Weebly.
Well recently I created a website with the company weebly. I found it really easy to manage. A website is basically similar to a wiki except that no one can edit it but the creator. This would be better for creating a homework program for your students, putting up interactive quizzes or games or even creating a research page specifically for them to find the information you want them to.I think that a lot of thought would need to go into the outcomes the students would get out of the website activities. Would learning be happening? Are they going to be doing activities that can only be done on the computer? Are they using higher order thinking skills? Many teachers think that to make their websites or online learning spots engaging and exciting by adding pictures, graphics and animations. However, "creating engagement is not about those fancy, expensive graphics but rather about ideas." (Prensky, 2005) So really the point of the website would be to create ideas… and hopefully lead that to higher order thinking, problem-solving, investigating and collaborating.
I created a S.W.O.T analysis for how effective it would be in a classroom context. I’m sure there are many other points but these are the main ones:
Nathan-Out.
References:
Prensky, M. (2005). "Engage Me or Enrage Me" What Today's Learners Demand. Washington: EDUCAUSE.
Hi Nathan, I clicked on your blog via the discussion board and I think I have read three or four of your blog postings. Your evaluations and justifications on the tools we are using are excellent and I have learnt so much from reading them.
ReplyDeleteI will continue to follow your blogs with great interest.
In regards to the weebly, (which is my favourite tool probably because it's what I'm used too)I thought it would be a good way to differentiate learning by adding activities (printable or non-printable) for different levels of learners. Additionally, it could be used to scaffold learning by allowing the students to read what is being taught per week for the term, by making seperate pages.
I agree that placing clips and images that are not relevant to the topic creates a distraction. This is because if I am given a you tube link I find that I continue to look at other videos until I find myself way off task.
Thank you for your valuable insight.
Cheers Sarah