Module 10

We already have a Wiki (via Wetpaint) for our Year 9 class (set up by my clever job share partner). It has proven to be a valuable learning tool as both ourselves and the students can add and edit content to the wiki. The Scope and sequence of the course was loaded onto the wiki and information on topics and concepts has been added in different forms via text, links, powerpoints, embedding, videos, slide shows, bubbl.us etc. By way of the discussion forum, the students are able to ask for assistance for concepts or homework that they may be having problems with. Around assessment time, there are many hits and we almost feel like we need to be checking it 24 hours a day and feel sometimes we have no break from them! They also can answer each other’s problems. The wiki is wonderful from the point of view that everyone is working collaboratively. However, of course, some students are far more active and make more contributions than others, whilst some had to be encouraged several times to accept their invitation. We even have a Twitter feed onto the wiki, so that the students can check on work that needs to be caught up on while they were absent or away on holidays. Some of the more active students have become a little bored and would like to have more interaction with other students, so we may add students from other schools next year. It is good that we can control and watch the input from students who have to be invited to join. On a whole, the wiki has been a useful tool to enable the students to communicate and work together with us and each other to enhance their learning. They have been challenged to find new resources which are appropriate for relevant topics and have learnt new skills such as embedding, Googledocs, slideshare and bubbl.us, just to mention a few. This has enabled them to acquire knowledge by different learning methods and add it to the facts already learnt in the classroom.
I found Blooms digital taxonomy map to be fairly helpful in planning my curriculum. Some of the tools could fit into several categories: Flickr into Applying and Creating; Mindmapping into Analysing and Understanding and Second Life into Applying.