Wikis, Blogs And Web PublishingMCIU – Summer 2014

By Steve Finegan

Which tool have you found most useful?

• It will be much easier to answer this question once the first few months of school

are completed. I envision using my wiki page as a tool for students to have

interactive blog discussions. It will also be a support system for all students to

find assignments, due dates, links to social studies content and more. I think this

has the most potential to be a powerful way to engage students and improve

student learning.

What were some successes and challenges?

Successes

• Love RSS and will use it every day

since current events are part of the

curriculum. Also a great way to stay

professionally informed.

• I enjoyed writing my blog and will

continue to write.

• Wiki is now complete and ready to

use with my classes.

Challenges

• Building my wiki page was very time

consuming, using “trial and error” to

set it up how I wanted it to look.

Wikispaces was a little more difficult

than I thought it would be.

• There are so many exciting Web 2.0

applications I want to try and it can be

overwhelming.

The Moodle Experience

• This is not my first time using Moodle. I have taken classes online classes through

Chester and Berks counties in the past and have a good understanding of Moodle.

It is easy to navigate and the course guidelines and assignments are set up in an

organized fashion. The use of a Moodle for online learning is a natural fit and a

great tool for students. Additionally, you can access information from classes

taken in the past at each IU, which I did this past year to help with Google Docs

applications.

My Wiki• Made using wiki spaces

• Will use with all of my classes

• Students will respond online to discussion topics every week.

• Homework and classwork assignments as well as calendar of with due dates will be accessible to students

• Copies of completed class notes can be downloaded by students

• Links for students to help with class content

• Unit pages that include videos, pictures and other cool information for use in and out of class.

• Used blogger.com

• Topic is “Outside the classroom,” which chronicles what kids can learn when

they are not in school. I used my own family for the things we did this

summer and plan to keep up with things we do during weekends and holidays

throughout the year.

• Would like others to comment or follow to hear about their experiences. I

plan to share this with my colleagues.

• RSS stands for Rich Site Summary

• It is a collection of self selected websites and blogs that change their content frequently. These sites syndicate their content.

• The benefit is that all your favorite news websites and blogs are found in one place.

• RSS Feeders can be organized into categories such as News, Education, Technology, Sports, Health, etc.

• Allows you to stay up to date on sites you follow with a glance at the feeder.

• My class content is partially based on current events, so this will allow me to quickly scan for news stories of interest.

• I used Bloglines as my RSS Feeder.

• Web 2.0 is called the second generation of the world wide web because is has web

based platforms for programs.

• It allows people to easily collaborate and share ideas and content

• Examples include wikis, blogs, Wordle, Animoto, Prezi and thousands more!

• I chose to do a Prezi.

• Prezi is like PowerPoint on steroids.

• It is a web-based presentation tool that uses a canvas and lets you to zoom to certain

places to highlight details of a main idea. It follows an order set by the Prezi creator.

• Allows for creativity and is an alternative to traditional presentation software.