Final Course Reflection

Here I am at the end!
Despite the feeling initially that there was so much material to cover, the course soon transformed into a fascinating guided tour of the highlights of the the Web 2.0 landscape.  I enjoyed going at my own pace, the optional detours, and the reflections of fellow travellers.
Happy memories of places I'm keen to return to are:

• Blogging (great to reflect yourself and with others)
• Twitter (a wealth of topical information, provided you search with a plan in mind)
• Google Drive (tools to collaborate and collect information)
• Animoto (engaging slide shows)
• Bubbl.us (collaborative mind-mapping)
• Feedly (all your websites in one place)
• Scootle (huge potential for finding, sharing and commenting on resources)

I think Bloom's Digital Taxonomy will be a useful reference for curriculum planning and in thinking about the lower order and higher order digital skills that our students need.  It's interesting to reflect that many students would routinely use many of the Remembering, Understanding, Applying and Analysing skills.  As teachers, we can also facilitate the acquisition of Evaluating and Creating skills through our knowledge of a range of Web 2.0 tools.

Of course, we also have much to learn from our students.  Now, more than ever, they have their own networks and resources outside of the classroom.  The more we can all share this knowledge, the better the learning will be.

The types of tools available will inevitably change.  But those which allow us to work together, to learn and to create knowledge will have the greatest impact on all students.

Finally, I looked around the Course Resource Collection which has a wealth of still more ideas to try.  I rediscovered Voki there, so I'll leave my farewell to my avatar:

Module 9

Quite a lot to take in in this module!  I've used Scootle a little bit before but hadn't explored the sharing options.  The user guide is quite useful and there are some overview teacher videos on Youtube that are also good.  I don't think many teachers at my school know that we could be all sharing learning paths, so this might be something to look into.  Although it takes a bit of effort to both access Scootle and find relevant material, once you've collected some good resources into a learning path things are easier.  I've shared paths with students via a link that includes the PIN, so they only need one click to get there.

I'm still not convinced about using social networking sites in the classroom.  Second Life is an interesting idea and it's intriguing that tertiary institutions are setting up virtual campuses there.  We have a no Facebook policy at school, with no staff-student contact less than 2 years after students leave.  Twitter is perhaps the most promising to me.  It seems like it could be a way of gathering information on current events as they occur - eg. who is being affected by the storm; are there any rainbows; what street art is around; are there any celebrities around the area; what's happening today in science week; where can I find examples of corrosion, birds, butterflies, frogs, spring flowers... Paper.li might also be a good way of combining student tweets or those on a particular topic into an online newspaper.  I have a LinkedIn account but haven't really explored how connections could come together (I seem to get a lot of messages from Richard Branson!).

We have started using Edmodo over the last year or so and I'm a big fan.  I like the fact that it is a secure online environment, that it's easy to share content and have class conversations, that I can collect and mark work online and that I can connect with other teachers and share ideas.  The customer support is exceptional.  And it's free.