Blogs and Wikis in Education

1. Identify and describe 3 interesting/innovative ways blogs and/or wikis are being used in K-12 classrooms.

Blogs and Wikis can provide a great place for students to journal about the day. I remember in elementary school that we had daily journals that we wrote in. It would be cool if students could to be able to do this in a place where classmates could communicate with each other through this activity. This could not only help challenge and stretch their thinking through peer collaboration but even create stronger social peer bonds through finding commonalities between each other.

These could also be a great tool for teachers when it comes to communicating with students. A lot of the time I feel like most students have the same questions about homework and projects after the school day is over. If a teacher had a general area where instructions can be posted about an assignment and students can publicly ask questions about it, a teacher's response would be seen by all. This would make things easier on both the student and the teacher since this would help students work with other students who are having the same issues or see who has a grasp on the project and turn to him or her for peer support.

A third interesting way to use a blog or wiki would be to have students use these to partner with other students in different locations in the country, or even world. They could have a pen pal system to collaborate on their work or give a different perspective/angle to a project. This would most likely be the most beneficial for social study projects or assignments. If a student has geography project, or even history project, what a better way to build a report by having assistance from a student from that specific area!

1. Describe how you might use RSS readers/aggregators within a classroom setting.

An RSS reader/aggregator would be a greatly beneficial tool for a teacher in a classroom setting. If a teacher is having his or her students use blogs or wikis to post their work or to communicate with others, he or she could subscribe to each individual students site in order to be notified when new things or added. Instead of a teacher constantly monitoring each individual website to check to see if a student has sumbitted his or her work the teacher can go to a single site that says who has submitted what, then allowing a teacher to go and retrieve his or her student's info. Students could also utilize this tool by subscribing to different news sites that could update them on local and world news that they could use to pull information from for posts or assignments.

1. Describe at least 2 pros and 2 cons of using blogs and wikis in education.

Pro 1: Students could continue collaborting on assingments out side of class and build a thread of communication.
Pro 2: Teachers can answer questions for the class all at one play where it is public for all rather then answering the same questions over and over again for students individually

Con 1: If students use an online blog as a journal rather then a notebook they might be hesistant to share all the ideas and thoughts since they are public. The students could feel restricted.
Con 2: Not all students could have access to internet let along a computer, leading to some students being isolated from the class.

Engaging Concept Mapping Activities with Students

1. Post a 3-5 paragraph summary of the 3-5 ideas you explored for how you could use Concept Mapping within your future classroom. Give your specific examples.

A concept map can be used to allow students to organize anything from ideas about a story to organizing a trip the student made. Concepts are not limited to writing but can also be utilized in the areas of math, science, and social studies. Students are able to use template that give them easy access to organization. Templates can consist of mapping out ideas through the use of pictures or by organizing text. In the classroom I could use concept mapping as a way for my students to follow a book I'm reading by mapping out the characters and events. In a science unit concept mapping could be used to track plant growth and the tracking of changing variables. History can be a difficult subject for students to follow, when studying time periods using concept mapping to layout and track events in an organized fashion can help students not feel overwhelmed by dates and years.

1. Discuss what you see as the impact of the use of Concept mapping within your classroom might have on student learning? Give some details to support your statements.

Concept mapping would be an extremely beneficial tool to any classroom. I think it can be really easy for students to feel overwhelmed with all the new information they are learning. If students were given a means to organize these lessons and their thoughts together they might not only grasp concepts better and faster but would have a great reference. Concept mapping however might not work with all students' learning styles however, they can't hurt a student when making one. I dont see how it would harm any student's learning by having him or her use concept maps, granted for some students there is probably a more beneficial tool to use with them but this tool I can see easily benefit everyone, just some more then other.

1. Discuss some criteria that you would use to decide whether or not Concept Mapping activities would be part of a lesson for your students.

If there is a lesson filled with a lot of information that connects together and has to be followed (such as a story plot line or serious of historical events) this would lead me to most likely use a Concept Mapping activity. Where there are a lot of dates, events, people, to follow in a lesson it is good to track them through some sort of tool, Concept Mapping being one of them. If learning and understanding can obviously be made easier through a concept mapping activity then I'll obviously use it. If I know that it could work but I'm questioning how much benefit the students will actually get out of using one, I'd most likely wouldn't use on in that case.


Here is an example of a concept map I created as a representation of a Trip to a Zoo.

TeacherWeb Reflection 1. Describe and discuss the impacts your use of a class web site like the one we created on TeacherWeb might have

1. Describe and discuss the impacts your use of a class web site like

the one we created on TeacherWeb might have on student learning,

on student engagement, and communications with students and parents.

I think a website like TeacherWeb would have a very positive impact on a students learning, engagement and communication with students and parents. I remember at times whiles growing up in school when I'd get home and have many questions about what we learned that day or what exactly I had to do for homework. It was always frustrating when I had to call around and try to track someone down to help remind me/figure out what I was supposed to do that night. With having an informative class website I could see that reducing those 'freak out' nights for students. Also, this could help parents feel more in the loop with what their student is doing at school. A parent can look up at their own free leisure what is going on in the classroom and how their student is doing. I think that is something that gives any parent comfort with sending their child off to school.

2. Identify and discuss what you see as the two biggest advantages of designing

and using a classroom web site within your teaching activities.

Also, identify what you see as the biggest disadvantage of using a class website

for instructional activities and why.

A benefit, as touched on in the previous question, is that a classroom website would make it easier for a teacher to keep parents updated and most likely limit the amount of questions parents have about what their child is doing in school and how he or she is doing. It can also be a comfort for students cause it would be a stable and dependable point of reference while studying or doing school work.

However, students could easily be distracted by the world wide web. If a student is supposed to be on the classroom website to do their work, it could be very tempting to venture off to one of their social networks or computer game pages. Also, when relying on a website for instructional activities a teacher should take in consideration that not all students may have access to a computer let alone internet.

Multiple Intelligences in the Classroom

1) My greatest Multiple Intelligence is Intrapersonal, followed by Kinesthetic. Some of the core characteristics of a person with strengths in the area of Intrapersonal would be Affective Awareness (knowing ones feelings and viewpoint), Ethical Awareness (having set moral and principle priorities). Some of the core characteristics of a person with strengths in the area of Kinesthetics would be concrete (uses body movement to express ideas and feelings) and task orientated (learns through doing). I think that the Intrapersonal core characteristics all describe me very well (Affective Awareness, Ethical Awareness, Self-Regulation, and Metacognition). I feel like I have a good understanding of myself and who I am striving to be. This influences my learning.

2) Students who are Intrapersonal are comfortable with themselves, can be very opinionated on what they do and do not like, are able to communicate their feelings, tend to make appropriate choices, and use their sense of self to relate to others. These students enjoy expressing themselves and engaging in meaningful conversations where feelings can be expressed. They would really enjoy speaking about their passions or debating things they strongly do not believe in. In the classroom they would be the goal setters and would really enjoy and benefit from reflection time. Another activity that these students would really engage in would be a daily journal activity where they are able to freely think through and express themselves.

3) I would support this type of intelligence by providing time for students to reflect on their work or day by having students right in a journal daily, possibly at the beginning and end of the day for a short period of time. Also allow a time for students to discuss and express their feelings about the current topic being taught/learned in the classroom. Providing choices and differentiated instructions will also greatly benefit these students.

4) Technologies that stimulate this type of intelligence are ones that allow a student to freely express themselves, i.e. journals, diary, class discussions, self-assessment, etc. If the student is able to express his or her thoughts, views, opinions, beliefs, he or she will be able to benefit greatly from the classroom.

5) By being aware of the fact that students all learn differently I can be intentional about teaching in a multiple different fashions so that every student can learn to his or her fullest potential. As a teacher I need to be far on trying to teach equally to all students which means recognizing Multiple Intelligences.