Audioboo – An audio-blogging site where you can send updates through the web, phone or its own iPhone app. (free)
Blogger – Web 2.0 blog writing tool (Free)
Edublogs – A hosted blogging platform designed for education (free with advertising)
iPadio – Broadcast from any phone to the Internet live. Create phone blogs and let others know what your thinking (free)
Podomatic – A podcast community and publication tool (Free – first 500MB)
Posterous – Easy to use blogging platforms which lets you post media online fast using email, your mobile or the web (free)
Tumblr – A simplified blogging platform that allows you to share anything online. Post text, photos, quotes, links, music, and videos, from your browser, desktop, email, or phone (free)
Vocaroo – Still under development, this simple website allows you to record your voice and email it or post it online for others to listen (free)
Voicethread – A collaborative, multimedia slide show where many people can add comments online. Store images, documents, videos and audio files (limited free educators account)
Wikispaces – Educators are given a free 2 GB to develop wikis for their classes. Members can create, edit or contribute to pages making it a great collaborative tool. (free for teachers)
http://teachweb2.wikispaces.com/What+about+Wikis
Wikis in the classroom
Resource links:
Maintaining Legacy with Wikipedia (Podcast by Alan November)
Wiki Sites
SWOT ANALYSIS
Strengths:
- Everyone has a voice.
- Emphasizes teamwork.
- Gives students time to think and respond.
- Available anytime: day or night
- Documents can be added to or edited by anyone with permission
- Documents and reports can be worked on collaboratively without face-to-face meetings
- Allows teachers to track participation.
- Encourages critical thinking/organizational skills.
- Allows for using the internet in a positive, constructive manner.
- Empowers students
- Reinforces word processing skills
- Sharing information world-wide
- Often reflects recently updated information.
- Responsibility for contribution to the wiki can be shared by inviting multiple users with similar interests.
Weaknesses:
- Editing requires some practice.
- Students might want to post/edit at the same time.
- Ensuring that every student has proper access.
- How do we prevent plagiarism or copyright infringement?
- Could consume too much class time.
- Some students do not have access to the internet at home.
- Difficult to monitor proper editing
- The editing process could become all consuming for the teachers of younger students
- One key value of a wiki is collaboration, but it is difficult to design meaningful collaborative projects, especially beyond the classroom.
- There are a lot of incomplete or empty wikis out there when you search under specific topics.
- Usage of additional sign on passwords can become troublesome
- Seems better for older students that can read and write; Difficult for kindergarten
- Many of the wikis are set up more like a webpage. They are not taking full advantage of the collaboration feature.
- Older students may have freedom of inappropriate anonymity unless steps ensure otherwise.
- Validity of information posted cannot always be assumed.
Opportunities:
- Collaborate with students from other schools on topics of common interest.
- Collaborate and learn with other students around the world.
- Work can continue from home seamlessly-students don't need to go to someone else's house
- Extension/enhancement of technology use
- Develop a tool to update curriculum amongst several teachers
- Collaborate schedules for parents volunteering (times/dates)
- Teachers have an opportunity to achieve tech proficiency in order to help students or others learn to use this social networking tool.
- Teachers have the opportunity to learn from their students as well, through student postings.
- Ability to experience and maintain cutting edge technology
- Is a creative venue that may help motivate the reluctant learner.
- Efficient tool for planning and completing an extensive, time-consuming project;
- Sharing ideas with others in your field is rewarding at both ends
- Provides opportunities for students to discern the importance of questioning web content
- Wikis are great for teacher collaboration.
Threats:
- Anyone can change content unless proper security settings are in place.
- Discussions of editing etiquette needed.
- Need to make sure students are protected to the level of the parent request (ie. publications permission sheet)
- This type of teaching format may be expected of all teachers.
- Could my information be tracked down by others who could send me viruses, etc
IDEAS FOR THE CLASSROOM
- Build a story by having each student add to the existing story line.
- Build a wiki about the seven continents. After reviewing, each continent ask students to post two facts about what they have learned.
- For a grammar lesson, have the students edit a paragraph inserting all punctuation and capitalization.
- For any Middle or Upper Division written project, this is a great place for students to save and collaborate on work.
- Continuous updating of curriculum and lesson plans.
- Sharing ideas between grade levels and divisions.
- K-1: Create an animal alphabet wiki
- Elementary grades create a spelling wiki that could become a virtual word wall.
- Create a classroom Wiki to communicate with parents and teachers. A teacher can use a Wiki to list homework assignments, grades, lessons. class pictures, class news letters, etc. The teacher can also create a classroom wiki for students to write daily reflection and attach links for the classroom blog. (M. Fernandez, 2/15/09)
- For a science research project, have students create a wiki to collaboratively outline the steps of the scientific method.
Links to Examples
- Many Examples Shared by Teachers, for Teachers!
- Pledge Wiki Students write about what the pledge means to them.
- Seventh Grade English Wiki***
- White's Geometry Wiki
- Calculus Wiki
- Shanghai American School 9th Grade History Wiki
- Sixth Grade History Wiki
- Book Study Wiki
- Australian Problem Based Learning Wiki
- Flat Classroom Project ***
- A Broken World Wiki
- Eighth Grade Civil War Poetry***
- Terry the Tennis Ball
- World at Work
- Beowolf Poetry Wiki
- Wikipedia at UBC
- Science - Earth's Composition
- Middle School Science - with a wiki user agreement
http://www.commoncraft.com/video/blogs
Blogs in Plain English
Web 2.0 Tools and the Classroom
http://teachweb2.wikispaces.com/Slide+Share
Resources:
Upload & Share PowerPoint presentations and documents
YouTube - SlideShare: New and Easy-to-Use Web-based Tool
Introducing SlideShare: Power Point + YouTube
Review of Slideshare.net | gantico.com/en
Strengths:
- Free to register.
- Easy to search for topics.
- Wide variety of slideshows.
- Fun way of learning for visual learners.
- Ability to upload and share your own slides.
- Can be used for professional development.
- There are different categories to browse through.
- Share slideshows publicly or privately.
- Embed slideshows in blogs and websites.
- Join groups to connect with slideshow members.
- Download original files.
Contributed by: Cinthia Sanchez
- Can tag the favorite slideshows in order to refer back to later
- Slideshows can easily be uploaded to Facebook, twitter, and blogs
- Slideshare has a mobile app to have accessibility from anywhere
- Can embed YouTube videos into Slideshare presentation
Weaknesses:
- Despite all of the useful resources, a lot of time may be spent sifting through irrelevant slideshows.
- Because not all content is education, there is potential for students to get sidetracked.
- Quality of slideshows carry greatly.
- Site may be blocked by school district.
Opportunities:
- Students can upload slideshows for their whole class to see.
- Comments section could offer valuable feedback from anyone in the world.
- Teachers can post slideshows for students.
- Teachers can find relevant slideshows to show in class or just to gather information.
- Teachers can connect with other teachers through groups or the comments section.
- There is an option to market your own events on the website.
Threats:
- Possibility that information available to students may not be appropriate.
- Possibiltiy that information available to students may not be accurate.
- Comments section could result in inappropriate peer interactions.
- Students can possibly reveal to much information about themselves if unaware of internet safety.
Ideas for the Classroom:
- Teacher creates slideshows that can be shown in the classroom.
- Students can create slideshows to be viewed in class or at home by other students.
- Use existing slideshows in the classroom.
- Students can comment on or critique existing slideshows to see what works on what doesn't before they create their own slideshows.
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