Module 10

I am thrilled to have almost made my way through the Web 2.0 course (I just have to add some comments to the Web 2.0 wiki). I have enjoyed participating in this course enormously and would like to thank the team of incredibly talented educators for designing such an engaging learning experience. I cannot begin to understand how you have managed to make Web 2.0 so understandable - this must have truly been a labour of love. I hope you will consider designing other courses as Web 2.0 e-Learning tools continue to evolve.

Exploring the Wetpaint wiki site was great. I was very interested to learn about COPPA - ie. websites that are collecting information from children under the age of 13 must comply with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). I also learned that, if setting up a Wetpaint wiki for educational purposes, you are able to ban advertising pop-ups from appearing on your wiki which is great. I will be setting up a Wiki for my Kindergarten class for next term that will hopefully provide parents with a better insight as to the learning that takes place in the classroom - hopefully they will feel comfortable enough to share some of their comments on the wiki.

Looking at Bloom's Taxonomy and how it connects to Web 2.0 was very interesting. The link to Andrew Church's article clearing married each taxonomy to a variety of e-Learning tools and applications that exist as part of Web 2.0. Where would I place Second Life, flikr and mind mapping in relation to Bloom's Taxonomy?

Very simplistically, using Second Life involves evaluating - hypothesising, detecting, reviewing, commenting. Using flikr involves applying - sharing, editing, uploading, categorising. Using mind mapping involves analysing - organising, structuring, linking. However, I'd have to say that the connection between Bloom's Taxonomy and Web 2.0 depends on the learning goals planned by the teacher. For example, while I've linked mind mapping to one of Bloom's higher order forms of thinking (analysing), simply navigating your way around the application requires the ability of remembering how it works - the lowest form of thinking as detailed by Bloom. I guess the bottom line, from an educator's point of view, is ensuring that Web 2.0 e-Learning tools are integrated into the curriculum meaningfully - in a way that helps students develop their higher order thinking skills.

Even though this is a reflection on Module 10, I intend to return to this blog and hopefully share some of the experiences I have when actually implementing what I've learned from this course.

Until then - take care - Cara

Module 9

Hi there - this module has taken me on a tour of many different and exciting things.

Firstly, there's Scootle. What a fantastic repository of resources. I've created my first 'learning path' (ES1 Literacy learning objects) and have managed to share it as a school learning path. My next step will be to set up PINs for all the Kindergarten students at school and then I'll start working on integrating Scootle as part of the literacy and mathematics group work we do in Kindergarten.

Secondly, it was a jump to social networking sites. I've actually had Facebook and Twitter accounts for a little while now so I am somewhat familiar with them. I joined these networks after watching a documentary on the ABC Four Corners program about bullying. One of the stories featured involved a one young man who tragically ended his own life. A Melbourne couple were being interviewed about their son and his involvement with social networking sites on the Internet and his use of mobile phone technology. The couple were well educated, involved and caring parents. They described their relationship with their son as being close and loving. They assumed that being home in his bedroom, their son was safe and sound. What they were unaware of was how involved their son was with technologically based social networking and the pitfalls that were befalling him. Unbeknown to them, their son was exposed to bullying via the Internet and on his mobile phone from friends he had had a falling out with. The upshot was that the young man felt so overwhelmed with the situation he found himself in that he jumped off the Westgate Bridge in Melbourne. This happened only in February of this year and here was this amazingly brave couple sharing their story in order to help educate parents about the importance of being aware of what their children are doing on the Internet - especially in relation to social networks. With children of my own I decided to make myself familiar with social networking in order to be aware of some of the problems they may encounter - I thank that couple for their bravery in sharing their story as I'm sure many other parents do. I've decided that banning access to such sites is not the answer. Spending time helping your children, or the children that you teach, navigate these sites is the way to go. "Ignorance is bliss", as they say does not apply here, rather I would go with the saying "being forewarned is being forearmed" - it's all about empowering children.

Thirdly, it was a trip into Second Life - a 3D virtual world where you can travel back in time to the Middle Ages or any other place you can think of. The applications of this technology are possibly greater for secondary education, although I could see our upper primary students effectively engaging with it - particularly the students who are currently using Google Earth to take them back to Ancient Rome as part of the Gifted & Talented Program at school. Second Life could provide them with a more detailed virtual world to travel through. As far as infant students go, Second Life reminds me of a virtual world called Club Penguin which I know my children have had a great time exploring (and me too if truth be told). Like most e-Learning tools, application is only limited by a teacher's imagination!

I am looking forward to exploring the last module of the course now - take care - Cara

Module 8

You can see that I've been busy tonight working through the Web 2.0 course - it really is addictive!

Google Reader is a great way of keeping up to date with the latest information from your favourite sites. So far I have subscribed to some of the blogs created by teachers from the Web 2.0 course. As I become more familiar with things in cyberspace I'm sure my list of subscriptions will grow rapidly - the number of RSS feeds on my i-Google page have already!

I can see that RSS feeds could be integrated into any learning experience. For example, students could include RSS feeds onto their blog or wiki sites that relate to the content they are studying - eg RSS feeds from the Bureau of Meterology if learning about weather or from NASA if learning about space. It's just a matter of ensuring relevance to the content. Personally, I love being kept up to date with the latest cricket results from across the world and with the Ashes about to be contested, that's important!

Take care - Cara

Module 7

Hi there - I have really enjoyed exploring Delicious. I had heard the term before but didn't know what it was all about. I think it's great for two reasons.

Firstly, it was only the other day that I went to look up a site I thought I had bookmarked at school when I realised that, while I had in fact bookmarked it, I had not done so on the PC I was working on! Frustrated, I then added it to MyInternet page as a bookmark. Easy enough to do but, not all my bookmarks are school related - eg Facebook, twitter etc...Delicious offers a way of bookmarking all your favourite sites.

Secondly, I frequently use the Search Properties function available on MyInternet, however, I often find the searching process itself quite frustrating and somewhat clunky! Delicious takes this function to the next level, allowing you to link with other users and their bookmarks - a fabulous way of sharing fantastic sites.

Enjoy using Delicious - I did!

Take care - Cara

Module 6

Hi there - I just keep enjoying this course and am constantly marveling at how straight forward using most of the e-Learning tools are. I think that with whatever e-Learning tool you're looking at using, the best approach is to just 'go for it' - yes, just keep pressing those buttons! What's the worst thing that could happen? Well, you might delete something you didn't mean to and all that would mean is that you'd have to start from the beginning - haven't we all be in that situation before.

The most appealing facet of the Web 2.0 course so far, apart from getting to play with heaps of fun things, is the confidence I'm gaining in being able to form an opinion about the educational value of many of these e-Learning tools. I accept that my opinions will change over time - but that too, I think, is a positive thing. Feeling confident enough to evaluate something is in itself empowering. I'm also realising that you don't have to be a brilliant technician of all e-Learning tools - you just have to be willing to attempt to navigate your way around a tool, be prepared to ask for some help, accept that you'll make mistakes and, seek and share knowledge.

Now onto bubbl.us - mind mapping is a valuable tool for students as a means of synthesising information and ordering knowledge and understanding across all key learning areas of the curriculum. In some aspects, I found the process of creating the mind map a little restrictive but that probably has more to do with my limited knowledge of the tool itself. I'm keen to check out what other similar tools are available.

I've enjoyed checking out Glogster and again can see the educational value of integrating such a tool into learning experiences. Integrating this into a Stage 3 unit on government could be interesting - students could use Glogster to create a poster of themselves running for Parliament or, perhaps a poster highlighting the effects of global warming. I think this tool, in itself, provides that 'open-endedness' we are always attempting to plan for - you are limited only by your imagination. I particularly enjoyed viewing one of the recommended glogs, 'Decision Decisions - A Trip to Europe' in which pairs of young children make recommendations for traveling to various parts of Europe. Once again, however, I am concerned with the privacy issues of students. Could sharing videos of our students (irrespective of the educational value of the learning experience) be inadvertently exposing them to the perils of cyberspace? I don't think it's satisfactory to say "Well, we haven't had any problems so far". I know that, as a mother, I have always ticked the 'no' box on the form that asks me whether I give permission for my children's images to be used as deemed appropriate on Internet applications. Surely this must present logistical problems for teachers trying to create something similar to what I've viewed on Glogster. Am I worried about nothing? I'd love to know what you think.

Here's a link to my first glog - not sure if it's worth sharing but here it is anyway.

Until next time - take care - Cara

Module 5

Wow! Exploring podcasts and vodcasts has been the most exciting part of this course so far (and that's saying something).

I was fortunate enough to have been invited to attend another Inner West Sydney school staff meeting this afternoon which was facilitated by a specialist presenter. Get this - in one hour (and I promise you it wasn't a minute longer) my colleague and I created our first podcast.

Neither of us would profess to be Mac users and we had never seen the Garage Band application before. We made a short podcast about mermaids. In that one hour we learned what podcasts/ vodcasts are, how to add photos, record voices and select and add a music track. We both commented afterwards that we would have struggled had we not had the hands on experience. I was so inspired that when I got home I borrowed my husband's i-Book (that's obviously a secondary school perk - Kevin 07 you've forgotten us primary teachers) and made another podcast about my dog 'Miss Molly' (my mind was not capable of higher thinking tonight).

The applications for the classroom are endless. Working in a single stream school, neither myself nor my colleague have Stage partners so we had decided earlier in the year that we would work together as often as we could. With that in mind, we have worked hard on fostering a Buddy Mentoring relationship between our Early Stage 1 and Stage 3 students. Our first project will be creating a podcast that will be viewed by the parents of these students at our respective class assemblies. The Stage 3 students will plan the project - they will be responsible for taking 'buddy' photos, writing scripts, recording voices and selecting and adding accompanying music.

Secondly, our fabulously talented Stage 3 teacher, Angela, is working on an i-learning project that will be based on the HSIE unit - Democracy. She will be working collaboratively with Stage 3 teachers from two other single stream schools in programming this unit which will include a podcasting component.

The facilitator today suggested that simple podcasts could be used as assessment tools to record student learnings. In this context I will use them to pre-assess Kindergarten students' knowledge regarding the text types I'll be covering next term - from a Language Features of Text Types (LFTT) point of view.

Additionally, Kindergarten will be exploring an integrated unit of work about 'Farms' next term so I'll plan to create a class information book about everything we learn together - the children can illustrate the book using a program such as 'Paint' and I'll scan their work for inclusion in the book.

Probably the project I'm looking forward to the most will be working with Stage 3 to create 'progress journals', if you like, about each of the processes involved in creating some of the artwork they will be exhibiting in our Art Show next term.

The possibilities are only limited by your imagination! All I have to do now is work out how to actually save the podcast I made tonight and install i-Tunes on our school network.

Have fun pod/vodcasting! Until next time - take care - Cara

Ladybird, ladybird....

Ladybird red-green-blue
Originally uploaded by nutmeg66

Here's the gorgeous photo that caught my eye in the Flickr gallery - it's called "Ladybird red-green-blue" - enjoy!