Last word on wikis

Okay, enough about wikis all ready!  But I just wanted to say designing/developing and managing a wiki is extremely simple.  They also make a great "shell" to display other work.  The IP 10's and 20's now ask if they can add completed assignments to their spaces.  It is an easy way to mark their work- all in one place - no need to dig through several folders etc to find the correct files.  They have added animated gifs made in fireworks, items from flash-gear such as puzzles, and moving eyes.  Also, those "loose" last few minutes of class are good for designing avatars (meez.com) which can also be embedded onto their space.  They can put up ppts, images - any file really.  So I am finding that although I thought it was a one-two class assignment we continue to add items as the year goes on- a great display case for their work.

wikis homepage

The students are enjoying creating their home page slide shows. They used slide.com to upload their images and then made choices between predesigned layouts and music/videos. The html code could then be embedded in their wiki homepage.

Check out this one at http://beanzandpotatoes.wikispaces.com or many more from the mclurg web site under student work tab (top right hand corner).

Wikis

The students have been enjoying creating their own "space" on the internet in a pretty painless fashion. By creating their own wikis they have been able to design banners, logos and learn to manage their own space. They have played with changing themes, colors and creating links etc.



The grade 10 students were beginning the module on ergonomics in the workplace and have completed most of it on their wiki rather than on paper.



We are linking these to our website http://www.mclurg.lskysd.ca/ - you can find the wikis by going to the tab at the top of the site called "student work" and look for "wikis". We have a couple of grade 12 students that keep the site maintained so the linking is slowly being accomplished.

scrapblog

The scrapblogging site works very efficiently - and the students don't need to register to use it - only if they want to publish their work. However I attempted to publish it to this blog and although it says it did, I can't seem to find the link. I have it in my email - but want to see if it works as seemlessly as it states.

This is a pretty cool tool the kids will enjoy playing with....

Survey Monkey

This is a fabulous tool. Our school has been discussing surveying the parents and students over a variety of issues. This is so well designed. The collection process is painless and easy. The analysis is immediate. Many ways to set restrictions etc (password protected, cut off day etc).

Very cool. Students will love creating their usual "smoking surveys" etc. with this tool.

Animoto

We did try the animoto site. It is probably great for some things but actually requires no technical skills as "they" do it behind the scenes and then email you the link. This might be good for motivational sets etc. for a particular theme, but as far as student skill building it is nill.

At first I thought it was almost useless, but I have since thought of a variety of places it would be useful for....isn't that the way using technology seems to go - as we play with it we think of more uses and places for it in our lives:)

free-timeline.com

This site was very useful and easy to get a class onto. I didn't have them all log in because we know that often has a variety of issues...but they can create their timelines and then do a screenshot without having to log in.

Easy and fun to use for the students.