Blogs, Wikis and Social Bookmarking...

Most of my focus has been in early childhood and wikis and blogs do not seem the most appropriate thing for students in PreK  to use, but I would definitely entertain the idea as the teacher in that grade level.  As an early childhood educator, I may use my own personal blog to provide information and communication to the student’s parents on a daily, weekly or monthly basis.  This would also prove beneficial in the other grade levels, as well. If I expanded my focus and included levels K through 6^th grades, I could definitely see opportunities for the students to use wikis and blogs, though.    Wikis could easily be used to help students with group projects and blogs would allow students to share information about subjects of interest or content that was covered in and out of class.  If my students were completing a unit on the water cycle, I could assign each member of a group to one of the varied concepts and then have the students use wikis to discuss the different cycles, with each student adding to the project as they discover more information on their part.  These wikis could be shared with the class and used to assess the comprehension of the material and would allow me to check on the time spent on the wikis as a participant of their groups (Osgood, 2009). 

I do believe that social bookmarking would be very useful for all teachers and students.  In my studies, I have made many searches for information on lesson plans, themes, experiments and much more and wish that I had bookmarked the ones that I had found to be good sites.  Social bookmarking allows for teachers to share their favorite sites in an organized way and to have access to these favorites from anywhere at all times (Jonassen, 2008).  Social bookmarking also allows for teachers to share their knowledge and break down barriers that keep us separated (Jonassen, 2008).  Students could use social bookmarking to organize sites that they too had found informative and share these with other students and their teachers.  I am excited to start my own soon and believe that it will help me become better organized in searching the web.  Voice threads, on the other hand, are a bit out of my comfort zone.  I enjoyed the example voice thread on Women from Around the World, but am certain that I would need help in creating one with the students in my classroom.  I do like the idea of sharing information in the way a voice thread allows, and may look into that more in the future.

Although I have never explored Tapped In, I do believe that it would prove to be a valuable community to students and teachers around the world.  Many students may never be able to travel the world and experience communicating with students their age from another country.  Tapped In would allow for students to communicate and teachers to collaborate with people around the world.  Tapped in would allow teachers to expand on their knowledge and to elicit professional opinions from experts around the world, as well (Jonassen, 2008).  In order for teachers to grow as educators and continue to develop into the teachers of tomorrow’s students, we must all be willing to “tap” into the multiple and varied resources available to us.

References:

Osgood, J.  (2009). Using Wiki Spaces as a Teaching Innovation.  Retrieved March 1, 2011, from http://frameset.next.ecollege.com/(NEXT(38cab02022))/Main/AllMode/FramesetHybrid/NavigateView.ed?courseItemType=CourseContentItem&subItemID=119545655&expandUnit=22566018

 Jonassen, D., Howland, J., Marra, R., & Crismond, D.  (2008). Meaningful Learning with Technology (3rd ed.).  Upper Saddle River, New Jersey:  Pearson Education, Inc.