Local Talent

Although not strictly related to this PLT we do have some collaborative learning/web2.0 experts lurking in our midst. As I was cruising the net I came across the School Library Association of Victoria (SLAV) blog Bright Ideas they have a post featuring a BHS wiki put together by Deb and Sam for a year 9 unit on graphic novels.

Check out the SLAV post- Feature wiki- Ballarat High School. To check out the wiki itself click here or go to the links section of this blog.

Online collaborative learning

As a follow up to a professional development day I attended in term 2 on web2.0 technologies I shared with my PLT group some of the online collaborative learning ideas for the classroom.
Here are the notes from our meeting.

PLT- Online collaborative learning
Monday 28th July

Web 2.0 is a term describing the trend in the use of World Wide Web technology and web design that aims to enhance creativity, information sharing, and, most notably, collaboration among users.[1] Social networking, wiki’s, blogs etc

For the classroom…

Blog- short for weblog. An online journal where your readers can respond and comment on the thoughts of the writer(s).
http://hawkesdale.globalstudent.org.au/
http://mrsmcsclass.blogspot.com/
http://mrcsclassblog.blogspot.com/

There are many different places that you can use to create your blog. http://www.blogspot.com/ is a very easy one to use. edublogs.org would be a good one to use with your class.

Wiki- A wiki is a collection of web pages designed to enable anyone who accesses it to contribute or modify content, using a simplified markup language. Wikis are often used to create collaborative websites and to power community websites. The collaborative encyclopedia, Wikipedia, is one of the best-known wikis.[2]

http://maths9.wetpaint.com/?t=anon Year 9 Maths
http://middlej.pbwiki.com/ Middle J at Bellaire PS in Geelong
http://global-village.pbwiki.com/ Global village project by class 8F from Mansikkala School, Imatra, Finland

As with blogs there are a number of different places where you can set up a wiki. Try http://www.wikispaces.com/ or http://pbwiki.com/education.wiki

Other things you might like to investigate:

Google docs - Free web-based word processor and spreadsheet, which allow you share and collaborate online
http://voicethread.com/ or http://ed.voicethread.com/about/ - Students can collaborate around almost any type of media via voice, text, webcam and drawing commentary.
http://www.teachertube.com/ You Tube for teachers, a place for sharing instructional videos.
Go2web20 http://www.go2web20.net/ Directory to all things web2.0


Worried about security?

Most applications have quite good security options where you can control who can view and contribute to the blog/wiki etc. You can also usually set up options for a moderator to edit and control contributions if necessary.


[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_2.0
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiki


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