Lesson 8 – Reflection #2

At this point in the course, I envision preparing blogs and wikis to supplement or compliment my classroom website. Social bookmarking has more potential than I imagined, but probably toward the end of my list of tech tool with which to start out the school year.

• I’m planning on setting up a blog for ongoing interactive communication like a student reflection journal and a Reach parent network This might be the tool to showcase student work in progress, post podcasts, and get feedback from the larger community of learners. Personally, I could be blogging right now to catch up with my journal writing about the summer reunions, visitors and other events. It always helps me to first try a personal application before a professional application especially when it is a technological stretch. For fun, and additional practice, I’m planning to start a family summer blog.

• Wikis I see as a complete or at least partial replacement for my classroom website. I’d like set up a Wiki for either student-specific projects and units. I’m still not clear whether a wiki or blog is better for a parent network. Certainly not both, but whichever one is easier for families to access and interactively share ideas and resources, that’s the one.

• Social Bookmarking with del.icio.us was immediately gratifying for me, making favorites/bookmarks available from any computer and having this as a back up to potentially loose my saved links is added peace-of-mind. Thanks Lori, your video lesson was easy to follow and review. The real power is in collaborating and this requires colleagues with whom to share. I see social bookmarking taking off, with a mini workshop and some handholding at first, when it is applied to a staff development course, a study group, or a grade level/team of teachers working on developing or revising a unit together. Exporting links for kids may be of some benefit, but what’s most promising is bridging connections to improve collegial collaboration. I’d like to try to continue this with teachers from this course who may be taking the DI institute workshops or study groups in my building next year. I hadn’t thought of it, but it would probably be easy for a department of 3 to network with our bookmarks.

I’m planning on doing something different, but I’m still not sure how the past role of the website will change and how the new roles of wikis and blogs will pan out. I like to take on one or two new tech things each year or really get serious about developing/integrating one. Right now, it feels like there could be a lot of juggling. I’d like to put my request in now for a tech study group (AKA support group) this fall. Will you be offering Lori?