My name is Jessica and I have been teaching science at Domremy College for nearly five years. In October 2008, I gave birth to Jeremy and stayed at home on maternity leave until January 2010.
When I came back to work two days a week in a job share situation in January 2010, I found out that laptops had been introduced at our school and that I had missed all the professional development opportunities that must have been offered at the time. I felt lost for the first time since my first couple of months as a beginning teacher...I had never even used a Mac :-) and did not feel comfortable using technology in my classroom.
I had recently been to the CEO worshop "Using Technology in the Science Classroom" with Michael Prest and Frank Milic as presenters. I am embarrassed to say that I first heard about the CEO ILe@rn model and ILe@rn projects (Rosemary Englert presented their "Waves are not just for surfers" project) that day. It was an eye opener to see all the different tools now on offer on the Internet and how teachers were successfully integrating them in their classroom. On that day, about a week ago, I decided to enrol in the Web 2.0 course.
I am hoping to learn about the different Web 2.0 online tools (wikis, blogs, Google docs, Delicious etc) and how to use them in my classroom to enhance my students learning and to make it more meaningful and fun. I would say that I am a beginner in elearning although I have used some Web 2.0 tools before such as YouTube, Facebook and Skype. However I have not really used these tools in the classroom except YouTube to show the Tom Lehrer Elements song to my year 8 students and a couple of scootle lessons.
Before starting the course, I went online and checked my digital footprint. Like most students, I had never really thought that something I posted online to my friends could potentially be used against me (for example by current or future employers). I found my Facebook and Linkn accounts a couple of links to my previous career as an environmental consultant.
In module one, the first thing I found really interesting was learning about the differences between Web 1.0 and Web 2.0. I think that the possibility of collaboration and sharing in Web 2.0 tools will be something that our students will really enjoy as they love group work and the sharing of ideas. However, as said in one of the YouTube clips, it will be important to explicitly teach students about the limitations of these tools, especially copyright issues and reliablity of sources of information.
I loved the Jane Hart website introducing all the tools. However I did feel a bit overwhelmed by the number on offer. I have bookmarked it as I intend to go back to it throughout the course.
I cannot believe that I did not know about IGoogle especially as I have been using Google as a browser and Gmail as my email for years. I think that the personalised webpage will be useful for personal use as it allows quick and easy access to email and a variety of gadgets (weather, YouTube, to do list, science posts). I am also planning on adding a couple of crafty blog I love to read. However, I am not sure how IGoogle could be used in the classroom at this stage and I am a bit concerned that students would be too distracted by the various gadgets and the busy nature of the page.
I am excited about the learning journey ahead.
No comments:
Post a Comment