This is going to be a short post on some tools I think we might want to consider having our students use.
For slideshows that our students are going to create and post, and on which other students would then comment, I’d suggest One True Media (without student audio) or Show Beyond (with student narration). I’ve found Authorstream easy to upload PowerPoints.
VoiceThread is obviously ideal. However, it’s blocked in by my District now. I’ve been working on that, though, and I should know next week if they’re unblocking it.
Of course, each class doesn’t necessarily have to use the same web application to create their presentation. As long as it’s easy to access the comment feature and not blocked by any of our schools, we each could possibly use the one we prefer best (though there certainly would be benefit to our students if we did use the same — it would be less for them to learn).
Mixbook has some kind of collaboration feature that allows people to work on developing the same slideshow at different times. Depending on how our working together goes, that might be interesting to explore further down the line.
Rita has experience using blogs and podcasting with sister classes, and those are certainly tools we could consider.
I really like Daft Doggy Voice Recording as a super-easy way for students to communicate with each other, too.
We could also, at some point, include considering developing a closed social network for our students. Ning is one tool (see Steve Hargadon’s list of classes using Ning). Unfortunately, for now, my District blocks Ning (but that, too, might change next week).
Tibor has had a good experience with Mixxt, which is similar to Ning. I’ve also been checking-out Webjam, Spruz, and Big Tent.
Well, I’m done with posting here for the weekend. I’ll look forward to reading your comments.
January 19th, 2008
Four of us have been able to post introductions. Ana Maria in Brazil just returned home from a long vacation, and is involved in teaching an online class on blogging, so she might not be able to participate with us for another week or so. But she is very interested.
I have also added everyone to this blog as an editor, so now all of us should have the ability to leave a post.
In this post, I’d like to try to give a summary of what people have told me in emails, along with my own thoughts. Then I thought we could just start a discussion through the comments section. Feel free to correct me if I’m not accurately representing what you wrote.
After I’m done with this post, I’ll write another one sharing ideas of how we might want to have our students communicate and what tools might work best. As I mentioned in my first post, this might or might not be an artificial division. But it helps my thinking, at least.
Since we’re all going to be receiving everyone’s comments, I can see that discussions on both of these topics could end up blending together.
Here are some ideas (again, here, there are probably some artificial divisions — most, if not all, of these ideas blend in with each other):
Online Introductions To Our Countries
Tibor thinks his students would be particularly interested in using this framework for a number of topics, including cultures co-existing, racism, stereotypes our students might have about the other countries in this project, and a wide range of social issues (women’s rights, music, the states of families, student rights, etc.)
My Government class will begin in February by learning about the major cities in California. They will be doing some projects related to that topic, so I’d be interested if other classes might do some similarly basic informational projects for exchange. My class will also, obviously, be studying how the U.S. Government works (starting in April), along with how people make social change. They’ll be organizing to solve a community problem, too. I’d be interested to see if any other classes would like to do informational exchanges around these two topics, too.
Dot has sent me a draft of a questionnaire that she thought would be good to use among our classes at some time. I’d like to post the file on this blog. I know it can be done, but I’m quite sure how. Does anyone else know? If not, we can just send to everyone by email.
Sharing Student & Family Immigration Histories
All of my students (World History and Government — a total of about 75 students) will be learning about immigration to the United States, and sharing their own family’s immigration history (they’ll be doing this in March). An exchange of these stories might be good. Rita has also expressed interest in this idea.
Sharing Important Moments In Each Country’s History
I’m interested in this for my World History class. Tibor likes the idea, and also points out that it would be important to incorporate student opinions, too, and not just do a dry informational report.
Conflicts & War; How & Why They’ve Happened and How They’ve Affected Student Families
The Effects Of Globalization On Our Countries
Tibor and I think it might be intriguing to see what different perceptions there might be in each country.
Tibor also made a suggestion in an email to me that I think is a great idea. He suggested that we pick a couple of social issues and each class create some kind of presentation describing the situation in their country related to that topic. That way it’s not that difficult and it can be sort of a “test” for our classes. Students can then comment on each other’s presentations (more on how that might work in the next post).
To further ensure success, I might even suggest that we leave the topic pretty broad for the first time. For example, we could leave it at each class makes a presentation or multiple presentations (I could see six or seven small groups working together in my class to come up with different ones) on whatever each of us thinks would be a good introduction to our respective countries and classes. My class, depending on the timing, might do ones on different parts of California (including sharing their favorite parts and why), or on California’s immigration history(including what they would have done in particular situations and why). Another class might do it on popular music in their country.
Then, if it seems to have worked well, we can move on to more complex projects.
I’ll look forward to hearing everybody’s thoughts….
January 19th, 2008
I suggest that we begin by each of us writing in the comment section of this post a short introduction telling about ourselves and what our hopes are for this collaboration.
I believe that once you leave a comment on a post here (which can be done without actually signing-in to Edublogs), you are then automatically signed-up to receive, via email, additional comments that are left by others. Check-back here, though, just to make sure I’m correct (which I may very well not be). I think I’ve also put an RSS feed on the sidebar for comments that you can sign up for.
Assuming it’s okay with everybody else, in a couple of days I’ll prepare two more short posts. One will summarize what people have shared with me as potential projects we can do together. The other would share some thoughts on potential networks that we can use to facilitate communication between our students (like Edublogs, Ning, Mixxt, etc.) to complete those projects.
This may very well be an artifical distinction, but I thought it would be helpful.
In each of those posts, I’d suggest we communicate through the comments thread.
I am by no means technologically proficient, so please bear with me and make suggestions on how we can better move along in this process.
Once people register in Edublogs, I’ll sign you in here so anyone can write posts.
And please remember to subscribe to this blog via your RSS Reader if you have one. If not, you can subscribe via a form on the sidebar so you can be notified of new posts.
This should be fun!
January 18th, 2008
