User:Dragonsinger57/Passions

eLearning
Two years down the line things are different in my classroom. While I am working in an eLearning environment, I have also reflected on, and changed, my teaching practice.

Equipment-wise I still have a lot of 'stuff': 1 x softexpand/xtenda system with 4 workstations; 2 donated HP laptops; my old iBook and MacBook; an iTouch; an iPad; a couple of old scrounged computers; and four newer computers that were donated to the school but left sitting in a spare room for most of the year until I took them and installed them in my classroom. 3 of my workstations are in the learning street; 4 are in a mini-lab between my classroom and the next door classroom. 1 laptop, the iTouch and the iPad are all portable so my students will use them where ever they want to work. I have an Activboard as my IWB which is really where the day unfolds for everyone.

My students are using Google docs (via apps for education) as their online 'draft' writing books. They have become quite proficient at using them. They use the draw feature to create drawings and posters; and I use the presentation feature to create short presentations that can then be embedded in our class wiki. All the students have individual blogs and we have a class blog as well.


 * Class wiki
 * Class blog
 * Student blogs

As stated above I am running a digital classroom. I have 31 students in my classroom and have organised them into 6 groups of 5 (5x5 and 1x6 to be exact). Each group has access to a computer - 2 groups have old, ex-win98 upgraded to winxp with extra ram computers; 4 groups have virtual computers running off an extenda box. I also have an old Acer laptop running Ubuntu and my iBook available in the classroom.

I use a combination of blogs wikis and google docs (saved as webpages) to present daily lessons. I use a mimio (IWB) throughout the day to highlight or reinforce activities.

As part of our integration of ICTs into our day to day learning I have introduced Edmodo to my class. We use it during classtimes with group logins and after school, once my students are home, they login under their personal logins and complete assignments, chat with each other and chat with me.

I'm interested in the difference between free and open source and the application of both into my Web2.0 classroom.


 * ''For instance Google (mail/calendar/docs/forms etc) is FREE but not open source; the same with Blogger and Edmodo. But eXe is OPEN SOURCE (I think ).

Workshops
These are workshops I've run at our OKC ICT Cluster Conferences

Blogs, Wikis and other four letter words

Twitter

Ulearn09

I'm running both a Twitter and an eLearning workshop at Ulearn09 - updated notes for Twitter will be posted and notes for my eLearning workshop will be posted too (eLearning is a Living being & WikiEducator might just appear!)

Currently notes are being hosted at my wikispace page.

Ulearn10

At Ulearn10 I ran a workshop called First steps in the eLearning journey - the notes are up on my wiki.

In-house workshops aka formal & informal sessions @ school

Most recent sessions:


 * Wikis and Google docs (27 August 09)


 * Wikieducator - short session on editing and entering content (28 August 09)


 * Voicethread in Junior Classes (3 September 09)

Wiki Help

 * I'm posting any screencasts I make over on my wikispace. Hope these are helpful.

/Course work/

School work

 * I've been using Web2.0 tools in my classroom for a couple of terms now.
 * I totally rearranged my classroom and deliver content via the web to the students (with me still in the classroom).
 * I spent 5 weeks exploring blogs and using blogs for content delivery
 * I want to take a step up and explore how I can combine everything into the wiki environment.
 * I'm about to go into my 3rd week of using a wiki in the classroom - my students have become proficient at navigating around the wiki and logging in and adding content.
 * This week they will enter the big world of having their own wiki page where they can add their own content -exciting stuff indeed!

Update 190909
 * My students have now been working on their own wiki pages for several weeks now. Some have dived in enthusiastically, others are slower to embrace - however they have all published something to their own page on the writing wiki as part of our classwork
 * I'm exploring reflective practice with my students - using videos and photos of them at work
 * I can see that at the end of a full year of using a wiki like this my students would be ready for setting up their own wikis

Update Dec 2009
 * It's been a fantastic year with an enthusiastic group of Year 3&4 students. However we all must move on and in 2010 I'm teaching Year 5 students in a new classroom. I've added the links to the new class blog and wiki.