We can work IT out

The task for Day 3 is to Search for and Join a Forum.

One of the ways of sharing the project and developing a PLN during the project is the use of the project wiki. Each participant has their own page on the wiki, where they can reflect on the tasks throughout the project.

I used the wiki page for my day 3 reflection, so if you have read it there, you won’t need to read further here.

I have managed to get Day 3 out of the way, as well today. I have been a member of a number of forums for a while.
My first one was the ACCE Study Tour Ning, Then an NECC08 Ning, and recently I joined the ISTE SIG Independent Schools Ning. And, there are a few more I had forgotten about: Ning in Education, Voicethread for Educators, plus a few private ones that I use for school eg sharing news and photos with parents.
Embarrassing to admit, but I joined Classroom2.0 about a year ago and posted my thoughts on blogging (saying I didn’t get it – I meant it in a nice way ie as a shout for help) and didn’t go back for a long time. When I did, it was another one of those ‘oh, I already am a member here’ things.

The ACCE ning was useful as it was a way for a group to share different experiences while on the same journey. But, generally, I find the forums to be a little messy and hard to keep an eye on. I would suspect that more effort on my behalf is needed. This makes me worry about trying to keep it all going. And, it just may be that blogging, and twitter networks will be more of a focus than forums. I will though, keep and open mind and consider greater effort in the forum/s.

Below is Sue Water’s response to Day 3:

Between everything I do there is too much to do. While forums are good I have to prioritise my time so forums are really low on the list. My main reasons for being on a Ning are like Facebook – another option for people to learn about the work I do and to make connections with me. However for some people Nings are an important part of their learning. So is worth keeping open mind.

Blogging – shown early 2006 thought ridiculous. Early 2007 still ridiculous. April 2007 started blogging – slowly started to understand why important – you know the rest.

Thanks Sue!

I think that for me, the forums aren’t as instant – unlike Twitter, and I haven’t yet learnt a quick and painless way to see new content on the forums. Do nings have rss feeds?

While I will try to be open-minded, I suspect that in the end my social networking preferences will be:

1) Twitter

2) Blogging

3) Delicious

4) Forums

Photo: source Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial 2.0 Generic license

What Web2.0 tool should I use?

What Web2.0 tool would you use?

This year for my Year 7 maths class I want to have a learning management system – but without using commercial software ie no Moodle (takes too long to learn); no Sharepoint (need access to set up on servers) and no Blackboard (cost too much).

This is what I want to do with it:

• set tasks and have students reply that they have completed them
• put course materials online
• have students ask questions online
• have video lessons that I make available for each teaching moment
• have parents see progress of their child and make comments
• be accessible from home
• have some assessment data viewable
• have students use it to profile some of their work
• and a few other things that I have probably forgotten to mention
• have it semi-private so that students and their parents are the main (only) users

These are some the options:

• Edmodo – can I do most of this in edumodo??
• A blog
• A Wiki
• A ning
• other suggestions?

So, what would you use? Which tool will make it fairly simple, keep it organised and not be too hard for parents to interact with?

Photo: source Attribution Noncommercial Share Alike 2.0 Generic license

Side-note: Wasn’t sure what to expect when I typed “help” into the Flickr Creative Commons search engine but there were an interesting range of images.

This could be an interesting task for students to do: with a digital camera take an image that depicts ‘help’, add it to VoiceThread (or blog page), describe your thoughts and invite others to respond.