Virtual Worlds

We were asked to join Second Life and explore its virtual world.  Many of the participants in the course were uncomfortable with it.  When I first saw this a few weeks ago, it intrigued me.  How much fun would it be to create an identity and interact with other online identities?  My children used to love Webkinz which is a similar forum for children where you get a stuffed animal and put in a code.  You create your house etc.  Then after that we had a parent evening with a psychologist who spoke about boy/ girl relationships etc.  It was a great presentation.  Many parents had questions about technology usage.  One of the areas she came out strongly about was the negative influence of virtual worlds on our children’s abilities to interact with each other.  It really struck me and stuck with me.  I am not sure why I am more comfortable with something like Facebook or twitter and less comfortable with something like Second Life.  I do see it as having more potential to draw in both children and adults in an unhealthy way.  There is something so real and engaging about it with the visual world that is created, that it worries me it will be too hard not to get drawn in, in an unhealthy way.  For now I am not trying it.  I wonder if my grandchildren will roll their eyes at me the way I rolled my eyes at my grandparents’ reaction to the internet!

After trying out voice thread a few times, I saw a lot of potential of using voicethread for shared reading experiences in English, especially poetry.  We have an English Department meeting on Wednesday during which we are working to review our reading curriculum.  As part of this, the teachers also share ideas and brainstorm about how to fine tune their reading instruction.  Using a poem and guiding questions from each grade’s English teacher I put together short shared reading experiences for their classes.   I am very excited to share this tool with them and to see how they begin to use it in their classrooms.  In addition to giving students additional shared reading experiences, it also allows students to find their literary voice in a way that might not be possible in a classroom where not everyone gets a turn.  While this means they will not be writing a response, they will be speaking their thoughts.  My guess is that this will bring out different strengths and different kinds of expressed thoughts for some children.  I also think it will feel safer for some children than speaking aloud in front of peers in class.  I can’t wait to see how the English teachers run with this and what kind of extensions they come up with to use this tool!  If anyone else has used it, please respond how so I can share it with them.

Below is one of the links, they were quick and easy to create, my guess is that there is even more that can be done with it, feel free to respond to this blog with input or ideas.

8^th Grade English

https://voicethread.com/share/2898419/

Twitter VS Edmodo for a PLC

Twitter Vs Edmodo

We have been focusing on technology for our professional development this year.  We have been blessed to have recently received a total of 225 IPads as a donation to our school.  This past week, at our professional development, Rabbi Tavi Koslowe gave an IPad 101 class to get the teachers started on how to use them in their classrooms.  As part of the presentation Rabbi Koslowe shared with the teachers a list of links that would be helpful to them in general in their classrooms and instruction. 

I have been trying to figure out how to bring all of our amazing professional development in technology into the realm of a full-fledged PLC.  I love how twitter enables me to get all kinds of interesting ideas from different educators that I follow.  I wanted to create a more insular group to give it a more personal feel.  I created an Edmodo group that will focus on technology being used in the middle school.  One of my favorite features of it is the library page.  I am hoping to post all of the cool resources and articles that people share as well as the blogs, wiki’s, websites etc that they create.  I am hoping this will begin to create the PLC feel I am looking for. 

Diigo

I don’t know if any of you have tried Diigo for doing research with your classes.  We have been working in grades 6-8 on building research skills with meaningful assignments that require students to delve deep and not superficially into a topic.  Part of this obviously requires students to research a lot online.  This can be incredibly frustrating when students are working on lap tops, school computers, home computers etc.  It is even more frustrating when working with a group.  You can imagine what it is like, not everything found is a “document” that can be saved.  Often it is a webpage.  Diigo is a tool that you can sign up for.  It allows you to create your own “favorites” type list on their server, not on your own personal computer.  Like Google Docs students can then access it anywhere!  To even top that convenience, it allows you to install their toolbar on any computer.  Once installed, a student can actually highlight and make notes on any webpage that is saved onto Diigo.  No more printing necessary!  Students are creating groups that collect sources together so they are able to collaborate and not repeat efforts.  If you have not done so already, try it and let me know what you think!