Navigating through Wiki was amazing! I enjoyed working through the suggested sites to gain knowledge for what we have at our fingertips to enhance the education of our students. PBWorks is like having a library in the classroom. It allows for student-centered learning integrating critical thinking skills and allowing for world-wide communications. Teachers can create class notes; scheduling, agendas, workshops, syllabus, and interpersonal collaboration...to name a few. Wikispaces is much the same with a lot of the same features. I think one would choose based on personal appeal and what works best for them. I personally loved Google Sites! That would be my choice for, particularly, setting up a classroom based website with all the bells and whistles. It would be a great way to communicate with students and teachers alike. It is an everchanging document with announcements, homework, upcoming tests, "word of the week", anecdotes, "student of the week" feature...endless possibilities to make it interesting for students. On a professional level it is useful for staff profiles, team projects, plan for meetings, etc. On a personal level, it is a wonderful tool for staying connected with family and selected friends. Students could build and maintain their own websites within the classroom as an ongoing project integrating all subjects, with teacher monitoring.
I would like to build a website from this during the course of this summer. I think it would be fun. Wow, what a turnaround for me. As stated at the end of my first blog......"it might end up being one of my favorite things to do". Who Knew?
Yea....I am half way through the tools!
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I loved reading through your tool posts and seeing the change of heart over time. Here's how I (as an outsider) see it- you were slightly frustrated in the beginning and not familiar with the "system" you are using so that frustration was a big deal. Once you got to tool #7 and faced a challenge the frustration, although still there was not as attitude changing because you understood the system. Stick with me, here comes the tie in... I have to think about how our students feel when they face the same thing, how often do we (teachers) step in and support (or sometimes even take over) the thinking for them. In this situation you had to push forward on your own and look what happened, you are hooked. I wonder if we allow our students to push on (on their own) can they get hooked too? Just something to ponder :)
ReplyDeleteI agree 100%. Considering the course of my own learning of new concepts, I always try to understand where the child is in the path they take to learning a new concept. I know things do not come easy to most learners. It is our responsibility as effective teachers to find that path and walk them through it, therefore making it easier for us to let go and have them work through the challenge...being there for them to answer questions along the way. I am not an enabler, and because of that I think it makes me a better, more effective, teacher.
ReplyDeleteIn terms of presenting these great applications to our students, we would be remiss in not creating the classroom time for them to "exercise" their learning of the process.