Wikis in Education

There are so many possible ways to use wikis in education. As I mentioned in my last post, my school system uses Wikispaces. Any educator that wants a wiki has to fill out the application as well as the appropriate form based on whom you plan to use the wiki with (staff, students). By having the wiki you must abide by our county’s Acceptable Use Policy. All spaces are private which means only approved users will be able to read and edit the wiki. You can be part of more than one wiki. For example I am part of my school’s wiki, the technology teacher wiki (county-wide), and I have a wikispace for use with my students.

Once you have your wikispace you need to set it up. You can create multiple pages- one per subject, topic, class, etc. Linking within the wiki is easy! Here is an example wiki I created for my staff- Our Staff Directory. Notice the links on the sides that take you to different pages. I created tables (a template) where information and a picture would be inserted. The staff can edit/enter their own information.
When using wikis with students you do need to go over rules- only posting first name and last initial, appropriate language, copyright laws, etc. You will also need to go over how to access the wikispace- their username and password. Making cards with this information makes it easy or having a sheet with everyone’s log in information is another way.

Tips for Success:

- Only one person can edit at one time
- To see changes be sure to refresh your page on a frequent basis
- Save often
- When using with students, classroom management is the key
- If the wiki has more than one page, having the directions for the assignment on each page is helpful

Last year we created a wikispace to use with our 4th and 5th graders to do a culminating Thank You project. Students had to choose two teachers that made an impact on them through the past year and leave them a message on that particular teacher’s page (see links on left). They loved it!Other ways to use wikis:

Administrative & Staff Uses: handbooks, school improvement plans, professional development day schedules (where people can sign up for sessions), sharing websites, lesson plans, and intervention program information
Instructional Uses: Writers’ Workshop, teacher web page, collaborative projects

The bottom line- when using a wiki to collaborate, the possibilities are endless!

Wild About Wikis

What is a wiki? A wiki is a webpage where people can add or modify the content. It is a way to collaborate and share information. Most likely you have heard about Wikipedia. Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia wiki where anyone can go in and edit the content. See the problem? Since anyone can go in and edit the content, the validity of what is written is compromised. However, the fact that anyone can edit, post information, and collaborate with others, makes wikis great web 2.0 tools.

Wikis are easy to create and allows users to connect from all over. Some wikis are private and some are public. Users who collaborate and edit the wiki can edit when it is convenient for them. You can track changes that have been made and make corrections as you go.

Add pictures, movies, files, change the colors, and personalize your wiki to suit your needs!

Check out this video- Wiki in Plain English from YouTube for a demo on how a wiki works.

Learn more about Wikipedia

Check out Wetpaint or PB Wiki where you can create your own wiki for free!

Wikis in education is one of the latest hot topics. My school system uses Wikispaces. Stay tuned for more on this next!

Podcasting In School

There are three possible uses for podcasts in schools:

Administrative Uses- inform community of upcoming events, updates for teachers (I have seen a podcast created by an administrator for team leaders announcing the agenda so they could come prepared with questions)

Staff Uses- self-paced learning, create Professional Development for other staff members/Professional Learning Community

Instructional Uses- content related projects, podcast morning news show

Podcasts are a great way for students to share what they have learned with their teachers, parents, and others. Many schools in my county have technology websites where podcasts are posted so parents listen! Podcasts could also easily be created and used in a telecollaborative project with students in other locations.

Here is what GarageBand looks like. You can drag in images, music, and record your voice. PowerPoint slides are easy to put in a podcast- save them as a .jpg file and drag them into GarageBand! GarageBand makes it easy to edit and you can even create your own music!


At the end of last year my 5th graders created a podcast as a class for their teacher explaining their Top 5 Things about 5th Grade. Each student took their picture, wrote out what they wanted to say, chose a jingle and recorded their message. They loved it! Sorry- I can’t post an example due to student pictures, names, and our school’s media release policy.

Here is an example podcast I made for my students when I had a substitute. This way they could hear and see my directions even though I couldn’t be there with them. This was one of my first podcasts I ever created and I didn't realize that in GarageBand I could easily change the size of the images so that part of the image wouldn't get cut off. Live and learn!

Check out Kathy Schrock’s Educational Podcasting ideas for the classroom. Have fun!

Podcasting

What is a podcast? A podcast is an audio or video program that is made available on the Web. Files can be played on a computer or a portable device. Many traditional radio and TV programs are available as podcasts and many new programs are available only as podcasts. You can subscribe to podcasts and they will automatically download to your computer. Apple’s iTunes and the iPod make it really easy to access and listen to podcasts.

Who creates these podcasts? Anyone can! Yup, even students!
Who are podcasts made for? Anyone- even kids! My younger students really enjoy Sesame Street’s Word on the Street!

What You Need to Podcast:
- A computer
- Microphone and USB audio interface
- Software- Mac- GarageBand; PC- use Audacity; Cell phone- use Gcast
- Music-Mac- use jingles and create music in Garage Band; PC- http://music.podshow.com/ or http://music.download.com/

Things to Think About:
- Planning what will be said, shown, etc.
- Student Safety- names and pictures
- Copyright

Here is a podcast I made of my cat that incorporates pictures and audio content.

What to learn more?
Check out Tony Vincent’s FREE Podcasting Booklet, for both teachers and students, that you can download

Here are Apple’s Podcasting Resources

Finding Websites to Bookmark

My last two posts dealt with social bookmarking, a great web 2.0 tool. One aspect of social bookmarking is actually finding the websites you want to bookmark and share.

Last year I was introduced to StumbleUpon. When you sign up for a free account you set your interests. Based on your interests, StumbleUpon finds websites that match what YOU want to read about.

StumbleUpon allows you to download the toolbar if you have Explorer or Firefox. All you have to do is click the StumbleUpon button and a site comes up; click it again and another site comes up! By clicking the thumbs-up or thumbs-down sign, StumbleUpon learns more about you and your interests and narrows down the sites they show you.

When you click the thumbs up sign, the site is automatically saved on your StumbleUpon account so you can view it whenever you want/need to. You can also easily share the sites that you have come across. You can find great sites without doing a search using Google or another search engine!

Enjoy!

Delicious- Educational Uses

Delicious is a great teacher tool. The Web offers such a wealth of information- both good and bad. It takes time to sort through all the bad to find a site worth saving. For teachers who teach multiple grade levels and subjects, Delicious helps keep you organized and makes saving bookmarks simple. It is also easy to share with others who have accounts. Think about sharing sites school-wide, county-wide, etc.!

While I think there are many reasons to use Delicious as a teacher, it would be harder to use Delicious with students. Depending on age, you could create a link to your Delicious bookmarks and direct them to websites under the appropriate tag, say “Grade 10 Geometry”. For elementary, I think the site is a little overwhelming for my students to go to.

For now, I use Delicious to save sites that are great for my students (and myself!) and then I add them to our school website as well as to my website that lists all the educational websites my students have used so that they can explore them again during reward time.

I tried using ikeepbookmarks, which is more kid friendly in appearance, but the site has so many glitches that adding a bookmark was a slow process and when students tried to access my bookmarks the site ran really slow or not at all. There is a version you can pay for but I didn’t feel it was worth it.

Check out other social bookmarking sites such as Magnolia and Furl.

Delicious

Nope, this post isn’t about food! Delicious is a FREE social bookmarking service. What does that mean? Delicious allows you to save all your favorite Web pages by bookmarking them online, share them with others, and see what other people have found and bookmarked! Since your bookmarks are online you can access them from any computer.

Delicious also allows you to organize your bookmarks into categories of your choosing. You might be used to creating folders to organize your bookmarks. Delicious uses a term called tags. A tag describes a bookmark. You can tag a bookmark with more than one tag. For example, you might have a website that is a game for second graders. You can tag it as both “game” and “second grade”. This one website would be on both the “game” and “second grade” tag page.

If all your friends have Delicious you can exchange bookmarks with them through Delicious. This way you can save the great sites they found too. You can also add them to your Network and are able to see what they are bookmarking.

Another neat feature of Delicious is that the Home page shows the most popular bookmarks on Delicious. By choosing a tag based on your interest you can find just about anything- tavel, news, food, etc!

Bookmarking with Delicious is quick and easy. Depending on the web browser you use, they have an add-on where you install quick buttons that allow you to use the features of Delicious with one click.

Check out a quick movie I created, using Jing, on how to bookmark a site.

More On

No matter what section of Kerpoof you are “playing” in, the left side bar is always the same.
- The bomb allows you to drag it to your picture and erase your work
- The backpack tells you how many koins you have earned (you can earn koins for doing just about anything and then you can trade them for neat features)
- The “A” adds text
- The Super Doodle pen and allows you to draw something and it will be added to your picture as a movable object
- Save- you need an account
- Print- self-explanatory
- The envelope allows you to email your work.

Above picture used with the permission of Kerpoof.

After spending more time exploring the different areas Kerpoof has I have found some positives and negatives for each area.

Positives
-The possibilities for creating are endless!
-Make a picture- there is a search bar where you can type in what you are looking for; lots of background and sticker choices
-You can share your work with others

Negatives
Make a Picture- When you move a picture over another, the second picture automatically goes into the background- you might want it in the foreground, when you put a speech bubble to a sticker, the speech bubble is big and can't be resized, when you click Kerpoof, above the stickers, your picture is gone- think accidents, and picture icons- rotate, enlarge, and speech bubble are tiny so it is hard to remove, or select

Make a Movie- the text isn’t audible and it takes time to learn how to create a movie

Make a Drawing- when you use the eraser it erases the entire object, meaning you can’t erase just part of an object, you can’t import a drawing onto a background, and the color selection is limited

Make a Card- You cannot flip the pictures to be horizontal or vertical on your card, the text doesn’t wrap, and when you try to email your card it says "You can't email this card from Kerpoof because of the text it contains". If you take out a word, depending on what it is it might let you send it. (hint- Kerpoof doesn’t like the word “baby”)

Make a Story- same issues as make a picture

When using with a class- sometimes some students get kicked off and lose their work before printing; printing is a slow process! It might help to have kids print in groups instead of all at once.

Even though it looks like the negatives outweigh the positives, Kerpoof really is a neat FREE tool. When a specific activity is planned and students are instructed on the features or allowed to explore, they can really create something neat!

Educational Uses for

Signing up for a teacher account is easy and once Kerpoof grants you a teacher account you can import all your students names and assign them a password.

There are many educational activities that go with all that Kerpoof offers.

Make a Picture- Create a picture using any scene adding pictures based on the teacher’s directions. This would be a listening activity- ex: Place ____ sticker in the top right corner.
- Students can choose a story starter and write a story. Then, they can make a picture illustrating a scene from the story.

Make a Movie- Illustrate a fractured fairy tale, animate science life cycles, or create an advertisement; Here is a mini-example of a movie

Make a Drawing- draw diagrams, geometry shapes- lines, angles, or draw a book cover

Make a Card- create trading cards of book characters or make flash cards

Make a Story- use it as a prewriting activity where each page would be one element of the story to build a story map, create a story about a biome, or a math story; Here is an illustrated example of a 3 page story (click the arrow to go to the next scene).

If students have accounts they can save and share their work, which could lead to a neat telecollaborative project. If students in different locations had Kerpoof accounts, with the help of the teacher, they could share their Kerpoof work and students could add to the same picture to create one together. Then they could create a story in a Word document and as the picture and story are passed from student to student, each student could add to the story.

The possibilities are endless!
Picture used with the Permission of Kerpoof.

Kerpoof is a website that allows you to have fun, discover things, and be creative. You can create a picture, make an animated movie, make a drawing, make a card, and/or make a story. With Kerpoof you can do all of the above for FREE. Kerpoof does have optional things that require a membership fee. No downloading is necessary! You don’t need an account to use Kerpoof but you do need an account to save, share, and email what you create. They do have a teacher account feature where you can create accounts for students in your class. Once you have an account you can create an avatar to represent you.

Kerpoof has a Teacher Page that has lesson plans, classroom ideas, and more! They also have a Parents Page and because the site is directed for children it has a strict site etiquette policy. While Kerpoof art is copyrighted you can post things you create or make screen captures to your web-page or blog as long as you make an acknowledgment saying “Used With the Permission of Kerpoof.”

On the site they mention that they do not have a manual, mainly because they want you to have fun discovering all the ins and outs of Kerpoof. However, they do have a How to Play section, which features the categories below.

Used With the Permission of Kerpoof.

Have fun creating and check back for educational ways to use Kerpoof!

Check out this great video intro to Kerpoof taken by an attendee at NECC 2008 of Tom Fischaber

Skitch vs. Jing

For the past week I’ve been focusing on FREE image sharing through Skitch. In my initial post I mentioned Jing and briefly mentioned how they were similar and different. Both my co-worker and I have Skitch and Jing and just this past week we were deciding which one to use to create directions for our staff. This is what sparked this post. Hopefully by listing the pros and cons you will be able to use the one that works best for your needs.

Similarities: Both Skitch and Jing…
- Are FREE!
- Allow the user to snap a picture of anything on your computer
- Allow the user to share the images through email, IM, blogs, etc.
- Offer video tutorials
- Allow the user to add arrows, circle text, and add text to the images to highlight important information
- Automatically gives you a place to host your files to share them
- Both have blogs- Jing blog and Skitch blog

Differences:
Jing
- For both PC and Mac
- You are able to record video of what you do or what you see
- Can upload your image or movie to a variety of places like Flikr and share from there
- Has a highlight tool

Skitch
- Only for Mac

For most of you this is a no-brainer. You don’t have a Mac so you would obviously choose Jing. However, if you are in a position to have both, you have to figure out what you want to share and who your audience is. Personal preference does come in to play as well.

For me, most of the time using Skitch is all I need to point out something on an image for the reader. I think Skitch is more user friendly and easier to share what you have created, embed, etc. If only it had the video feature!

Here is an example Jing video that I would use with students.