Creating a Learning Wiki

I love wikis. Mainly because they provide an opportunity for anyone or everyone to create an online presence to share, to provoke, to describe, to collaborate. Wikis as we know simply enable anyone and everyone to create content online using easily understandable tools. Many of our P-12 schools are taking advantage of the opportunities for "collaborative construction" that wikis provide. But I love the fact that we can also use them for whatever we need to create online. At the moment I am working on my presentation wiki , Teaching-with-Technology, in preparation for a couple of conferences I am presenting at over the next couple of weeks. My aim is to have all the information that I need and much more on the wiki so that people who attend my workshop will have a type of one stop shop where they can get all of the information that they need. It will contain links for both teachers and students to sites that help them to be organised, collaborate with each other, learn from others, see examples of Web 2.0 being used in the classroom and much more.
Over the next couple of weeks I will continue to build on it and I would love some feedback or suggestions.

When is out of date, out of date?

A couple of days ago I was exploring a link to a wiki created by a class in New Zealand. It was posted to a mailing list to illustrate a good example of educational use of a wiki. And it was an excellent, genuine example. However as I was reading it, I noticed that the last entry was posted in about June 2007. My immediate reaction and consequent action was to stop reading and to move onto something else. Why?
When I thought about this, I realised that the more I read information and ideas on the web, the more I expect the posts, or entries to be 'fresh'. Why, I wonder. I would have no qualms about reading a non-fiction textbook that might have been published 10 0r even 20 years ago. What is different about the web?
Speed is also a need. I find that often I'll read something and if it doesn't 'grab' me, I'll either move on or at the very most, tag it and then move on.
I wonder what it says about me as a consumer? I wonder what this need for immediacy or action might say about our students as consumers?

Visitors all around the World

I have always gotten a kick out of looking at the Clustr maps that sits on the right hand side of my blog. I'm not naive enough to think that all of those are visitors who regularly come back to visit my blog. In fact I'm sure that most of those are ones who just happen to stumble across it. However it is still nice to see the red dots building up.
Last week I got a message from Clustr maps to say that after a year of using the Clustr maps widget they have archived all my visits and I'm starting all over again. Oh well, it looked good at the time. I wonder if I can get more than about the 2300 visits that has been 'dotted' over the last 12 months. I know, I know there are lots of educators who probably get that many in a week and not a year...but I've had fun and will continue to use my blog as a tool for reflection. Having people 'stumble' across it is a bonus. And I do get a real buzz when someone leaves a comment.

Voki -creating a new you

Over the last few weeks I have been introducing our Grade 3/4 students to Vokis. What is a Voki you ask? Well if you ask the kids they would probably say something like, "It's this really cool site where you can make something that talks and moves. It can be a person or a cartoon or an animal. You can dress it and change the way it looks and then embed it into your wiki or blog by copying the code that is created.
The kids love it and I do too. One of the things that I do like about it is something really simple that looks a lot of fun. It also allows for students to create something that can go online without readily identifying them. But there is also the flexibility of the avatars to present the ideas of the students. One of the activities that I have asked the kids to do is to create a voki that talks about their passion. An activity that they already regularly do in class but here is a more powerful and exciting way to present it to others in their class and their parents.
Here's an example created by Maddy...


Get a Voki now!

K12 Online Conference 2007

I am going to do my best to check out a few of the prestentations on the K12Online Conference 2007 which is already underway. The main presentations are beginning this week and the following week with some Pre conference presentations already completed. There are some pretty cool presenters check them out here.
Follow the schedule here http://k12onlineconference.org/docs/k12online2007schedule.html
If you read this blog regularly, you would know that I am pretty passionate about the value of wikis and this K12Online conference wiki is a pretty great example of how wikis can be used extremely effectively.

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Happy Birthday James

james and danny
Originally uploaded by annieb3525

Happy 22nd birthday for Oct 3rd to my beautiful son James who is at trade school at the moment in Melbourne. This time last year we were preparing a 21st birthday party in the local footy sheds. This is James on the left with his good mate Danny only 12 months ago. My how time flies.

Blogging is worth it

I have been on holidays for the last two weeks and have taken a little break from blogging. But in that time I have received 4 or 5 comments on previous posts that I have made on this blog. Some comments were on posts made over a month or so ago. That is really heartening and encouraging as sometimes when you send these thoughts out into the blogosphere you don't really know if the only one reading it is YOU (as in me).  It made me wonder about the immediacy of the web and the feeling of moving on that I often get when I read or post something. I think it has to do with everything happening and changing so quickly on the web. It's like, once it's gone it's time to move on to the next thought. It's good though to every now and then go back and read and respond to previous thoughts. So thanks to Sarah, Jess and anonymous for waking me up again and getting me back on the blogging trail. Looking forward to another exciting term of fun !!

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