May 15 2007
Busy end to the year…..Wikis And Ning…
Well both initiatives are in full swing and instead of winding down at the end of term, I seem to be winding up.
NING – MFL Social Network
Well the invites have been sent, the two French teachers Saida and Hamadi have joined and the trickle of students joining has begun. The initial questionnaire shows a great deal of enthusiasm and knowledge for Social Networks. But whether this will translate to being used in a learning situation is another thing. It might be a similar situation to when I have used a blog with lower school KS3 students, once they started to use it in school and in the class then it was very unusual to use it at home.
Although the interesting thing with the French Connection NING is the immediate interactivity that it brings. As soon as the students enter they have to upload a photo as an avatar and then answer a series of questions in French. The level of answer is up to them.
It was interesting to see that almost all now have an ADSL connection of at least 512kb, so any worries about the heaviness of the site in terms of photos and videos should not be a problem. More to come although it seems with only two weeks of term left that the project might be a little stilted – however we shall see.
TIKIWIKI – CICTÂ
The wiki is beginning to roll…and by that I mean as I have found out of the last few years using any new web tool takes a great deal of time to build the right impetus and get students used to such a different way of learning.
Students are understanding now that they have to collaborate and in one way at least realise they can separate areas of research onto different pages. The interesting point however is when I ask all groups to swop sections in which they are studying about, and then continue on that study. As it is obvious the competitive element of the project has led them to be possessive about their wiki pages? Again we shall see….more news soon.
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