Adventures in Teaching and Learning

Wikispace tutorial – I have decided that I need to do more research into wikis – there are so many things you can do with them, and I’ve been planning on using them for a while. I have set one up, but it’s not been used yet … In the meantime, you can look at the tutorial on setting up a new wiki.

Some good points made here, particularly about the “Report abuse” buttons on many websites.

It was great to meet so many Heads of Sixth Form today at the Sixth Form Conference. I hope that some of you may visit this blog and the conference blog and leave a comment to let me know what Web 2.0 ‘technology’ you might try out! I am going to attach the powerpoint that I presented to this post – I hope it might provide a starting point for you to explore Web 2.0 and blogging for yourself! Take part in the conversation!

Web 2.0

Just have to link to this publication, Coming of Age: An Introduction to the new World Wide Web. It’s a pdf file. It is crammed full of interesting ideas and explanations of issues surrounding Web 2.0. The intro states:

This booklet has been made available to you free of charge, but we would ask
you to do the following four things in return:
· Pass it on to as many people as you can: friends, co-workers, your students,
your teachers, via your website….
· Look at the websites and blogs of the contributors, who gave so freely of
their time in writing chapters for this publication.
· Investigate the resources mentioned…
· … and try them out in your classrooms – no need for wholesale revolution,
just small-scale experimentation will be fine!

So, I’m following instruction one at the moment! I’ve had a look at some of the websites and blogs mentioned so far, and would highly recommend them. I’ve started investigating some of the resources mentioned, as you can see, I hope!, and I am slowly trying to introduce some of them in the classroom! Now – over to you, dear reader!

I’m now Twittering too!

Just in case anyone is wondering what the sudden flurry of blog activity is all about … I have been asked to give a presentation on Web 2.0 and blogging to a conference on Friday, so I’m busy trying to make sure I’ve tried out as many different widgets as possible, so I can share some good ideas with the participants. I’m also trying to make sure there are lots of links that will help any new visitors to my blog that would like to follow the digital breadcrumbs to find out more about Web 2.0 and blogging. It would be nice to hear from any readers to find out if they have tried any of the things I’ve been trying, either by yourself or with pupils. I’m going to try and make a Voki for my class blogs now!

www.skambalu.edublogs.org – My own blog.

www.stmre.edublogs.org – My main RE “hub”.

http://thegothic.edublogs.org/ - Tessa Ware got her A Level students to set up their own blogs, and has set them tasks to visit each other’s blogs and leave comments. This was particularly with a view to encouraging her students to keep learning, reading and thinking over the summer break. She has set up two blogs, this Gothic Novel one and one about Monologues.

http://emzy15.learnerblogs.org/ – This is the blog of one of Tessa’s A Level students.

http://edu.blogs.com/edublogs/ – Ewan McIntosh, a Scottish educational blogger, one of the well known bloggers, whose blog covers many, many relevant and up to date Web 2.0 issues.

http://blogfrancaisdepps.edublogs.org/ - Janet Carruthers at Portland Place School has set up blogs for her French classes, in all year groups.

http://carronshore.edublogs.org/primary-7-individual-blogs/ – Here is a list of Scottish Primary 7 blogs.

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2467801136 – Haringey Transformation Teachers Programme Facebook Group. Now open to everyone and anyone …

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2691930547 – Using Wiki in Education Facebook Group.

http://geogtastic.blogspot.com – Victoria Ellis’ Geography blog, with a variety of excellent links.

Get a Voki now!

But can you see her?

Try viewing her on my other website … again, if anyone can suggest how I can make her visible on this WordPress blog, please let me know! I have chosen WordPress as the destination, I’ve copied and pasted the embedding code straight into the blog post, and also into the SWF button.

Get a Voki now!

I have added to a wiki for the first time today – and what an exciting wiki it is! Anyone in the London area who wants to go to TeachMeet08 can add their name to the list on this wiki. This is at the end of the Friday of London BETT 08. Who’s planning on being there?

A Vision of Students Today

Here’s yet another video by mwesch. I recommend looking at these videos about Web 2.0 – very interesting and well done!

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=dGCJ46vyR9o

Right. My first attempt at animoto.com – this was really easy to use, and quite fun, I think. Again, I might choose to use it to produce a starter for a class. Or a quick revision clip with images with key words, for example, that students could download to watch again to try and remind themselves quickly … How might you use animoto in your lesson? (Hope it works, by the way!)

Right. I’m having difficulty getting it to play here! However, they have a special way of hosting it on blogger, typepad, facebook and other blog hosts. Just not WordPress so far, it seems! So, you could see it here, on my old STM RE Blog.