Controversial Topic….to wiki or not to wiki?

As with most new concepts, there are always people supporting it and people criticizing it’s capabilities.  This is no different with the latest technological idea:  Wikis!

Proponents agree that wikis offer beneficial research pages as well as a place for people to collaboratively offer support and opinions on various topics.  Benefits of Wikis include:

• 1. Wikis provide students with the ability to see that thinking is never over!  It is always important to brainstorm your ideas, write about them and then revise to a finished product.  While we do this continuously during Language Arts through written stories, students need to see that this is cross curricular. There is always someone who wants to challenge your ideas and spring new ones off of them.  An example might be when posting information about an experiment.  Someone else might take the conclusions of that experiment and ask new questions which would require new thinking.  Thinking is an ongoing process, just as learning is!
  2. Wikis provide students with a strong sense of teamwork and collaboration, which is of course important in everyday life.  Students might have to post their ideas and wait for someone else to edit or change them.  Through teamwork, they can create a response that is more complete!
  3. Students evaluate and create using their own pondering.  The teacher might give them an overall concept to think about, such as a novel that was just read.  Students must then take it upon themselves to think about their responses, create the wiki and then springboard new thinking off of a classmates response to that same novel. 
  4. Connections are constantly being made to both new and old concepts.  A thought that a classmate writes might make another student think about a concept learned in science or something they saw while they were at the mall over the weekend.  Making connections to everyday life and across curriculums is how students learn!
  5. Active learning  is taking place while students are on a wiki page.  Students must think for themselves, revisit what they already know and add to their thinking in order to complete the assignment.  They can’t just tell what they think, but must also use evidence to back up their answer, therefore they are actively engaged in their learning.

Critics to Wiki propose that these sites are not accurate.  They are pulling sources from a wide variety of people, ranging in age from teen years to senior citizens.  If the page is not set to private, anyone is able to add or delete information as they see fit.  Because it’s used as a resource to gather information for student research, it’s crucial that students realize Wikis won’t always have accurate information.  Either on purpose or by accident, people can post false information.  This would make the research they are doing innacurate!  Anyone can post their ideas/thoughts/opinions to thousands of web users in seconds!

 

If you choose to use Wikis in your classroom, you as the educator will have to take responsibilities to ensure the information your students are finding is accurate.  Fortunately this is easy to do via the history tab.  You can check who has added what information in a matter of seconds.  This will help make the resources more reliable.  In making a Wiki with your class, you can set the page to private so that only those with permission may change information.  This will prohibit vandalism from happening (at least by outside users!).

 

As more technology comes into play, we gain more and more things to worry about!  Wikis are such a valuable tool for helping students expand their minds as well as their skills on the computer.  Despite being controversial, the true question really should be “why not wiki”?!?!

Should you get Wiki with it?

Wikis.  What an odd name!  But these oddly named pages are growing in popularity due to their unique charm of allowing the ‘common person’ to add their knowledge onto a public forum.  So, whether you’re one of those people who has to constantly be ‘tooting your own horn’ with the widespread information you know or one of those people that has a plethora of opinions on subjects in your head but never gets to share them….here’s your chance!

 According to Wikipedia ,  a wiki is “the sum of all human knowledge”. A variety of people are able to add their ‘two cents’ so to speak and thus it becomes a resource collected from people worldwide.  When you come across something you think you have a lot of knowledge on, you can add in your thoughts.  If you come across one of your favorite topics not yet assigned a wiki entry, create one!  The opportunities are endless!  Wikis are created for such things as recipes, historic events/people, group projects, managing documents for major companies or even giving information to universities and colleges!

 

A wiki is an online database that works in collaboration with other browsers to create links from one page to another.  It’s a place to reference facts based on ideas and information taken from various sources.  These pages can be quickly edited and updated to provide users with the most accurate information possible.  The word ‘wiki’ itself refers to the whole product.  ‘Wiki page’ refers to a single page of the database.  ‘Wiki Text’ refers to the language used to create a true wiki.

 

A wiki can be created by anyone.  The pages can be set to private so that viewers can see the information but are unable to add or change any information.  This is wonderful in preventing vandalism against the page.  They are valuable resources to use for information because they are a collections from a variety of sources from teenagers to adults.  The facts represented are more unique than those found in an encyclopedia, as they are a collection of various people’s points of view!

 

So, do you have some insight to share?  Go ahead….get wiki with it!

What can we do about Technology when we have limited resources?

Everyday it’s a constant struggle.

How can I incorporate technology into my classroom when there aren’t enough resources in the school?

How can I incorporate technology into the day when the computer lab is being taken over for county assessments and to fulfill curriculum standards?

I know technology is a motivating way to get student’s attention and have them do diligent work, but I don’t have enough time in the day to crowd around a computer!

 These are all questions I ask myself routinely!  I would love to be able to have a regular computer lab time to visit and explore different programs on the computer.  Unfortunately that isn’t always plausible!  With many counties looking for funding and ways to get technology out to different schools, it’s become increasingly important for teachers to take what resources they have and make technology an integral part of the school week!

You have one or two computers in your classroom?  Why not make this part of the student’s independent block during reading group.  Perhaps you will need to have three or four students around each computer, but they could easily have a task to complete (such as researching from a pre chosen website about a particular topic, playing a math enrichment game or typing a response to a question).  Students in older grades could use online databases to find new information about your Social Studies or Science unit as an extension on ideas already learned! 

Have a TV?  See if your school offers a TVator for teachers to use!  This is a wonderful way to have an awesome website, video clip or reading from the computer visible to the whole class.  Not only is this motivating for the students because it’s on the TV, but it also gives them an extra source of information and a new way of approaching it!

Use computer lab time wisely!  Instead of spending the entire time playing math games, have students create powerpoints (yes it will take multiple periods, but in the end of the final product is awesome!), type papers, research new information, etc.

Even with limited resources, if you’re creative with your time and resources you do have, your classroom can incorporate technology to benefit students, while still involving them in the curriculum. 

So, have you used technology today?!

Powerpoint…”point, click, you’re done!”

welcome-to-sheaville.ppt

abcs-of-fifth-grade-through-pictures.ppt

Every teacher has that moment.  Where they’re out of motivating ways to have students complete projects.  They’ve done the paper/pencil brochure for descriptive writing.  They’ve tried the speech as a character from a book.  What do they do next? 

Why not try Powerpoint?!  According to the experts, powerpointing is

“a high-powered software tool used for presenting information in a dynamic slide show format. Text, charts, graphs, sound effects and video are just some of the elements PowerPoint can incorporate into your presentations with ease”

There are many tutorials online that can walk you through the steps of using powerpoint.  This tool can be as high-tech or as low-tech as you’d like!  The incentives for using powerpoint are:

• creating various different kinds of slides (included can be graphs, pictures, text, comparison charts, etc).

• Use of different fonts to attract attention

• Easy ability to insert pictures and video clips

• use of mouse to move feasibly from slide to slide

• ability to contain a plethora of information on any number of slides

• color and slide design can be chosen by the creator

• class handouts/notes can be printed off easily

Powerpoints can be used for whole group activities.  In this case, the teacher might create a presentation for a more lecture based class.  The students could take notes directly from the slides or on the handouts that are provided.

The teacher could also create the powerpoint as a peroformance based assessment.  Students could work singly or with a partner to open a powerpoint and complete certain tasks, given the directions inside the powerpoint (example: matching letters to appropriate words, dates to important events, etc).

Powerpoints can also be created by the students in a variety of subject areas!

• creating information about important events during a Social Studies unit

• Creating a ’sliding book report’ where they tell about the different plot elements in a novel read

• creating a math tutorial for younger students to help them with different concepts (how to add, subtract, compare fractions, etc)

• A presentation of review before a quiz/test to share with a buddy group

• A final, end of the year presentation, including pictures of various events that happened throughout the year!

Powerpoints can be incorporated into many different subject areas.  The students get a kick out of using the computer to present their different information! It’s more motivating than a paper and pencil activity, as it provides them with a new and different opportunity!

Powerpoint is very simple to use and navigate.  The following clip provides you with an online tutorial that helps get some of the kinks of the program out!

Examples of Powerpoint used in Sheaville can be found above!

What do I need to Podcast in my classroom?

If you’re thinking about getting started with a Podcast in your classroom, there are a few key elements you will need!

• Obviously at least one computer that students can speak into

• If the students are working in pairs, a stand alone microphone works best.  If students will be podcasting alone, a headset microphone with headphone works very well.  It just depends on what type of podcast you will be working with!

• Sign up with audacity!  This is a free site that will allow you to edit, revise and put together your podcast into an MP3 file.

• Written permission from both parents and administrator.  Make sure they are aware that the most information being given out is a first name of the ‘crew’ assembling the podcast.  Other than that, viewers will only be able to hear their child.

• Motivated students!  It often works best, particularly for the younger grades, if they walk themselves through the writing process and have a final copy in hand while reading into the microphone.

• Set ground rules!  If you are using audacity, you are able to edit out any unwanted sounds and edit in any sound clips!  Inform students of this so that if they DO make a mistake, they are aware that they can ‘plug along’! 

• Examples of Podcasts created by students around the same age are helpful.  Not only will this motivate students to want to ‘do it like them’ it will also give them pointers on things they want to include or don’t want to include in their own class Podcast!

• Have fun with it!  In the beginning it will probably be time consuming, but I hear from reliable sources that after you do it a few times, you get the hang of it and the process of editing and sending it out on the web becomes easier!

Happy Podcasting!:)

Is Podcasting for your classroom?

At first when I heard about podcasting I thought there was no way it belonged in an elementary classroom.  With the lack of time able to be spent in the computer lab and the worries of student’s personal profiles being posted online, it wasn’t anything I had ever thought would benefit my students, while supporting curriculum standards at the same time.  But my viewpoint, after investigating what exactly a podcast is, as well as diving into some elementary created podcasts, has been changed completely!

 You might still be asking yourself

What exactly is a podcast?!

Well, I thought the same thing to myself a few weeks ago.  It sounds cool…..but what does it entail?  According to Podcast Alley , podcasting “allows individuals to publish (podcast) radioshows, that interested listeners can subscribe to.”  Podcast sounds a lot like ‘broadcast’ because that’s what is: it’s broadcasting different audio sounds (music/voices/etc) to various different users in a new and innovative way!  Many podcasts focus on one concept, but can be as broad or as narrow as the podcaster wants.  The Podcast can range in time as well!

Now you’re probably thinking

That’s great, but where does it fit into the classroom?

Luckily for you, I thought the same thing!  After researching various podcasts and listening to the perks of them, I realize there are MANY different ways to use podcasts in your classroom, from elementary school to college level!

• Podcasts can be used to broadcast to others about FIELD TRIPS!  Students could tell various accounts about what they learned and how it tied into what they had discovered in school!  Their field trip might help another class better understand content who can’t go to that place (ex: Jamestown wouldn’t be a place students from CA would go to learn about the colonies.  A podcast from a class in VA who took a trip there could help them further/deepen their own education!)

• Podcasting can help with storytelling.  One student might begin a story, while another adds on.  This could be a continuous story created by the entire class and would be very funny to listen to when complete!

• Podcasts could be used to help students practice fluency.  They could read along with the voice heard on the podcast, as they would have done with a tapedeck years ago!

• Podcasts  could document class lectures, particularly at higher levels, so that students who missed class or needed a review could listen to the podcast and gain insight on what was learned.

• Students could post a podcast about math tips, days in history, words of the day or even create a class podcast for other students to view.  Not only would it help them review concepts learned, but it would reinforce concepts for other classes!

And now you’re probably thinking

…..ok, but why would I want to do all that?

Yeah, my thoughts exactly!  But Podcasts are great tools to use, alongside the curriculum to

• Improve fluency

• Give a great motivator for students to complete the writing process, as their end result can be broadcast over the web

• motivate students to learn information by listening to other podcasts (if it’s not a teacher in front of the room they’re all sorts of motivated to listen!).

• Allows them to write about things they’re interested in and then read them over the internet so it expands their thinking (instead of just being in the box) since they know they have a wider audience of listeners.

• Allows them to make connections to their learning while podcasting (especially if about a field trip or guest speaker!).

So, is podcasting for you?  It’s amazing the various different directions it can take you! 

Example

Podcasts

 

 

Ways to use technology in the classroom!

With varying amounts of technology in the classroom or available through computer labs, etc, different schools will have different ways of implementing technology on a daily basis!  If you’re one of the lucky schools to have enough funding to provide for laptops or media devices for student use KUDOS to you!  Many school systems are currently trying to improve the technology resources available in their schools to stay up to date with the appropriate usability for students!

Using technology can be simple things such as:

• allowing students to take accelerated reader tests on the computer for a comprehension quiz

• practicing math facts of math concepts through many different websites geared for math games.

• allowing students to type up a story that they already created or already have an outline for.

• giving students time in the classroom to work with computers as a station (even if there are only two of them) with a buddy to go to a pre given site or task.

For the more Computer Savy:

• Students could create powerpoint presentations from a novel/book read to be called a ‘rolling book report’.  This would take multiple computer lab sessions!

• Students could create Jeopardy as a review for a Social Studies/Science test

• Students could track weather via the Weatherbug or another internet site devoted to local weather.

• Students could practice fluency and/or comprehension by reading with a buddy or having the computer read the information to them!

• Students can use the internet (prepicked sites) to research for a project or presentation!

Interesting blog on various different ways to incorporate technology into all levels of the classroom!

 

I like to remember that all of my students will be at various levels when working with a computer.  Some are experts at typing IM/Email style, but forget that schoolwork is a completely different type of writing!  Some students, particularly in more ethnically and socio-economically diverse schools, will have never used a computer at home before and will need more basic instruction on opening up a file or double clicking with a mouse. 

It’s important to assess where the students are with computer usage at the beginning of the years, so any lessons you do with them can be planned around or modified to each level (just like a regular lesson in the classroom!). 

The most important piece of advice I’ve found is to try to keep it simple!  I like to do computer lab themes around holidays that are coming up or content information so that students are able to review and have fun with whatever their task is!

Why stay up to date with technology?

Why should teachers be up to date with the latest technology trends?!

“Technology is transforming society, and schools do not have a choice as to whether they will incorporate technology but rather how well they use it to enhance learning” (North Central Regional Educational Laboratory & Illinois State Board of Education, 1995).

This is a question that many teachers, particularly those who have been teaching for numerous years, ask either themselves or their peers.  Why, if teaching ‘worked’ without technology, should we try to have the latest technology trends in our classrooms and daily lessons?  There are many benefits to supplying students, even at a young age in elementary school, with ample opportunities to both see and use technology in their everyday worlds!

 

• By using word processing skills in elementary school, students are more prepared to type their papers and projects when they get to middle school, high school and even college!

• By allowing students to use powerpoint presentations to display their work, they are dealing with real world applications of technology that can prepare them for future careers.

• The more they see technology, the less scary it becomes and the more comfortable they are with using it as a means for presenting their projects and/or data.

• By using the computer to aide in presentations, students are also getting more practice with speaking in front of large groups, which is a skill they can carry with them throughout their schooling careers!

• Using technology programs (such as united streaming, powerpoint, etc) actively engages students.  Instead of just listening to a lecture based presentation, they are directly involved in the class notes!

• Students can use distance education to provide resources and cultural information about students from other countries!

• Students can access places to take virtual field trips to give them a hands on learning to concepts being taught in class.

• math sites can provide better understanding of skills through the manipulation of different resources on the web. 

• helps provide collaboration for students in order to have them learn and/or teach others

 

Despite all the oohs and ahhs of using technology in the classroom, I do agree that it can’t be the only means of learning for students.  If it is, students will miss out on valuable lessons in grammar, reading and problem solving skills.  Technology must become a part of the whole learning process supported by the teacher and the classroom routines.

  Tony Hopkinson creates an interesting blog which many people posted back to about whether reading, writing and arithmetic are still important enhancing technology world.  Check it out and see where you stand!

What is blogging?

Blogging was a fairly new word to me up until a few weeks ago.  Having subscribed to facebook for a few months, I’ve been blogging without even realizing it!  Blogging is becoming a growing trend as technology is being relied on more and more as a way for people to communicate!  Throw away those paper and pencil diaries you kept as a kid!  Open up your mind to the innovative way to keep track of your daily/weekly/yearly thoughts!   

One definition classifies blogging as an “easy, almost instant, publishing of content to a website, where every entry is preserved in a database and is therefore categorizeable and searchable.”  Blogging can include written entries, as well as movies, music or pictures.  It is a very open way to publish thoughts, ideas and actions.

 There are many cautions to blogging. 

• Once posted, your blog can be visible by a plethora of people nationwide

• It is typically hard to take back a comment made on a blog, particularly after many people have seen it

• One blogger says “ it’s easy to devote too much time to blogging at the expense of more important areas of both your professional and personal life.”  Keeping this in mind will help you ensure that you are only putting as much time into blogging as you truly can without becoming engulfed into it.

• Sometimes words on paper, or in this case screen, can come across a lot differently than if said in person.  Bloggers should be careful to word their pieces in such a way that a person or groups of people will not take them the wrong way.

Most blogs would suggest that being involved in blogging is like being part of an elite group.   You are free to comment back to another person’s opinion as they are free to comment back to yours.  It allows for communication across various forums both nationally and even internationally.   It’s such an exciting time for communication!  Computers themselves, as well as blogs and emails, are pushing us into a pristine era of communicating people we may never meet face to face! 

Benefits of Classroom Blogging!