This week I spent a lot of time on my final project and was able to explore some more tools along the way. My project is coming along well, but is taking more time than I anticipated. So far I've made a Googlesite for both classes, made "wallwisher"'s for the homepages plus each unit page, made and embedded a blog for each class and embedded a Google calendar into the homepages. The more I play around with "wallwisher," the more I like it! It really is very simple, but I love the idea behind it - I really see this as being such a valuable tool for my students and a great way to get feedback very quickly, plus it is SO easy to use and embed.
My main new tool exploration this week was screencasting. All through the course I have looked through the information about screencasting, but have never actually tried it, until now. I knew that I wanted to make a screencast about how to use the website, blog, etc and was pleasantly surprised to find that on the outside it is very easy to do! I tried both "screenr" and "Jing." I did find that I like Jing better because it allows me to easily save the screencast to my computer. Screenr allows you to embed the screencast or send it straight to twitter, but I didn't see anyway to save it to your personal computer (also twitter was the only initial option given). I say that screencasting is easy on the outside because the programming is very user friendly, however it takes quite a few tries to get everything to look and sound the way that you like. It is nice that you can pause and record as you go along though.
Next steps for me... I still need to make an "In Plain English" video. I honestly am not sure if this will be done by Tuesday, but I will be sure to post it to my blog and website once it is done. I also want to try out students blogs at some point this year - probably 2nd semester after I have a handle on all of the stuff I am starting with!
I have a couple questions that I would like to bounce off everyone...
1. About moderating: I want wallwisher and blog comments to be as fluid as possible but also want to make sure that they are appropriate. I was thinking of making it so that I need to approve the comments, but my husband brought up a good point about the fluidity of the conversation and also am I just making more work for myself. What do you all think? Would it be enough if I set up a disclosure and expectations for comments and discussion beforehand?
2. Technical question - I know I could ask my tech department about this, but I figured I'd ask here first. I know our students cannot post their first and last names on things they publish for class on the internet...how do others go about avoiding this and still figuring out who is posting what? Here are some thoughts I had - last names, first initial and last name, first name and last initial. I just want to make sure that the students can easily tell who they are responding to and that I can figure out who made a comment...and make sure it's legal.
Thanks in advance for your feedback!! :-)
I love Wallwisher too! I actually forgot about it when I was building my class wiki, but I will try to remember to incorporate it as the next thing that goes in it. (I am running out of time now). Last week I created a wallwisher about predicting the weather for the remainder of the summer. So far I am the only one who has left "sticky notes" (I have not advertised this yet) but nothing has come through my email about allowing the notes. Have you ran into this problem?
ReplyDeleteI too am seeking answers to the questions that you posted, so thanks for sharing them and I will check back here to see if anyone has advice.
I've always been a proponent for promoting student responsibility, and for the most part I haven't had any problems. Students will usually respect each other if you set the precedence before. I haven't played with Wallwisher yet, but it seems that every other blog site I've tried attaches a name to the commenter, which could also help. As far as the names go, I've done first names/nicknames in the past with no problems. My understanding is that as long as not both names are included, all is good, so I usually have the kids use what they use in class.
ReplyDeleteI agree about promoting student responsibility. If the project becomes too much work and is bogged down because the teacher must approve each comment, then it may not be worth the time. I think that posting the expectations and disclosure beforehand is reasonable.
ReplyDeleteI wondered too about the way to use the names, so I appreciate the comnment.
I think that I would use first names only, and then if there were two with the same name add a number (in order of their last name alphabetically maybe?). Is there a way for you to remove inappropriate notes? I haven't gotten to wallwisher yet, though now I am more intrigued. I would let students know that inappropriate comments won't be tolerated and that they would incur the same kind of consequences as in class. Also, I don't know if they could, but I never allow anonymous comments on things like this.
ReplyDeleteOh, I was also going to say, it's a great teaching moment to help them know the difference between personal and professional online behavior; and that even on personal sites (fb), nothing ever really goes away!
ReplyDeleteI had never seen or used Wallwisher before, so thanks for introducing me to it! It seems like a great tool to use and fun. It's so nice to see all these comments right there in front of you rather than clicking, scrolling and sifting. Not that any of that is really that much work, but hey, anything to make life a little easier! Regarding the student names I don't know how many students you have, but we have always just used first names in our classes. If there are two we just do first name and last initial or a number of their choice. I also agree with everyone else on here about comments and promoting responsible online behavior. I hadn't even considered it for my classroom blog, but since you can see everything, it's not like an inappropriate comment would go unchecked. The students know they will get in trouble for posting something negative or inappropriate so I think they are more aware of what they say.
ReplyDeleteWow, thank you all for the feedback!!
ReplyDeleteknodelscience - I didn't get email notification about allowing notes, but if you log-in to your wall you can look at all of the walls that you have built and moderate them. The only emails that I got were to let me know that I had built a wall and gave me the address of it. I emailed the makers of "wallwisher" to ask them about email notification for sticky notes.
kcburke - I emailed the makers of wallwisher to make sure that I can delete potentially inappropriate comments before I actually start using this - I'll let you know what they say.
To everyone, I really appreciate all of the feedback. I feel much more confident now in letting web 2.0 flow freely without having to worry about inappropriate comments (and being able to delete them). Also thanks for the info on names!