wallwisher in the classroom

Here are a few of my experiments and thoughts on using Wallwisher in the classroom:

1. A few examples of what can be posted.

2. As a place to gather feedback or a place for brainstorming.

3. As a place to quickly collect, compile and access resources.

Pros for using Wallwisher - participants don't have to have a wallwisher or email account, owner can delete notes or require approval before they are posted, is fairly for participants to use, postings are limited to 160 characters and so "spamming" doesn't become a problem

Cons for using Wallwisher - can't delete your own account, can't post files that don't have a URL, can't view a linked website fullscreen, each wall must have its own URL and they are hard to find/google, and hard to remember

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Ideas for Technology in the Classroom

This four minute video helped remind me of all of the different tools I'm acquiring to teach with. Looking at this list of ten tools brings to my mind the fact that although it is really easy to do, as a teacher, I have to be careful not to get into a predictable routine with any of them. I think that a truly engaging class is one that doesn't use the same tools everyday, but uses a healthy and revolving mix of them all...

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First Thoughts on SmartBoards

Today was my first day of teaching with a SmartBoard and Notebook software and I'm impressed with how easy it is to use. I'm not entirely certain I'm using it to its full creative capacity, but that will come with time, I suppose. Today I used it for simple note-taking and note saving, and let kids in another course use it to list what they each knew about a particular ecology topic before and after I taught the lesson. I like the way I can turn each lesson into a PDF file that the kids can download from my class website, too.

Experiment with Podcasting

  
Download now or listen on posterous

chemweather.m4a (3091 KB)

This is my first real podcast. I used it in a chemistry lesson about atmospheric pressure. 

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Using Glogster in the Classroom

Glogster is a new online tool that anyone can use with free registration to make an interactive poster. It is fairly easy to use after a little tinkering around and offers a pretty nice selection of graphics and styles that would appeal to anyone who is interested in scrapbooking and making personalized websites, if you don't mind being limited to a set amount of space to work on. 

 

My first ideas for using Glogster in the classroom started with making a "poster" that was set up to send students on a webquest I had built, or maybe using it to list alternative versions of an assignment or opportunities for extra credit. While I think these ideas are worthwhile, I think that they are not using the creativity that Glogster lend itself to in its fullest capacity. 

 

So then I thought about using this tool as a place for students where students can make an online and interactive poster in place of the traditional poster assignments that generally don't get the student participation that I usually hope for. So I developed my own glog that students can look at to see their assignment, and then each student can make their own Glog to complete the assignment. Some good things I see are that first, the limited workspace becomes a useful control on how much time students put on the assignment versus how much time they spend playing with graphics and font sizes. I was impressed with how easy it was to add a movie from YouTube and add pictures and make them look cool without spending too much time on it. I really like the idea of students being able to make an interactive poster and even grading them could be fun. I'd just have each student complete their glog, and then copy the link to it in a spreadsheet I would have set up in google docs or some place that students could easily paste it into. 

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