For several years now, my math students have written in blogs. They've done some pretty amazing work on them. This year I decided to switch over to a classroom wiki. My kids are loving it! They did some pretty great work last week on an assignment that required them to create their own pages on one of the lessons from the chapter we are currently studying. Check the link below to see their work. They were able to find some awesome websites and quite a few of them posted some videos from YouTube and TeacherTube. They did grab some images from other sites and did not cite them. At this point, I just want them to be able to locate and insert the images. In the future, they will be required to cite everything.
As the year goes on, I'd like to continue to increase the complexity of their assignments on the wiki. The next one will require them to create a webpage on π. Kids are fascinated by this amazing number and I want to take advantage of that enthusiasm. But instead of individual webpages, I'll require them to construct the pages collaboratively--outside of school! I figure that wikis are meant to be collaborative spaces that are created asynchronously, so why not see if my students can work as a team while not actually working together in person! I'm very interested to see how it turns out.
Here's the link to the wiki pages. Scroll to the bottom of the page to see links to student work.
Check out: Digital Cameras in the Classroom | Symmetry in Nature | Tessellations
Showing posts with label wikis. Show all posts
Showing posts with label wikis. Show all posts
Saturday, October 18, 2008
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
EduTech Wiki: A Great Resource
I am currently doing research for a book I'd like to write on student engagement. As I read articles and follow links I seem to find more and more resources on the topic. One of these resources that I keep coming back to is the EduTech wiki. It seems like every time I Google a new theory or model of motivation I find a link in the search results to this wiki. Granted the information is usually not something I would cite, but it is a great place to get a little info. before going elsewhere (just like Wikipedia).
Technorati Tags: EduTech Wiki, wikis, education
Technorati Tags: EduTech Wiki, wikis, education
Thursday, December 28, 2006
Books That Should Be on the Banned List
Check out: Digital Cameras in the Classroom | Spreadsheets in the Classroom | misterteacher.com
2006 was a strange year for me. I read more books than I have ever read, but had by far the busiest schedule in my life. Between raising 2 year-old triplets and adjusting to teaching all four subjects in a new school system, I sometimes wonder how I managed to even open a book. So how did I devour so much good reading?
For starters, I have a 35 minute commute to work, perfect for listening to audiobooks. This past year I read five books on my drive to and from work. I also had about 15 minutes to myself after the kids went to bed every night, and, amazingly enough, I was able to read three or four more books in that period.
I'm sorry to say that I can't recommend any of these books to you though. In fact, I'm going to write to somebody (???) and ask them to place them all on a banned book list. My fear is that if you read them, you might begin the slide towards total geekdom (I've already finished it and am enjoying what's at the end). And, God forbid, you may begin to think like me or some of the authors who wrote the books.
Or maybe you might learn something incredibly useful that could enhance the experience of your students this school year. So I think what I'll do is list my favorites among these books and say that these are my recommended reads from 2006.
Technorati Tags: education | 2006 | books
2006 was a strange year for me. I read more books than I have ever read, but had by far the busiest schedule in my life. Between raising 2 year-old triplets and adjusting to teaching all four subjects in a new school system, I sometimes wonder how I managed to even open a book. So how did I devour so much good reading?
For starters, I have a 35 minute commute to work, perfect for listening to audiobooks. This past year I read five books on my drive to and from work. I also had about 15 minutes to myself after the kids went to bed every night, and, amazingly enough, I was able to read three or four more books in that period.
I'm sorry to say that I can't recommend any of these books to you though. In fact, I'm going to write to somebody (???) and ask them to place them all on a banned book list. My fear is that if you read them, you might begin the slide towards total geekdom (I've already finished it and am enjoying what's at the end). And, God forbid, you may begin to think like me or some of the authors who wrote the books.
Or maybe you might learn something incredibly useful that could enhance the experience of your students this school year. So I think what I'll do is list my favorites among these books and say that these are my recommended reads from 2006.
- The World is Flat
- (Thomas Friedman) - Should be the Bible for educators across this country.
- Everything Bad is Good for You
- (Steven Johnson) - Video games and reality television really are good for you.
- Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and other Powerful Web Tools for Your Classroom
- (Will Richardson) - I'm in this one!
- The Tipping Point
- (Malcolm Gladwell) - I had no idea Paul Revere was so revered!
- Freakonomics
- (Steven Levitt, Stephen Dubner) - Weird questions, interesting answers.
- A Whole New Mind
- (Daniel Pink) - I didn't realize I was so right-brained until I read this one!
Technorati Tags: education | 2006 | books
Wednesday, November 29, 2006
Presenting an Internet Safety Program to Parents
It was two Tuesdays this past October when another teacher and I presented a program called the Wyoming Internet Safety Program for Parents. It was a pretty successful event--about 40 parents attended the first evening and I'd say that number increased to over 50 the second night. The feedback was very positive.
Planning for the event started at the end of the school year last year and continued through the summer with collaboration taking place on a Wikispaces wiki called Internet Safety for Parents. The wiki actually became a pretty good introduction to Internet safety as it combined the knowledge I was gaining by completing iSafe certification with the knowledge of my partner (who was already iSafe certified).
This post is for those thinking about planning an Internet safety program for their school community. Below are links to the various resources that we used in our program.
More Symmetry in Nature Resources
I have added some new information and more printables to the Symmetry in Nature page of my website. You can now learn about the symmetry of leaves and print some worksheets that require students to complete some engaging symmetry activities.
Technorati Tags: Internet Safety | wikis | teachers
Check out: Spreadsheets in the Classroom | Classroom Blogs | Digital Cameras in the Classroom
Planning for the event started at the end of the school year last year and continued through the summer with collaboration taking place on a Wikispaces wiki called Internet Safety for Parents. The wiki actually became a pretty good introduction to Internet safety as it combined the knowledge I was gaining by completing iSafe certification with the knowledge of my partner (who was already iSafe certified).
This post is for those thinking about planning an Internet safety program for their school community. Below are links to the various resources that we used in our program.
- WISPP Introduction - A link to the five slide introduction I created on Thumbstacks, a site for creating online presentations.
- WISPP Slideshow, Night 1 - Here is the whole slideshow from the first night that I uploaded to Slideshare. The slides are done in the Beyond Bullet Points format, so you won't get much information from them other than how we organized the presentation.
- Ryan Halligan Story - Ryan Halligan was a 7th grader who experienced cyberbullying so severe that he decided to committ suicide. iSafe has a video that we downloaded and showed. Check this site for information about Ryan and cyberbullying.
- Pew Internet & American Life Project - This site has lots of information about teen Internet usage that we used in our presentation.
- Netsmartz.org Blog Beware Quiz - I took a few questions from this quiz and added them to the slideshow.
- Include as many community groups that have an interest as possible. On the second night, we invited a counselor from the local youth services board to speak as well as some officers from the police department.
- Keep it short--our program lasted two hours, but took place over two nights instead of two very long hours in one night.
- Provide handouts.
- Keep up the momentum (if done well, your program will have parents to use the information right away). Parents at our program were given the chance to sign up for a listserve. The goal of the listserve is for us to send along any resources that we come across.
More Symmetry in Nature Resources
I have added some new information and more printables to the Symmetry in Nature page of my website. You can now learn about the symmetry of leaves and print some worksheets that require students to complete some engaging symmetry activities.
Technorati Tags: Internet Safety | wikis | teachers
Check out: Spreadsheets in the Classroom | Classroom Blogs | Digital Cameras in the Classroom
Wednesday, August 09, 2006
Introducing Education in a Flat World
Although it's been several months since I listened to Thomas Friedman's book, I'm still riding the wave of inspiration it instilled in me when I first learned about the Flat World. As a result, I've decided this year I'd like to take my use of the read/write web to the next level. In addition to continuing my use of blogs, I'd like to begin using wikis so that my class can collaborate with other classes.
Collaborate, that's the key word. I'm looking for some tech savvy teachers who are interested in using the tools of the read/write web (wikis and blogs) to get their students collaborating and communicating with other students. To help me in my search, I created a new wiki over at Wikispaces (without advertising!) called Education in a Flat World. The site serves two purposes: (1) To educate teachers about the flat world and how it can enhance their teaching. (2) To connect teachers and their classrooms with another classroom, or classrooms, from across the neighborhood, state, country, or across the planet for the purpose of collaboration.
If you are a teacher, adminstrator, or a tech person at a school somewhere and are interested in collaborating on a few projects, or know a teacher who is, please visit the site. This should be easy for some of the bloggers out there like Tim, Dean, Steve, or some of the educators who read this blog. I've already posted a couple projects that I'd like to work on this year.
Although I've put some time into the site, it is definitely incomplete. So, by all means, feel free to register and add your knowledge to the site.
Technorati Tags: education | wikis | wikispaces | blogs
Collaborate, that's the key word. I'm looking for some tech savvy teachers who are interested in using the tools of the read/write web (wikis and blogs) to get their students collaborating and communicating with other students. To help me in my search, I created a new wiki over at Wikispaces (without advertising!) called Education in a Flat World. The site serves two purposes: (1) To educate teachers about the flat world and how it can enhance their teaching. (2) To connect teachers and their classrooms with another classroom, or classrooms, from across the neighborhood, state, country, or across the planet for the purpose of collaboration.
If you are a teacher, adminstrator, or a tech person at a school somewhere and are interested in collaborating on a few projects, or know a teacher who is, please visit the site. This should be easy for some of the bloggers out there like Tim, Dean, Steve, or some of the educators who read this blog. I've already posted a couple projects that I'd like to work on this year.
Although I've put some time into the site, it is definitely incomplete. So, by all means, feel free to register and add your knowledge to the site.
Technorati Tags: education | wikis | wikispaces | blogs
Saturday, July 01, 2006
Wikispaces vs. PBwiki
Technology as a teaching tool is only effective when it adds value to the learning experience. I've written about this concept before when discussing the process of creating podcasts. I stated that I just didn't think that they added much value to my classroom because they took so much work to produce. After the work was finished, I didn't think my students had learned much more than if they had simply done a PowerPoint.
Recently, I've been checking out wikis because I feel like I'd like to go in that direction next year. So far I've looked at PBwiki and Wikispaces. PBwiki seems to be the more popular one--I've read about it in numerous blogs and Will talks about it in his book. But to me, Wikispaces is the better choice because it has more potential to add value to the learning experience. Why is this? The text editor.
PBWiki and Wikistyle
In order to use PBwiki one must learn to use Wikistyle, or the code used to format text or add tables; basically, to create the page that one sees when they visit it. I admit that Wikistyle is not difficult to learn, at least for an adult. However, if I want my fifth grade class to begin using a wiki, I don't have the time to waste teaching them how to format text, add tables, bullet text, or more.
The Text Editor
Our students are already familiar with the text editors that they have seen in word processing programs like Word or AppleWorks. With Wikispaces, this is what they will see when they click the edit button. In a matter of minutes, students can begin creating webpages. No silly code to learn.
A small group of teachers at my school have teamed to plan a parent program on Internet safety. In our first and only meeting, we decided we would like to collaborate over the summer through a wiki. The Internet Safety for Parents wiki is slowly being built into a very informative site on the dangers that children face on the Internet. Drop by and feel free to add to any useful information.
Digital Cameras in the Classroom | Blogs in the Classroom | Alphabet Geometry
Wikispaces | wiki | PBwiki
Recently, I've been checking out wikis because I feel like I'd like to go in that direction next year. So far I've looked at PBwiki and Wikispaces. PBwiki seems to be the more popular one--I've read about it in numerous blogs and Will talks about it in his book. But to me, Wikispaces is the better choice because it has more potential to add value to the learning experience. Why is this? The text editor.
PBWiki and Wikistyle
In order to use PBwiki one must learn to use Wikistyle, or the code used to format text or add tables; basically, to create the page that one sees when they visit it. I admit that Wikistyle is not difficult to learn, at least for an adult. However, if I want my fifth grade class to begin using a wiki, I don't have the time to waste teaching them how to format text, add tables, bullet text, or more.
The Text Editor
Our students are already familiar with the text editors that they have seen in word processing programs like Word or AppleWorks. With Wikispaces, this is what they will see when they click the edit button. In a matter of minutes, students can begin creating webpages. No silly code to learn.
A small group of teachers at my school have teamed to plan a parent program on Internet safety. In our first and only meeting, we decided we would like to collaborate over the summer through a wiki. The Internet Safety for Parents wiki is slowly being built into a very informative site on the dangers that children face on the Internet. Drop by and feel free to add to any useful information.
Digital Cameras in the Classroom | Blogs in the Classroom | Alphabet Geometry
Wikispaces | wiki | PBwiki
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
