Working under the umbrella of inferencing, we have been modelling and using the Probable Passage strategy. After trying several sessions together and sharing our gist satements with the larger group, we read the story and see how close we have come. We have been using Patricia Polacco’s books as a basis for this work. So my question is- how do I incorporate technology into this unit? I thought about a Wiki, where students will add in their gist statements for other passages we encounter. We hope to have them all create a Probable Passage with key words from a picture book of their choosing, which they would then exchange with a buddy. It might be of value to add these into the Wiki so others could read and comment. Or am I better off to just add a section to my library blog for this? Mayhap I’m still a little confused as to when to use a blog or wiki for a classroom.
Then my other thought was in regards to the Snow Willow nominees. Several teachers have agreed that part of their Language Arts assignment will be to read one novel and respond on the blog. In re-visiting the Willows site, I remembered that they have already come up with activities for each of the selections. So why re-invent the wheel? Perhaps I could create a link for each book to the activity page and they could choose to complete one. Then we could post their written or visual activities on a wiki. Does anyone have any feedback for me or am I simply blithering in a daze? This particular teacher is not familiar with a Wiki so do I want to take that on as well as my blog?
Help- I need somebody!!
Just kidding- you’re all too busy to think about my problems. Now I must work on my order!!
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Hi Jane, I dithered away about whether I wanted to use a blog or a wiki for my class project also. I finally decided on a wiki because I wanted the students to be able to read through the contributions of other students in a thread without having to click around and open a whole bunch of new windows. I also liked the service that wikispaces offers to K to 12 teachers. You can request a site with no advertising and if you send a list of user names and passwords they will enroll all of the students at once for you without the need for passwords. I thought this was a great timesaving and housekeeping service. By the way, they were also able to duplicate the wiki for me before students started using it so a friend of mine could use the same content with her students at another school. I am not sure yet if I made the right decision. I thought the wiki offered more possibilities for a group or collaborative process whereas the blog seemed to be better set up for individual work. Please let us know what you decide. Good luck with your deliberations!
Chris
I’m not sure what to suggest either Jane. I set up a second blog with Edublogs called Student Work where I’m going to have students upload their work. I decided to go this route because I want it mainly for a viewing space for other students to see. I don’t want any edting done but would welcome comments. I guess it depends on your purpose. If it was a peer editing assignment I would definitely use a wiki. I think your Polacco assignment would work well on a wiki. I really like your idea for the Willow Awards assignment but am not sure either which would be better to use, wiki or blog?
Jane,
The following link is to a PowerPoint demonstrating Web 2.0 tools using Polacco’s Thundercake as an example.
Carlene
Not sure why the link did not show up in the previous reply:
http://www.ibo.org/ibap/conference/documents/APerfectMatch.ppt.