Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Web Pages vs WIKIs

Well, here I am.... My students are studying the American Revolutionary War. I've decided that I want my students to create a webpage from the era of the French & Indian War through the American Revolutionary War. For an authentic problem, I told them we would send the webpage to my friend who is a teacher in Texas so his students would be able to learn about this important American History.

I found creating a webpage in school to be very difficult. The software was not available. I thought I would load NVU onto a jump drive. It worked! Problem: The amount of time to have students put the information onto the computer with NVU loaded... Plus the added work of me having to go home and make it viewable online...

I decided to create a Wiki page. The information is flowing so much faster and it is definitely less work for me as the teacher. The students don't need accounts - they can just edit the page I created under my account... It is less maintance on my end too of loading the web pages!!!

Has anyone else found using WIKIs to be easier than students created web pages??!?!?!

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

The Future

It's amazing the different types of technology I am beginning to use in my classroom. For 7 years now I've done novel reading with groups of kids in my class. At the end, I would just give them a test or a book report they would complete on construction paper. As we just finished a novel, I decided I wanted to integrate some of this new found technology I've learned about the last two years . . . I decided to have the students create book commericals using a FLIP camera. The enthusiasm and excitement each group had as they created a design document was amazing! I had a teacher walk in and say should could feel the learning in the atmosphere.

This brought me to think about the usage of WIKIs in my classroom. I've decided I am going to attempt to create an American Revolutionary War wiki with all the famous people my students have been learning about! I am not sure how the first one will go, but like everything else, I'm sure I'll make adaptions and changes as I do my second. I feel the days of ceral boxes, and mobiles, and construction paper book reports are out for me!