Here is a link to my web based learning experience.
http://mrde.wikispaces.com
It is in the beginning and early stages of my own personal classroom wiki. I know earlier I've stated how I want to collaborate with another classroom in the future, but for right now this will be my online learning environment. When the wiki is in full operation, I want it to be a central hub for everything in my classroom. Parents can check it for recent news and homework, students can check it for information about school, and the students can also use it to do online based projects, and even post their projects. I want it to be a place for communication with parents and also for collaborative writing pieces (i.e. poems, songs, brainstorming ideas almost like a mindmeister) amongst the students.
My lesson will be focused on different countries around the world. I know that my current students are very interested in their countries where they know that their families are from (Cambodia, Vietnam, Mexico, Haiti, and a couple more). They always seem to ask me about these countries and I answer them to the best of my ability and sometimes we search them on the internet, but this online experience that I am creating I think is a perfect opportunity for the students to go off and do it themselves.
I will have links for the students to search and even a jing video showing the students how to go about researching these countries. I want the students to post what they've found onto a separate page, and I will have a sample page of how it should look when they present their information. I know it sounds like a lot of work for the students but really, I am just going to be asking for a flag and a couple of facts about the country like where it is and famous facts.
I also had an idea to post a picture of the world and somehow have my students be able to locate the country somehow by circling it or something along those lines. Maybe a voicethread? That way the students can use the pen feature and circle the country they are researching.
Not to get too ahead of myself, like I think I already am, I would love it if the students could somehow psot the national anthem for that country, or maybe even write a paper about it and post their findings as a podcast. The more I think about this project the more possibilities I find
So those are my thoughts as of now, I'm new to having my own wiki so I'm sorry if it's not super easy to navigate just yet, but I will get the hang of it the more I play with it. As of now the pages and the navigation to those pages are on the left hand side. Give me your thoughts. Thanks, and good luck on all of yours!
I think this is a great start to a classroom website. I have found that I shift and shape my websites throughout the semester, so it will come to life as you find uses for it. One thing I have found helpful when adding graphics and text is to put it in PowerPoint first. In PowerPoint you can crop and group images so that they are personalized. Then right click and save as a jpeg. This customized jpeg can be uploaded to your wiki. --JenA
ReplyDeletePhil,You can actually put a Google Map on your wiki....Here is the URL: Google Maps
ReplyDeleteFrom there, I think your students should be able to put "pins" in where they live. IT would also be nice if this was interactive so they could put voice/text with the pin. That way, you'd have it all in one spot! They could make a key, etc. to show different pins for different kids. I'm just brainstorming here but this should all be possible! If you google embed and map - you'll find more links.
Jen made a really important point. Your wiki will grow as you find other "things" you need to use it for. Don't try to do it all at once. You'll learn new technical things as you go.
Dr. Fritz
Some other thoughts, Phil:
ReplyDeleteLook at the time differences on this site:time clocks
Vicki Davis did a map of the participants in her Horizon Project. Here is the map.
Notice the different color pins for the schools.
Good start Phil! One thing you might want to do for your young students would be to change your template for the wikipage and eliminate the side navigation bar. (You can do this under Manage Wiki - Settings - Look and Feel - Themes and Colors. "One Box" is just a page with no sidebar). Then you can make a hyperlink for each of the five statements on your front page that will link to the pages that were in your navigation bar. It might be easier for your young students to manage if they have little experience with using the internet. You could even do this and keep the side navigation bar so they have two options for where to click. Just a thought...can't wait to see your finished product!
ReplyDeleteThis looks great. The parents will love it too! I do have a question. Let's say your students are doing a project and adding to the wiki, would they be able to edit all areas of the wiki? If so, I would be concerned that they may edit other areas like homework assignments or classroom information.
ReplyDeleteThanks for all your comments.
ReplyDeleteLeslie- I haven't made any invites yet but I'm pretty sure that I can only have members edit certain pages.
karen- I've been playing around with the templates so far and i might take you up on your suggestion.
Dr. Fritz- Thanks for the google map idea. I think I'm going to add that to their assignment in the lesson plan.
Phil this is a great start and very relevant since you have students with such diverse cultural backgrounds. Also, this could easily be adapted for older students if you ever switch the grade level you teach.
ReplyDeleteI know that there is an app on Facebook that allows you to put little flags on a world map of places you visited. Trip Advisor Maybe you can make an account and have your students add to the map. There might be some better or more kid-friendly apps out there too.
Phil,
ReplyDeleteThis looks like a great start to a class wiki. One warning I would give you, however, is with calendars of school events and things. Calendars in a table format can be very time consuming to maintain, and are often open to change (snow days, sudden assemblies, etc). I found the calendars for my courses to be too arduous to maintain, and was happy when the school introduced an online grading program that would take my due dates and put it into a calendar for me. For school events, I have found that a link to the actual school calendar is best. Otherwise, I list due dates with assignments, rather than in a calendar form. Just a word of warning / advice.