Wikis

I think there are some definite potentials for using wikis in our programs. When Julia and I met with EDC in September, I asked Valerie and Liz if they could support a wiki in Moodle. The idea for a wiki in the online course would be that teachers could collaborate on their final projects and either create group projects or individual projects and collaborate with their peers.

One interesting way we are already using a wiki is with the World and America TAH website. I used PMWiki to create this website. It had the benefit of allowing me to copy and paste copious amounts of text into the website and get it completed much more quickly than a traditional site using html would have allowed. Another benefit is that this particular wiki has its own "language" for coding the site that anyone can learn. And finally, there is the potential that in the future we could open up the site and make it a collaborative site and allow teachers to add their own curriculum ideas, resources, etc. for the teaching about the TAH topics.

Web 2.0 in Schools

Here's a great post from the American Association of School Librarians blog about Web 2.0 Tools in Schools.

Tag, You're It

I have found Delicious to be quite a useful tool. I've had an account since 2006 and originally started using it to post links to important articles and websites about information literacy for the instruction librarians I worked with at EC. Now, it has become a great place for me to bookmark websites with useful reference information. It's so hard to keep track of every great website or kernel of information I come across on any given day, but with Delicious, I can bookmark a site, tag it and come back later if I'm looking for a site to answer a reference question.

My Delicious page is http://delicious.com/jennhanson. This week I played with the Tag Bundles feature. I had never noticed this feature before and it helps me keep my sites organized even more into categories that are most useful to my work. Using the tag bundles like library and technology, I can create lists for my own interests and lists for reference purposes.

As far as Technorati goes, I like that there are ways to find images and videos through Technorati's search features. This could be useful to find relevant multimedia in blogs related to our work.

Award Winners

I explored a site that I have heard about but never really looked at. DonorsChoose.org is a site where teachers from all across the US can request classroom materials. Interested donors can go to this site and pick a classroom project to donate to. I searched for Boston and found an 11th grade class from Brook Farm Academy requesting a "Global Studies Classroom Library." The teachers needs $720 for 5 copies each of Our America, Caucasia, The Farming of Bones, Krik? Krak!, Drown, When I Was Puerto Rican, In the Time of Butterflies, A Long Way Gone, and House of the Spirits. How exciting to find one of the Boston Small High School teachers asking for these resources! I can only wonder if this is someone who has taken one of our programs. (The teacher is Ms. G and there is a teacher with the last name Grady at Brook Farm who teaches 9th and 11th grade Humanities who has taken several of our courses.)

Here is the link to the request if you are interested.