Reflective Blog #2

MAPping Activity

After completing the information literacy quiz, I realized I am not as “savvy” as I thought. This activity gave me a lot of new valuable information to think about when using the internet for information. I will now check the URL for specific extensions and I will check to see if it is a “personal page”. After gaining this knowledge I am not very confident about the information I have used in the past. I know there had to be sites that were not reputable sources. Even though I am sad to admit this, I am glad that I now know a new way of searching the internet, which will better my chances for the future.     

If we fail to teach our students the proper way to search the internet they are likely to find inaccurate information and will be lead to believe it is correct. Students may then use this information for important educational purposes and be caught off guard when they learn their background knowledge is incorrect. Even though some schools may block access to certain sites, many students complete projects, papers, and assignments on their personal computers at home. This will be when students find the inaccurate information.  

Delicious and/or Google Reader

There are so… many advantages for using these sites to help organize information. I personally played with Delicious the most, and I absolutely love it! There are many times when I am looking online for literacy and math station ideas, short science lessons, and even good websites for my students to use, but I never seem to find what I am looking for. With Delicious I found a way to search for specific “tags”. Within a specific search, I found a tag for “Kindergarten” and within that tag there were “related tags” for all subject areas! When I found other people who seemed to have the same interests, I could then network with these users. This was amazing, I love it!! Thank you so… much for sharing this with us.  

Creating a Wiki

When creating and developing my wiki, I chose to use it for my Kindergarten team. I wanted it to be a way to open communication between each of us three Kindergarten teachers and our group of parents. Within my wiki I began adding things like word wall words, upcoming events, homework, weekly objectives, daily schedules, and the list seems to keep growing.

Advantages/Disadvantages of a Wiki

The advantages I see in utilizing a wiki by far outnumber the disadvantages. Some advantages include greater opportunities for collaboration, quick editing, instantaneous information, open structure, people in different locations can access the same documents, and it is easy to use and learn. The only disadvantages I see is that “anyone” can edit the information posted on the wiki.

The wiki will be a great tool to help engage both my team teachers and classroom parents with collaboration. I believe it will help with communication and their interest in what is going on in the classroom. I am hoping that it will also have positive effects on my both my students’ achievement rates and attitudes towards learning.      

eLearning Tools Wiki

When exploring this wiki, I found a web 2.0 technology called “LiveBinders”. LiveBinders is an organizational tool that is used to help in assisting with the organization of written text, images, internet resources, videos, and more. I would love to explore this further. I believe it would be a great way for teachers to organize thematic units. Instead of collecting huge binders that are placed on bookshelves in the classroom, why not create a virtual binder!