Nancy McKeand's post, via Mark Wagner's shared Google Reader items, shares Quintura for Kids, a safe and interactive search engine for kids. The really cool feature is that as you move your mouse over a tag cloud, the cloud dynamically changes to present related tags or search terms. At first glance, it seems intuitive as you drill down from general topics to the more targeted and specific. Check it out.
I love using wikis for many different purposes.. class assignment pages, professional development, repositories for information, and especially for student collaboration. I just received my latest PBWiki newsletter and it announced several new features that I think will be of marked interest to teachers. Starting in early January, wikis will have...
Single user logins - Each student will have their own unique password. (This will help teachers better manage who is editing what with tighter access controls.)
Page Level Access- Control which pages students can edit or read. (This will allow for private pages and more selective permissions on specific pages.)
Page folders- Organize your wiki. (OK, I'm extremely anal-retentive when it comes to using folders to organize files. It's kind of maddening when I see a giant list of pages when I click on Show all Pages.)
For me, these new features are huge when dealing with student projects. They will help prevent the kids from stepping on each other and keep security a little tighter.What has YOUR wiki platform of choice done for you lately?
It's the Network Stupid! I'll admit, I was a non-believer in recognizing how important my network was. Then NECC rolled around and I was unable to attend. Enter Twitter. Everyone was talking about Twitter and how they were going to use it to connect throughout the conference. While I was intrigued by this micro-blogging concept, I didn't really see the value until I started seeing tweets about events that I could virtually participate in. I now see Twitter as the front door to my personal learning, pointing me to people and new ideas that I wouldn't have otherwise had access to.
The realization of how flat the world is can be awe-inspiring and eye-opening. Just watching the kids see (or hear) the human element of global collaboration blows me away. Asynchronous communication is OK and useful, but NOTHING beats the impact of synchronous conversations. This also applies to...
Face-to-Face conversations - I love my PLN and I love how my learning has grown exponentially as a result. However, when I went to Tech Forum Texas, I was struck by the impact meeting those in my network had on me. It was energizing and I was able to make a personal connection with Wes Fryer, David Jakes, Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach, Miguel Guhlin, and Carolyn Foote, all of whom I continue to converse with from time to time...and learn from.
Mashups - I really enjoy seeing two (or more) tools being pushed together to create something new. Notably, for me, is the embedding feature of the new Google Earth.
Be sure to check out the new Students 2.0 Edublog. There looks to be some exciting things coming from these forward thinking kids. Just check out the promo video.
This morning, I had the opportunity to join an Elluminate session hosted by Vicki Davis and Julie Lindsay where student producers presented their Flat Classroom projects to the world.My class at my school in Houston, Texas participated in the project as the Sounding Board which allowed our students to review, critique, and evaluate the wikis and the videos from all the teams. You can view our evaluations at our school wiki site. At first, my kids looked at me like I was crazy... "Mr. Mak, we have to grade other kids' work?" This peer-evaluation concept, while not totally new, is not that familiar to our kids so they were a little timid about the whole thing. I don't think they've been taught that their opinions are valid. Grading and assessment come from the top-down. However, as the process went on and they realized that they could constructively contribute, they settled in and through class discussions and the process itself, the notion of peer-evaluation became more comfortable.The Human Element While I think the peer-evaluation process was extremely valuable in terms of giving our students license to voice their constructive opinions, the most startling impact that I saw was the look on the kids' faces when they witnessed the synchronous conversations happening on Elluminate. To them, the voices from beyond struck a strong chord and the notion of the Flat Classroom really resonated. In Leila's case (she was interviewed as part of the Elluminate session), she turned from skeptic to true believer in the blink of an eye.Why is that?I believe it is because the spontaneous and unpredictable human factor came into play. When the students were looking at the projects, they were seeing the end result of a lot of hard work. They did not see, however, the real-time interactions that were taking place during the planning and creating of the projects. Their job was to come in after the fact and give their opinions about the quality of the videos and the wiki pages. So, in a sense, they were disconnected from the process and the interactions that took place between project team members. Granted, they worked in teams to do evaluations but they didn't have the opportunity to appreciate the worldly collaboration aspects of the project.Enter Elluminate this morning. I caught Vicki's twitter message about the session and thought it would be good for me to jump in to see what was going on. Through some well-timed circumstances, several of my students who are involved with peer-evaluations were in my lab with another class. So we had an impromptu gathering, not intending to actively participate, but to just listen in. Word of warning... Vicki will pull you in the conversation so when you see her, be ready to talk the talk and walk the walk. She has a very good ability to empower others in that way. So, when I chat that we are here listening with some of the Sounding Board kids, Vicki/Julie immediately want some feedback from me about the project. I in turn hand Leila the microphone and ask her to join in. She did, although she was uncharacteristically nervous. She talked about the project, answered questions and then listened to the student from Qatar who just listened to Leila giving feedback. It was amazing... the eyes were wide open and the light bulb of the full-circle started shining brightly. The kids who were watching and listening immediately felt a real human connection to these kids. They heard their voices and interacted with them and they began to understand the value of the flat world and thinning classroom walls.I'm feeling really giddy right now about the impact this project is having on my students. I'm not sure why but it make me think of an old Coca-Cola commercial that has that worldly-love theme to it.
