How exciting but how confusing! We learned about Illuminate, Ning, Google Docs and Blogs all in one hour. I'm not sure where I'm supposed to be for what, but I'm excited and will eventually know where I am going and what I am doing.
I'm a Google fan and ready to start using it with the kids next week. I am going to start my eighth graders with Gmail next Monday. Hopefully, after our group collaboration on Google Docs, I will be able to create a project for them for the following week. They certainly love to communicate with each other at that age, so I might as well capitalize on that. I plan on working with one of their teachers to create a project for their class trip.
Our school is in need of a new server, so we are trying to decide how/what we need for the future. My technology committee is in favor of cloud storage and our business office is against cloud storage. This is very interesting to me to see how this Stritch class works.
I love Ning, but not quite ready to implement it into the curriculum. I need to practice, practice, practice. My favorite part so far is the way we work as a group. I enjoy the idea of learning together. I feel pretty comfortable asking for help which is a very, very good thing.
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Hi Linda,
ReplyDeleteI have had a Google account for a little over a year now and agree that it is very useful. I'm interested to hear how you integrate it into an activity for your students. I also teach 8th grade but my district uses Moodle, so this Ning thing is interesting.
I like the Ning better than Moodle but agree that more practice is needed.
Good luck with the tech committee and and business office. That sounds like a political nightmare. :) I hope it all works out.
Hi Linda - I also like Ning, but am unsure how to use it with my students. I think it's a great environment to allow students to share their ideas. I'm wondering how secure it is, though. For instance, are the students in this class the only ones allowed to access this Ning? We're having some issues with internet safety in our school...many middle school students are using Facebook with their school email accounts, which is a violation of our Acceptable Use Policy, and when we notify their parents that their email has been suspended, almost all parents are unaware that their children know what Facebook is (alot of parents don't know what it is!). I'm rambling on, but when thinking about introducing these new Web tools that we are learning, internet safety is always in the back of my mind.
ReplyDeleteSafety on the internet is definitely an issue. I discussed the possibility of using Google Docs with the 6th grade several days ago and yesterday three of them explained that their Moms made them get rid of their accounts because one of the girls was fighting with another girl through e-mail and hurt the other girls feelings and than the third girl was very upset they were fighting. So, none of the 3 girls are allowed to use e-mail. This is going to make Google docs a little difficult to use. I would start with the eighth grade, but I'm not sure how this is all going to work. Do I just write a letter home to the parents on how excited we are to introduce the 8th graders to collaborative writing using Google Docs? Many of the students already use g-mail and the others will be setting up an account? Have any of you had lots of trouble with them forgetting passwords etc.? I would very much like to prevent issues. Advice anyone? Please help.
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