Online application

During CEP 811, I have explored many new kinds of resources and feel there are ways to use all of them effectively in the classroom. If I were teaching in Michigan and needed to implement the new online requirement, I would say the key ones for my immediate class use would be:

BLOGS

This is one of the technologies I’d love to implement in my new class. I’d use it specifically for parent communication and management. I have not taught in 10 years so I am curious to see how technology has changed how parents expect teachers to communicate with them. (Are teachers now expected to give our their personal emails and respond to parents in this way?) When I was teaching, cell phones were not as prevalent so I feel there is going to be a period of adjustment for me in this area. I feel a class blog (students can help update it) could be a useful tool to answer questions, provide updates and generally foster this as a good open channel for communication.

WEBQUESTS: 

I always taught 3rd or 4th grade so I feel a webquest is one of the key resources I could use. I am planning to send my webquest to my former colleagues/principal for their potential use! I think the inquiry method that we foster in science and social studies lessons lend themselves perfectly to webquests....it is far superior for student learning than what we used to do in computer class (research "worksheets"). 

While I think there's a time and place for all technologies, there is one I'd have a harder time using in my classrooms. 

sTAIRs: 

This is one of the technologies I do not feel I would implement. I feel they have their place (if the sTAIR is designed exactly for the purpose). But, I feel in practice it'd be hard to implement. Because my opinion is clouded because I am find it hard to learn in this manner (I've checked out many that have come in and feel I have to review it several times). I feel students would need go at different paces, some needing a different levels or kind of instruction. I feel I'd have a hard time managing whether or not they truly learned the concepts, long-term. I feel some sTAIRs could be good as review tools, but I think many of the concepts I've seen in our class sTAIRs could be introduced in a different way. 

Personally, I also think that Powerpoint Kiosk is a pretty difficult mode to work in. In my current job, I live and breathe Powerpoint and know its lapses. I think Kiosk mode is a bit buggy. As this technology evolves, I wonder if sTAIRs will evolve with it. Or, I was thinking that perhaps sTAIRs could be created as a mini-website. With all the great site-building tools out there, I think it would make them easier to create for the teacher. 

Goole Earth - a very cool classroom tool

Google Earth is more than just a program. It is a sharing platform that enables a multitude of classroom uses. 


It is at its heart a mapping program that has evolved to provide every aspect of a map in virtual 3D. You put in any search term and if there is a physical place associated with it, it provides the information in a visual form on the Earth, in the ocean or on the Moon.

◦       

Be  Beyond just being able to get directions from A to B, it allows anyone to zoom in down to the “street level” anywhere in the world. The recent additions of Google Moon and Google Oceans also have the same map features. I found it somewhat hard to navigate once you left Earth as it’s harder to provide a location point in the ocean or on the Moon unless you know the exact coordinates.

◦       I feel one could spend hours exploring these virtual worlds. It’s actually a bit thrilling to see the program zoom in from earth view down to the very address you typed in and watch as it slowly renders that address in virtual 3D—down to the colors of curtains in the window. The tools provided enable you to create a customized map, annotated it with words or pictures and even record a message to narrate it. Additionally, it has the added advantage of enabling you to see everyone else’s creations. Everyone is contributing to the creation of the Google World experience because a lot of the interesting content has been pre-created by someone else. Some are excellent (Visiting each moon mission, created by NASA) while others are harder to understand. This could be time-consuming as with any other content vetting on the internet. However, if you are in the Ocean or on the Moon, the pre-made maps are a good start for exploration if you don’t know exactly where you want to be.

This tool that could be applied in many ways. It fits in best with social studies and science. Indeed, Google Earth has been busy updating itself to now include:

1. Google Oceans-visit any location in the ocean, visit any marine center, shipwreck or dive site.

2. Google Moon-tour any location on the moon, follow along any moon expedition,

But regardless of the subject matter, Google Earth could be applicable if there is a need in a lesson to:

         - Let students create personalized, annotated maps or a tourist map of any kind

         - Let students visit a place, virtually. There are links to help locate these types of places and to provide further information. There’s also a historical view also enables you to look back on these places in any given year in the past. 

Teachers can use Google Earth as a way to bring any class topic to life. They can use this as a group tool to visit a place virtually or to follow along on a pre-created tour. They can visit:

         - any place (and time) they’re reading about in a novel (ie: Walnut Creek, any city in Europe after WWII)

         - any physical geographic formation or area (ie: Great barrier reef in Australia, Great Wall of China)

         - a landmark, building, monument (ie: a gothic cathedral in France, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue)

         - noteworthy place in the news (ie: Haiti, currently active volcanoes)

         - Let students create comparison maps

         - Downtown NYC (1942 and now)

         - Southern coast of Lousiana (before and after BP Deep Water oil leak)

Students could use this in a more creative fashion, by becoming content creators themselves. If students were old enough to have their own accounts, they could create google accounts and presentations on their own. Or, I imagine this could be done in groups for younger students. I think the mindset and pedagogy of a webquest is a good one to have when using Google Earth in the classroom. Technology skills needed are very similar to the ones needed in a webquest. They will be doing much zooming in and out. Much of the cognition skills needed involve navigating the program and going through it to see what they need for their particular purpose. Students need to have an understanding of folders, as things are organized in folders on Google Earth.

I think the amazing thing about Google Earth is its collaborative nature -- your finished product becomes part of its library of resources. Once you create a map, you can send it to others via email, but also post it for public viewing. In this way, classes can take advantage of a lot of pre-created content. But, it can also contribute to the ever growing catalog of content to view, which is very powerful. Of course, this will follow along any popular content platform (like You Tube) where there will be so much to vet that it's hard to get to relevant material. 

Wikipedia

It's been several years since I have taught at the Chinese International School in Hong Kong, but I've recently been in touch with the principal who spoke to me at length about the primary school's transition to MACs this fall. This is what I updated on the school's wikipedia page. Since it's been a few years since I taught there, I'm not sure what else has changed! You can see the school's entire page here.

I have also created my very own Wiki dedicated to collecting good examples of webquests we've come across during the course of this class. I've created my wiki using the same Webs.com platform I used to create my class website. Visit and add a  webquest of your own now!

Blogs in the Classroom

I have not read, contributed to or spent much time on blogs before this class. But in the last few weeks I’m coming around to how they could fit in my life and particularly in my teaching. I especially like the idea in the GALE article about using a blog as the channel for assigning and receiving homework. Beyond the fact that a blog is a natural “online journal,” its ability to share with others lets students see others’ work which enables cooperative learning. Students could even ask each other questions and comment on work. I have benefited from everyone else’s posts in this class so I can see this working well in my own class.

Beyond a blog, I think one of the hallmarks of web 2.0 in general is the social or community aspect of the internet. As such, collaborative learning is a natural teaching strategy to use with blogs in the classroom. Oftentimes if there is a class blog, it’s likely written by the teacher. If I had 3rd grade students or older, I’d have them helping to contribute to that blog, either in the form of a weekly reflection or update by one student each week.
Certain instructional strategies do not lend themselves naturally for using blogs, although I think most could. For example, a didactic (sage on stage) type of teaching strategy seems contradictory to the nature of blogs. It’s not that it could not be used—a teacher could be imparting content to their class while they blog their notes. But, it’s using blogs for its own sake, without any added value to instruction and learning. The teacher is merely asking for student response in blog (vs. paper) format. Incorporating blogs into a lesson that’s inherently didactic in its teaching approach is like having a Porsche on a road where the speed limit is 20 mph—overkill. It misses the point of a blog, which is to enable group sharing.

Question for You

I was just looking through all of your post on the topic. Nice job, you all seem like experts on this so I have a question for you: Is there a certain format required on webquests that you've come across in your experience?

I found this page which lists strong webquests. However, all of them tend to have the entire webquest on 1 page. But, the Questgarden site where so many of us found examples has a certain structure. Their webquests whose tasks are all broken up into separate pages, which is far easier for one to focus.

When I do my webquest, I'm going to organize it along the latter template....seems a lot easier. Thoughts?

How to make a good Webquest

Being new to webquests, I found this site very helpful to give me some background. Posting it here in case others are interested.

After reading it, I began to realize that a webquest is not unlike any other rich project one would do in class, it’s just enhanced with information from the internet. So, I’d think any time one is looking to evaluate a webquest, we can apply the same fundamental criteria we use for any educational tool:

Goal-oriented: Is it designed to meet the educational objective?

Appropriate - Does the language and content fit the audience / age level?

Communicates Clearly – This comprises 2 areas:
1. It’s visually clear and uncluttered. The design helps one focus on key things, in their proper order
2. Its user experience is easy to follow (page organization and site navigation is intuitive and makes sense for the audience)

Added value internet research – Doing the project online is preferred to offline research. That it, it’s not online research for the sake of using the internet, the internet provides an added-value component to the research

As a side note, while a webquest is meant online viewing, if many of these had been printed out on a standard classroom printer, it would have been nearly impossible to read. Many have color backgrounds that would kill a pricey color ink cartridge. Others seem to use color tones which are too close to each other, making any printout difficult to read. I’d think webquests with a printer-friendly option would be very helpful.

Examples of good webquests, with some commentary:

Rocks and Minerals
• • Content is all there: tasks broken up into meaningful parts, students each have separate rolls, language is age-appropriate and clear, navigations and site is well-organized and clear.
• But, looks a bit drab due to color choice and lack of imagery. However, the colors are not distracting so it’s still a good webquest.
• Student evaluation rubric is very clearly outlined.


Creepy Crawly Bugs
• Here, the webquest content is excellent. However, the site organization really distracts from the project.
• Color choice is a shocking yellow which makes the bug images visually pop. However, as mentioned above, it may be hard to print this site since it’s one long page. While anchor links help navigate users, one’s eye is all over the place. Students could focus more on the task at hand if the authors had put each section on its own page.
• Student evaluation rubric is not included, which is a minus.

Stair Design Form I found on the internet

I was having trouble downloading the sTAIR design document posted on the Angel site so I found one on the internet. I am posting it in case anyone else is having trouble as well. Check out this SlideShare Presentation:

Stair Design Form

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