Module 9

Scootle

I had a brief introduction to Scootle at my school a few years ago.  As a staff we didn’t make it a regular ‘go to’ resource and as a second year graduate teaching Prep, I had my hands full learning how to guide and teach ‘my’ beautiful children and interact with their families…so needless to say, Scootle kind of fell off my radar.  I am very glad to be reintroduced to it as with a little more experience now (i.e. a little more headspace to look further afield for resources) I can see this will be a great resource to share and benefit from others’ input about ideas and units of work.

I have to agree with Jan (http://jan4fun.blogspot.com.au/) that it is a pity it is more difficult to get to than most websites but will take up her suggestion and see if I can add it as a bookmark in Diigo.

Social Networking

Social network sites are defined as those which are intended for a single user. Online communities are intended for use with groups. The use of collaboration tools such as blogs, wikis and nings for learning with students is recommended. Personal social network sites such as Facebook are not.

This quote from Web 2.0 tools module 9 is a really helpful distinction.  I felt uncomfortable at the idea of using social networking sites with students, particularly as I am a primary school teacher and according to the terms and conditions of most social networking sites the minimum age people can join is 13 years old, thus making it unavailable to primary aged children.

Collaboration (or team work as we sometimes call it) on the other hand is an important part of learning together and learning from others (zone of proximal development).  As our world becomes smaller and smaller (in a perceived sense) the ability to collaborate with others near and far is going to be high on the list of skills employers look for.  Within our classrooms and year levels where I work we value collaboration highly, this Web 2.0 tools course is challenging me to investigate facilitating my students’ collaboration further afield.

Second Life

It was interesting to watch the Youtube videos about Second Life.  Fron what I saw I think this maybe aimed a bit more a Secondary students.  In the first clip the narrator was suggesting that students could act out and Elizabethan play in front of a ‘live’ audience in Second Life.  As a primary school teacher with kinaesthetic learners and ones who love drama in my class I would probably have my students act out the Elizabethan play in real life in front of their classmates.

It feels like Second Life gives the opportunity for a bit of a disconnect between what a person is doing and real life feelings/emotions and consequences.  I can understand that this may be beneficial for some extremely shy people to practise something virtually before they have a go in real life but I feel uncomfortable with the possibility of people living in Second Life and not in real life. 

I can see the benefits of Second Life for trialling or modelling something for no cost that you would like to make.

Facebook

I have a private Facebook page that I use to keep in touch with friends and relatives overseas and in other parts of Australia.  I am super conscious of keeping my Facebook activity private so have set very tight privacy settings and although I check what is going on with friends and family regularly I contribute infrequently. 

I would never accept a friendship request from a student, school parent or colleague.  In fact I did have a school parent say she would try to find me on Facebook and I had to be very up front about the fact that if she sent me a friend request I would not accept it.  Not because I did not like her but because it was a professional requirement and because my Facebook activity was purely personal.  She accepted this without a problem.

Twitter

I set up my Twitter account some time ago and when I did Module 2 I refreshed my interest in Twitter.  I follow a few people now and find there is much ‘out there’ to keep a person busy, researching and reading.  @langwitches is a prolific tweeter and has pointed me in the direction of some good educational articles.  I don’t really tweet myself at this stage and that is a challenge for the future.

In conclusion, I found these two quotes combined informative and challenging.  As

Celia says in the second quote it might be time for me to stop ‘lurking’ and ‘jump in’!

‘What is explicit in any idea of a network is its connections. And in every case, the more connections there are, the more useful a network becomes. This is commonly known as “the network effect.” A social network’s value, for example, scales exponentially, because you can have groups of many different sizes as well as more individual participants.’  Andy Havens, From community to technology…and back again, Next Space, January 2013, http://www.oclc.org/publications/nextspace/articles/issue20/fromcommunitytotechnologyandbackagain.en.html

‘You will only benefit if you contribute in these worlds – lurking is common but it only lasts so long before you need to jump in and contribute as well.’  Celia Coffa http://ccoffa.edublogs.org/web-2-0-online-course/