Module 9

It's all About the Networks...
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Scootle is an amazing and very comprehensive directory of digital resources which are ideal for classrrom use. It requires quite a bit of time to work your way through the site initially, but in the long run I think Scootle would be a wonderful time saver and support for teachers! A variety of digital resources can be found on numerous key learning areas and topics, which are suitable for all ages. You can easily search for the topic and type of digital resource you would like, as well as the age group the resource is for. This is definitley a website I'd like to come back to, to explore further.

I had a quick look at the learning path options on Scootle, which are individualised online learning programs for students. These looked great, but again would initially be quite time consuming to set up. However, many learning paths have already been created and shared on the website, so you may actually be lucky enough to find the exact one you are looking for!

I found a couple of useful online activties that could be used with Stage 3 in Maths and Reading. They are quite fun and interactive and would b good educational activities for students to work on in group computer rotations in class. I have included the links below:

Maths-Time (Stage 3)

http://www.scootle.edu.au/ec/viewing/L7842/index.html

English- Comprehension (Stage 3)

http://www.scootle.edu.au/ec/viewing/L6194/index.html

A social network service is an online service, platform or site that focuses on building and reflecting on social networks or relations among people who share interetsts or activities. Popular social network services inlcude Facebook, Twitter and MySpace. These services offer an easy and efficient way to communicate with others about anything and everything! It is important to note that while blogs, wikis and nings are suitable social netwrking sites for students, sites such as Facebook, Twitter and MySpace are not. However, the majority of our students use one or all of these sites socially outside of school.

While I think these sites offer many advantages, I have personally decided not to use them myself- primarily for privacy reasons. However, my husband recently set up a Twitter account for his business and I promised I would follow it, as he only has 3 followers to date! So, here goes...

Yay! I just set up a Twitter account! This was relatively simple, however, I'm still learning how to navigate the site. I did manage to follow my husband's tweets, as well as my friend's tweets, and post a couple of my own. I definitley need some practise though!

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Module 8

RSS and Google Reader

RSS (Rich Site Summary) was a totally new concept for me...or so I thought. I have actually been using it for weeks while completeing this course without actually realising I was using it! I have been following many blogs and regularly reading new posts in Google Reader, which I have accessed via my Blogger dashboard. I found it so much quicker and easier than actually going into each person's blog separately to see if they had published a new post. I now understand how this all works...

RSS is a new, fast and efficient way to keep up with what's happening on the web. Instead of constantly checking to see what's new on your favourite websites and blogs, RSS enables you to have the information from these sites sent to your own home site, e.g. Google Reader, every time the information on these sites is updated.

It only takes two easy steps to get started...

1. Create a "reader" account, such as Google Reader. (This was done earlier in the course when we set up an iGoogle account).

2. Set up a connection between your reader account and your favourite websites. You can do this by choosing to follow a blog or subscribe to a website feed via the RSS icon (usually an orange and white square, like the one pictured below).

I had a quick look at the Directory of RSS feeds listed in the Module 8 activities and added one of these feeds to my Google Reader account, which was super easy. The directory includes lots of great resources that I'd like to peruse in more in detail.

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/_/rss-directory.htm

Module 7

Mmm...Delicious

Delicious (www.delicious.com/) is a powerful and dynamic social bookmarking tool, which provides many opportunities for users, both personally and professionally. Delicious allows you to:

• access your online bookmarks from any browser, anywhere

• discover great handpicked websites (that others have discovered) with less spam than other search sites

• share the bookmarks you love with others, or hide bookmarks that are private

I think one of the biggest advantages of Delicious, for me at least, is that it allows you to store all useful websites that you have heard about, found or used, in one central location which you can access anywhere, anytime. I have been a regular user and lover of ‘favourites’ and ‘bookmarks’ on my personal and work computers. While this has been great, when you move from computer to computer, get a new computer, (or gremlins get into your computer!), this wonderful collection of useful websites that you have been building, organising and using for so long is lost! I have been very disappointed when this has happened to me, on more than one occasion! If only I knew about delicious...

Well, actually, I had heard of delicious, but didn't really know much about it. A work acquaintance recommended this online tool to me years ago. I thought it sounded great, but unfortunately, I never got around to looking into it, and then completely forgot about it. Until of course, I was reminded about it in this Web 2.0 Course!

I enjoyed watching "Social Bookmarking in Plain English" - Parts One & Two, and felt they provided an excellent introduction to Delicious. After viewing these videos, I successfully, and relatively easily, set up a Delicious account, added quite a few bookmarks to my account, organised them according to a range of "tags" (or keywords), added a few people to my "network" (a collection of people whose bookmarks I would like to view and follow) and browsed their bookmarks. What an absolutely fantastic way to find great, practical websites and resources to use in the classroom- without having to spend hours looking for them yourself! Delicious has also been an excellent way for me to store some of my frequently used websites, as well as all the tools covered to date in Web 2.0. I will therefore have no excuse for forgetting about any of these tools and not using them!

Following other people’s delicious bookmarking (through the online network that you build), and allowing others to follow your bookmarking (by making your bookmarks public), are what makes this bookmarking tool “social". I found that it can be a little tricky to find people and add them to your network. You can search for the person, however people may use different screen names to their actual names. Therefore, if you want to add a particular person to your network, it is probably best to ask them what their delicious bookmarking name is. As well as searching for network users, you can also carry out general searches for bookmarks on a particular issue/topic.

How could this tool be used in the Classroom?

You could create Delicious accounts for students to use at school, so that you can also sign in and contribute to the accounts, e.g. add bookmarks that you would like students to refer to when working in the classroom, or instruct students to add bookmarks to their account. If the teacher sets the user name and password for these student accounts, it should make it much easier for the teacher to monitor the students' use of these accounts, e.g. make sure students are using the account for school purposes and using it appropriately. The fact that students know you can access their account, is also likely to make them more responsible and accountable when using this online tool. The issue of monitoring students' use of Web2.0 tools covered to date has been an area of concern for me. Perhaps this is one way around this issue.

Module 6

Creative Communication
The technology tools bubble.us and glogster are fantastic examples of a "non-traditional, fun way for kids to learn". They are free, user friendly, interactive, collaborative and are a great way for students to develop their skills and express themselves.

Bubbl.us is on online brainstorming and mind mapping application which enables you to organise thoughts/ideas/information logically and clearly into a main idea bubble and various related ideas bubbles (termed a "child" or "sibling", depending on their placement in the mind map).

Glogster allows you to create a glog (not to be confused with a blog!) which is an online poster in which you can easily incorporate graphics, photos, videos, music and text. It is a multi-modal tool that is very open ended and creative. A great way to differentiate learning tasks and products for students.

The technology tools introduced in this module were both completely new to me. I enjoyed exploring these tools and having a bit of a play with them, but even after spending quite some time doing so, I feel that I have just scraped the surface! I would love to use these tools with my students, but need to become a little more familiar with them myself first. However, I have to say that our students, probably most students, are so technology savvy that they would soon be teaching me how to use these applications!

Often when we introduce new technology to our students in Stage 3, we simply show them the basics, then give them time to "explore" the technology. They are then invited to share their learnings with each other and present their new found skills to the class. What they can master in a short time is amazing! Once students become more comfortable and familiar with the new technology, they can confidently use it in other areas of their learning. I think this would be a great way to introduce bubble.us and glogster to the children, especially as they are new tools for them. Showing examples of possible uses of these tools would also be beneficial.

We have actually programmed some learning experiences for next term to introduce and explore these tools during our whole class weekly Technology Centre lessons. We would then like the students to use these tools to carry out and present work in other key learning areas. For example, concept maps about bible passages in Religion (bubbl.us), presentation of an autobiography study in Reading (glogster) and a poster outlining their political party's policies in HSIE (glogster). I'm sure students would also love to present a range of other things on these tools.

These tools are a great way for students to organise their work and understandings on an ongoing basis. It is easy for students to access their work (at home or at school), add to or edit their work and invite others to view or contribute to their work. These tools are also a great way for students to present their learnings at the culmination of a topic or unit, and could therefore form part of their assessment.

A few areas of concern...

• At times, I found it quite tricky to edit in bubbl.us and became pretty frustrated! I'm not sure how students would go with this- they would probably figure it out! I may just need a little more practice. Watching the instructional video again would probably also help, and would be a wonderful way to introduce this tool to the students.


• Glogster also has so many options and resources, which is fantastic, but is something that the students may get bogged down with. They love making things look "pretty" and in doing so, sometimes don't actually get to the task at hand. I think allowing them time to purely explore the tool first, will make it easier to use the tool for a different purpose at a later date.


• Lastly, I'm not sure if we can simply just get students to set up a bubble.us and glogster account. While it is super easy to do so, I'm not sure of the ethical and privacy issues surrounding this. Are we required to supervise and monitor items created using these accounts? And if so, how could we successfully do this? It would be quite difficult, as students can access them at home also. It would also be quite time consuming, as there would be so many accounts to monitor! I'm also concerened about whether it may become a vehicle for cyber bullying. Perhaps we need to address these things with students and have them, and possibly also parents, sign an agreement about responsible use of this technology. These are things that would need to be discussed at a school level before proceeding.