Day 4

Oh, today was a great day! I loved Flickr storm and all the other Flickr tools. I spent time with YouTube and TeacherTube today. Didn't get the download to work, but I'll try again. I also spent more time with del.icio.us, and I do see the benefits. I spent time tagging a bunch of sites, so I'll try to use it a bunch this next month. Thanks David, it was a great week. Each of us will spend time using at least one of these tools with kids and that will be the benefit!

Refelection

We have learned a ton of stuff in this class. The pace has been very fast, but I have enjoyed all that we have done. I really see the value of blogs and wikis. I am very comfortable with pb wiki and blogger. I am anxious to use Class Blogmeister with students and teachers this year. I think I also have a grasp on rss feeds and bloglines. What I don't get is Del.icio.us! I see the benefit of social bookmarking, but it just seems so messy. I like things neat and orderly in files and folders. I probably just need to spend more time with it. I am, however, very interested in learning about flicker tomorrow. That was the primary reason that I signed up for this class.

Blogls as an Instructional Tool

I like blogs and I think they have a place in schools; however, I don't think they are the be all, end all writing tool. Blogging in first grade is just wrong. First graders need to learn reading and writing and math. The teacher or classroom could maybe have a blog and students could post a one or two word comment, but first grade students creating and writing their own blogs would be, in my opinion, a waste of time. I have been a keyboarding teacher, and until students are trained and have time to practice their keyboarding, they should be discouraged from keying more than a short sentence.

I like blogging, however, for older kids. I like the idea of teaching the skills necessary to read blogs, and then starting with a classroom blog, and then the next step of students actually creating their own blog.

Impact of Web 2.0

David Jakes asks, “What has been the impact of Web 2.0 tools on your school, your teaching or on your kids, at this point in time?”

The impact of Web 2.0 tools has been minimal, but I am hopeful for this school year. During the 2006-2007 school year, I participated in a grant to learn about Web 2.0. I developed a Modern American History lesson about the Vietnam Protests by collaborating with a high school social studies teacher. Together we created a blog to use when instructing our students and a classroom wiki for our students to compile and share their learning. It was a very neat activity and worked well for our first attempt. The teacher taught one section traditionally and another section using the Web 2.0 tools. Our final assessment was that the students using the Web 2.0 tools were able to internalize the content better than the traditional students. The final assessment was an essay. The traditional students included dates, times, and places of events, while the Web 2.0 students described their feelings, their reactions, how they would have responded. The teacher and I felt that the Web 2.0 students would remember the content longer than the traditional students. It was a very worthwhile project.

Welcome!

Welcome to iConner iBlog. This blog site was created by Sue Conner for the Web 2.0 course through CESA 5 with David Jakes. This is the first time I have used Blogger. I have used edublog before. This is fun.