week7

24 February 2010: Learning Portals (interactive website creation: Google Sites, Wikis)

Attendance:

• • Section 62 (9 am) - Our TodaysMeet backchannel - iEtherpad backup backchannel

  • Section 63 (11 am) - Our TodaysMeet backchannel - iEtherpad backup backchannel

1- Overview

To facilitate blended learning experiences for students, it is essential for teacher-leaders to create hyperlinked, media-rich online spaces. These learning portals can serve as digital extensions of the classroom, spaces for student collaboration, lockers for research discoveries and media, as well as online portfolios demonstrating knowledge and skills.

2- Lesson

• 1. Announcements and Review:

     1. Not all quizzes / assignments to date have been graded. Check your WebCT grades and let your instructor know if you have questions.

     2. Search Techniques

        1. Anyone try anything new?

     3. Google Advanced Search

• • • 1. Questions?

• 1. 4. Digital Newspapers

     5. Google Reader

     6. Feedly

     7. TwitterTim.es/wfryer

• • • 1. Post: Personalized Digital Newspapers

• 1. 8. Joyce Valenza's "The Wizard of Apps"

• • • 1. Noteable tools mentioned

• 1. 9. Joyce's "New Tools Workshop"

     10. Expectations review:

• • • 1. Teacher Movie (Marco Torres)

      2. Administrator Movie (UCO students with Wesley Fryer)

      3. Learning can be hard. It can take time and effort. Have high but reasonable expectations for your own learning and that of your own students. (image1 - image2)

• 2. Opening Video: An Open Letter to Educators (Dan Brown)

• 1. Reasons for teaching / sharing free learning portal creation tools:

     1. Accessibility

     2. Relevance

  2. Unmasking the Digital Truth Project

  3. What is a Wiki?

  4. English WikiPedia

• • 1. Albert Einstein and the Policing of WikiPedia (blog post)

    2. Wikis in Plain English (YouTube)

• 1. Exemplary Learning Portals:

  2. Rachel Boyd's Classroom Learning Portal

     1. Global Leadership Projects Wiki (Int'l School of The Americas, San Antonio, TX)

  3. Google Workshops for Educators

  4. Exemplary Digital Portfolios

• • 1. Andrea Smith (built with Weebly)

    2. Dr Helen Barrett (built with Google Sites)

• 5. Platforms / tools for building learning portals

  6. Google Sites

• • 1. WikiSpaces (for educators - ad free)

• 7. PBworks

  8. Weebly

  9. Google Sites

• 1. The Tool: http://sites.google.com

  2. The Crib Sheet: http://sites.google.com/site/gtaresources/materials/Crib_Sites.pdf

  3. Gone Google: A Collection of Lesson Plans built with Google Sites

3- Assignments

OPTIONAL: Sign up online to attend the Monday, March 8th Heartland eLearning keynote address FREE (for UCO students)

OPTIONAL: Explore and use this great list of Avatar creation websites from Joyce Valenza and make your own! (This avatar can be used on VoiceThread and other sites)

• 1. Create a site in Google Sites. Use the Google Sites help pages to learn how to make additions and changes! At a minimum, the site should include at least 3 pages:

• • 1. A homepage including at least one copyright friendly image, and the link to the image source. (Remember you can use Compfight and Flickrstorm)

    2. The outline for your Integrated Unit Plan (on a separate page)

    3. A videos page, including at least three different YouTube videos with educational value. (Remember you can use our T4T Diigo Group links.) Include at least 2-3 sentences for each video, explaining the educational value / purpose for using each video. This page includes some possibilities. Include the TITLE of each video, the LINK to each video, and EMBED each video also. (Use the INSERT menu in Google sites to add images and videos.)

    4. This is one of your course "mini-projects." Plan to spend 60 minutes on this assignment this week, and continue to work on it in week 8. (Don't spend HOURS AND HOURS working on it now!)

    5. You have THREE WEEKS to complete this assignment. It will be due March 10th.

• 1. Watch and take notes on Paula White's 2009 K-12 Online Conference presentation, "Parallel Play or Collaboration--Leveraging the Wiki Platform for High Quality Work" (21 min, 21 sec) Also explore the links Paula provides on her supporting wiki, WikiThink.

• 1. Write and post a reflection about Paula's presentation on your T4T blog using our video reflection rubric.

• 1. Classmate Blog Feedback

• • 1. Use our course communication tools (including Google Reader) to find and read at least TWO blog post reflections written by your classmates.

    2. Write constructive comments on AT LEAST these two posts, following our "Constructive Commenting with Social Media" guidelines

• 1. WebCT Quiz: Quarterly Checkup Quiz 2 (take this quiz in the ASSESSMENTS area of WebCT after you have completed assignments for week 4, 6, and 7.

4- Resources

• 1. Outstanding Google Sites resources from Lisa Thumann (GWE 11/2009)

5- Review

What is the link to your blog reflection from week 7, on Paula White's 2009 K-12 Online Conference presentation, "Parallel Play or Collaboration--Leveraging the Wiki Platform for High Quality Work?"

Content licensed

by Wesley Fryer and Karen Montgomery