TASK 7

So I have read and explored the wiki world and here are my thoughts. The wiki that most affected me was jennifer Swift's. I thought it was such a great way to collate thoughts from the kids and the body of thoughts made for some fabulous critique about the book and the quotes were great too. I have noticed that I am not the only one to leave something hanging and some of the wikis have defintely gone off the boil. So my question is how do we keep them active?? I think part of the answer is to keep connecting to it with new information or comments so that the site is 'alive'.

Also, and this is by the by. I have just read comments that people have made on the blog. Am I able to reply to these people??? like have a conversation with them?

WIKILIFE

okay, this could be construed as cheating because Amy helped me set this wiki up for the Ecuador trip. I have used it and posted information on it etc and then the group decided that they preferred to communicate via face book so I have to sign on to a face book page aaaarrrgghhh.

I think I will set up wikipages for all my classes next year if only just to post homework. I know I can use the web page but i like the idea of them being able to communicate with one another.

http://careecuador.wikispaces.com/

quizlet

I looked at quizlet and ta da which were on the list of tools to explore and found myself signing up for both and then getting straight in and using both of them last night quite late! the problem I am finding is that I get excited by the new idea, rush in and then forget about it! I sort of need a file on my desk top with all these great ideas. I could make a ta da list I suppose!!

My latest small concern is how do I embed quizlet and skype into my blog??

my skype life

So its a while since I blogged and I was glad to find it on my bookmark on my computer. I looked at task 6 and saw that Skype was one of the tools I was asked to explore. Skype is what I use to connect to England and my children and my friends. I even did a course on Skype about 2 months ago. The sound quality was poor so I lost quite a bit of what was going on but it was a cool way to connect with the course folk, many of whom used to be close friends when I lived in the UK. I have thought about using skype in the class room as a way of dialoguing with kids from abroad but we always have the time lag problem. then I thought that perhaps we could just skype with the students in Lisanne's class room next door! I think I will suggest this as a task for next week!

THANK YOU THANK YOU

So I looked at my blog this morning and discovered that two people has commented. This was a truly exciting moment! Amy and Nathalie, thank you!

RSS stands for RADICAL SITE SELECTOR

Yes it has taken me most of the week to suss it out and yes it does feel a little like letting in a tidal wave of information but.....yes I get it that the information isnt actually clogging up my google reader and I can take it or leave it. So this morning I went to the google reader (on my book mark so easy to find! thanks Tami) and looked at the weather channel which I downloaded and hey presto! it was rather good and very informative and very selective....

I have also got a feed connected to any news about Ecuador. I am going to Ecuador with a small group from Paideia in June on a service learning project with Care and its good to keep up to date. I think this will be a very good RSS feed for me to check on a regular basis. You see I have to have a reason for doing all this.

Wistfully....I wish someone would read this!!

BLOGGED UP!

So I was a diligent little Pi20 student this afternoon on my break! and I started looking at the recommended sites. I was super impressed with JoJo's site and could see that the students who had posted on his site were clearly enjoying the 'scribe' responsibility. There is an ease of communication here which I am interested in. The minute students communicate easily I always feel the learning starts flowing

I then looked a the site called 'Edublog insights' and thought that everything she said (who?? can't remember.) was totally relevant and made so much sense. My she had a lot of responses. The 'I don't set homework' blog was particularly interesting for me because Elizabeth Hearn and I ran a faculty meeting looking at one of Alfie Kohn's articles about homework. If we take up this discussion again it is clear to me that blogging is the way to go. I liked that people posted links to articles about homework on it too.

Finally, Natalie's blog is just fabulous! Its interesting and informative and amusing and easy to read. It gave me the same feeling reading it as Alastair Cook's letter from America did on a Sunday morning in England. Its like comfort food.

Byee.