Rants from the Land of the Rising Sun!!!

csi_first_podcast

CSI_podcast#2

Here is my second podcast!!!

http://richdys.wikispaces.com/Recipes+for+Ancient+Empires

http://room212ancientcivilizations.edublogs.org/

My final project will incoporate the above links. 

This is an excellent question.  What makes the wiki and the blog such a powerful tool for learning is that it is an oversight tool used by the instructor to view their students understanding of a topic.  As students insert comments to blogs, I can ask them specific questions that will require them to synthesize an answer by using information and facts presented to them in class.  The teacher is able to actually see them work out a question and defend their answer in a manner that focuses on writing, facts, and understanding.  Likewise, the wiki is the same thing.  You ask an open-ended questions allow the students to explore and learn off of one another.  The wiki also uses peer review as a powerful tool for evaluation.  As students add comments to the wiki, their peers will examine this and ether add to the comment, agree with it, or disagree with it.  Students will have to defend their answers which makes it even more imperative that they fully explain themselves.

In my specific case, I will use the blogs and the wiki to gain a better idea of how my students are beginning to recognize the themes and the characteristics about ancient civilizations that are common.  I will look for students being able to draw upon info and facts learned from specific in class activities to add to their comments to the blog and wiki. 

I have to say that I am lucky to teach with DODEA since they are such powerful proponents of technology in the classroom.  They actively encourage us to work with tech projects in the class especially the idea of blogs and email.  Wikis are a new idea but with the aid of our ET and IT, I know that this type of project will easily gain recognition and the okay from the district office. 

As for how I will sell it t my students and introduce them to the project, I believe I will start with wikipedia.com.  All of my students are very aware of these type of sites and this is the most popular.  I would allow them to look at the site and maybe do a few searches before settling on wikipedia.  I would then add something new to the site and tell them they will have the chance this year to create their own wiki in class.  I would do the same with bogs but since they are already a big part of our LA class, I think the students will already be excited for this.  Finally, I would use the blogs early on with the class which is why I made up several sample blogs for them to use.  They would respond to these via comments.  After the start of the second semester, I would bring forth the wiki idea since they will have already several ancient civilizations under their belt at this time.      

I’ve elected to use a mixture of a wiki and blog format for my final project lesson.  More specifically, I will use wikispaces and edublogs as the software means for bringing my lesson and developing it for student use.  I chose to use these particular online sites because of the ease of their use and my understanding of their inner workings.  The goal is to introduce students to programs that are easy to use and that are accessible to them.  Likewise, the program sites also offer the students with the availability of tools that are ones that can be used by them in a safe and understanding manner. 

Little customization is needed other than creating it as a template.  I want to leave the site limited in terms of graphics because I want students to add this information themselves as they gain more understanding of the topic. I have customized a new log for the class because I didn’t want my personal blog to be used for this.  I did add some images and directions to the wiki page and I’m working on creating a table of contents but I am still having trouble with that. 

I am happy with how it worked out in the end.  I kept it very simple with an idea that it would b fleshed out even more by students.  I want to focus mostly on content and less on flash.  I think the wiki page offers that up to me and my students.  I’m excited for the opportunity to have them run with it. 

richdysaudacityproject

It’s a work in progess and hopefully it will post.  I had fun with amplify and wah-wah.