Harnessing new technologies

Harnessing new technologies

Today we had a little different seminar. We finished with a talk on what Web 2.0 means and I got the following definition:
Web 2.0 is an expanded concept of web 1.0. We are using social networking like Facebook, twitter, Flickr etc. And we have web sites such as wikis or Google docs that allow us to modify, and delete attributes in own and others' texts even though we are not physically present in the same room.
Some of the options I became acquainted with today was http://www.jigzone.com/, http://www.wordle.net/create and http://storybird.com/ which were all useful sites for teaching. I have read the article 'ICT Knowledge, Understanding and Practice' which talks about the children to develop creative approach to digital literacy and that is exactly what we have explored today.

Jig zone is a site where you can convert images to puzzle games, you could also insert a little text and make puzzles out of it and let the students play with it. It can help both creative reading and writing. Ideally, the students will be having a joint blog where they can upload their work as students, teacher and parents can see it and be inspired.

Before you let the pupils work on the internet, it is important to take the time to explain to the students which images they can use and a great idea is to have a shared database of images etc.. Depending on how old the students are, you can go into a deeper explanation of copyrights.

I also tried forces with wordle.net which was a super fun and creative way to present words and text. It requires, however, a short text otherwise you will get confused about the meaning. This website could be used in presenting key words in a PowerPoint presentation. The site is easy to navigate on. I also became acquainted with Tagxedo which I think was a more complicated way to present words and text.

The last site I tried was http://storybird.com/ which was a great way to write small books and poems. The webpage set up was easy and it was easy to make both cover and pages with pictures and writings. This site I will definitely use for students and it can be used on several levels.

The thing you always need to have in mind when you are working with internet is to have a back up plan. When a lot of people access the net at the same time it will work very slowly and as annoying it is to us – well the kids feel the same way!