In today’s conference workshop I will be exploring four important issues relating to learning and teaching strategies for using online tools:
- How the purpose of your site relates to its form
- The intended teacher-student dynamic online
- Students and internet safety
- Getting students involved and monitoring contributions
Please respond with comments to this post if you have any questions, information or anecdotes from your own teaching context.
(DET Interim Guidelines for using blogs and wikis)
(from the ETA Annual Conference @ UNSW )
Kelli McGraw 
#1 by Lyn and Katie on November 29, 2008 - 11:45 am
Hi Kellie, We talked about the problems of access at home for our students, like the solar charged batteries won’t cope, no access to broadband (very slow) dial up. A solution would be to always create space and time in lessons for studnets to blog or wiki.
#2 by Jennifer Winch on November 29, 2008 - 11:54 am
The service supplied by the DET makes it very unreliable – you can be ready to use the technology and find it isn’t ready to be used.
There does also seem to be a time problem – there are very few allowances made for adequate time to prepare ICT tools for use in the classroom.
We also have to book in advance to use the computer facilities, so it isn’t available when you might decide it will add to the way you are teaching something. Incidental use, forget it!!
#3 by TWilson on November 29, 2008 - 12:00 pm
I find time one of the biggest hurdles. Time for me to spend putting work up, create exercises, getting skills in order to use, etc. Want more workshops!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
#4 by kellimcgraw on November 30, 2008 - 2:26 pm
Time is such an important issue! I found that when I started using blogs and wikis I was spending SO MUCH TIME at home maintaining them, it really wore me out. My advice is:
1. Let your online teaching REPLACE some of your face-to-face teaching. e.g. if students are using blogging for homework tasks, you should have to check their books far, far less.
2. Use RSS feeds – sign up to Google Reader and add RSS feeds for the posts AND comments for ALL of your teaching blogs to it. That way you don’t have to ‘check in’ on your increasing number of blogs, as you can see at a glance the comments the kids have made.
3. Just practice. The first little while is the hardest because you are learning to use the dashboard etc. These days I can practically post in my sleep 🙂
#5 by kellimcgraw on November 30, 2008 - 2:29 pm
It is true, I mostly do my blogging and wiki work from home. The DET computers are just too slow, and access to too many of my personal networking sites (e.g. Twitter, Facebook) are blocked. This is an industrial issue, but personally it doesn’t bother me, as I prefer doing this kind of work at home anyway.
#6 by kellimcgraw on November 30, 2008 - 2:32 pm
@ Lyn and Katie. You know, it never occurred to me that power could actually be an issue. You are so right about the importance of making time in class to work online – not just because of power/internet issues, but as I was saying in the workshop, to make time to scaffold the learning for students, and also check that they all know how to use the blog (some are too shy to tell you they don’t!)