Monday, October 25, 2010

Final Reflection- At last

It has been a long, frustrating (at times)and exciting (at others) journey into the world of Web 20. The course has been very engaging and VERY challenging at times, but it has shown me how to cater for and allow my students to grow in this digitial world that they are fully immersed in. After all the most important point of elearning and ALL learning is that students are engaged and challenged.

We as teachers have a duty to develop in our students the skills of being responsible and reflective learners in a global learning world using Web 2 tools. It is also important that we, the teachers are competent users of these tools.

Bloom's taxonomy has been around for ever and is very relevant to the way students learn. It acknowledges the higher order thinking skills and the Bloom's Digital Taxonomy Map certainly encompasses the Web 2 tools. I will certainly keep this in mind when planning units of work in the future to further enhance the learning outcomes for my students using the Web 2 tools that I have encountered during this course. It is important to remember to adapt and set tasks that challenge each student at their own level,-not too easy and not too hard. This is necessary so that all students are engaged and challenged and attaining their optimum learning outcomes in all areas. Referring to the Bloom's Digital Taxonomy in our planning will allow us as teachers to guide our students to this end.
My travels through the Web 2 course have been very rewarding for the majority of the time and then again equally frustrating when the technology for what ever reason, (including operator failings) doesn't deliver. It also doesn't help when ICT policy doesn't allow all the applications needed for different tools eg iTunes into the primary schools.. It has exposed me to a number of wonderful sites and tools that I will be able to comfortably use in the future with my class to ehance both my teaching and more importantly the learning outcomes for all my students. I have already begun a mini blog for my Kinders through Myclasses page in relation to the our work with Bee Bots which has had some success. I can also see Glogster as being a tool that they would embrace enthusiastically. As teachers in Catholic schools it is important to keep our values in mind at all times and to constantly remind the children of their responsibilities in this digital world that they are well and truly apart of.
I am very lucky to have been able to do this course through school and would not have completed it without the support of our Thursday Morning Breakfast Club and Amanda . Thank you all.
Thank you also to the team at CEO who have made this course possible as it has been a very worthwhile and rewarding experience.
I have l;isted a comment on the following blogs towers-janeensweb2.blogspot.com, daycarole0.blogspot.com and web2sue.blogspot.com

Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Module 10- To WIKI or NING?

WIKI -What a fantastic tool! It is a website that allows the users in a group to create and edit

any number of web linked pages in one place. It has two buttons - the EDIT and SAVE. The EDIT button transform the wiki page into a document ready for editing, by changing or adding words and /or by changing the way it looks etc. When a member of the group has finished their changes the SAVE button is clicked and it becomes a web page again. It enables everyone to collaborate and coordinate more easily. A third button - LINK when clicked will create a new page and allows the group to edit, write and save as on previous page/s. This certainly saves all those emails going back and forth!

NING is an online platform for users to create their own social websites and social networks. I found the Ning in Education site extremely interesting.
Both forms of technology offer a place for collaborative learning that can be implemented successfully and benefit both teachers and students.
The Web 20 course course has allowed me to become more aware of how it can assist in improving the learning outcomes for all students especially as we live in a digital age. It allows students to exercise their learning strengths and preferences and to complete tasks in many different ways. Web 20 allows for social collaboration which will encourage communication and cooperation and therefore improve learning outcomes.