Week 9

This week's class, we need to present our group asingments, which is about Web 2.0. In this assignment, we need to choose a platform that can be use in teaching. My group, we have been assigned to use blog as the platform for teaching and learning Science.

We have created a blog, http://6adilscienceclass.blogspot.com/.

The objectives of this blog are;

1)Students would be able to learn in a collaborative way through interaction and sharing of knowledge between themselves and with teacher.
2) Blog is going to be used as a platform of discussion as sharing between the students themselves and between students and teachers.
3) To implement blog as a vital part of the class teaching.

There are several pages in the blogs and each of them has their own purpose.

1) Lesson – Here is the notes of all the lessons taught regarding this topic so that students can get these notes for their revision. It is arranged in a weekly basis to ease students filing of notes. (Own videos, songs or any other teaching materials can be embedded as well under this tab)


2) Chatbox – This is a space where students can interact with teacher and among themselves on topic regarding to the lessons learnt in class. They can share websites or web-tools URL that serves as an additional knowledge to what they are learning.


3) Video (podcast) – Here teacher will attach a video of extra information that students might need in order to understand the topic better. Students can comment


4) More Readings and Materials - In this section, teacher will attach or embed the URL of all the materials that students might need to improve their learning – e.g. past-year exam questions, notes on responsibility of human beings on nature, video on protecting endangered species, facts and statistics of endangered species and tips for the upcoming quizzes or test.

The advantages of using Blog as a platform in teaching:

In the advance world of today, the use of blog in education field is very practical. This is because, blog is something that can be updated and accessed easily by everyone. Using blog as one the educational sources, it makes learning independent of time and place, from teaching at a certain time and a certain place to teaching at anytime and anywhere. For instance, if the teacher cannot enter the class, he/she can always upload the notes and tasks for the students and the student can still learn without teacher teaching in front of the class. Thus, the learning process can happen without any boundaries.

Using a blog, it makes education to become demand oriented and participant-centered. It changes the usual way of learning which is from one way teaching and supply orientation where teacher is the one who control the learning process to participation by everyone. Using blog, education has been transform from a teacher-led class to a student-centric experience accentuated by self learning, peer to peer teaching, reach and readily available content, greater accessibility and discovery based learning.

Another point is that, using a blog makes education to become less formal. It is because it allows elements of fun to come together along the learning process. For instance, teacher can upload videos and songs to make the educational blog to be more interesting and attractive to the students. Students prefer images than text. Thus, teacher may also include cartoons and pictures that can capture students’ interest to learn in the blog. This will help the learning process to be more enjoyable and appealing.

Apart from that, using blog, it encourages collaboration between teacher and students. In traditional classroom, the emphasis is on the teacher. Teacher is the one who manage and control the learning process. They transmit the knowledge and students will passively receive the knowledge. Using blog, it allows collaboration and communication between teacher and students. They can ask and answer question to or from each other. Thus, both teacher and students will participate and become more responsible in the learning process.

Week 8

This week's class, we have been introduced to Software Evaluation Rubric, Researched and Developed by Kristin Miller and Jacqueline Bach, SAS inSchool Interns, Summer, 2001. The rubric covers several aspect, which means software or website is evaluated based on several aspects. The aspects are instructional contents, curriculum connections, graphics and multimedia, lay-outs, technical aspects, adaptability and accessibility, learner engagement and interactivity, teache and learner support material, assessment, age/grade level, and lastly flexibility.

Why we need to evaluate software or website?

There is an extremely wide variety of material on the Internet, ranging in its accuracy, reliability, and value. Unlike most traditional information media such as books, magazines and organizational documents, no one has to approve the content before it is made public on the Internet. Thus, it is our job to evaluate what has been put up in order to determine whether it suits your needs.

Besides, information is everywhere on the Internet, existing in large quantities and continuously being created and revised. This information exists in a large variety of kinds such as facts, opinions, stories, interpretations, statistics and is created for many purposes which is for instance to inform, to persuade, to sell, to present a viewpoint, and to create or change an attitude or belief. For each of these various kinds and purposes, information exists on many levels of quality or reliability. It ranges from very good to very bad and includes every shade in between. We have to bear in mind that not every website that we viewed is reliable and can be trusted. Thus, it is ctucial for us to evaluate the web site before we actually search, select and use the materials from the web site.

Example of the Web site Evaluation Rubrics:

http://http://lrs.ed.uiuc.edu/students/tbarcalow/490net/EvalRubric.htm

http://http://meds.queensu.ca/assets/evaluation.jpg

Week 7

In this week's class, we were introduced to:


• Web 1.0


• Web 2.0


• Blog


• Wiki


• Social Networking


• Media Sharing



Web 1.0 - is a retronym that refers to the state of the World Wide Web, and any website design style used before the advent of the Web 2.0 phenomenon. Web 1.0 began with the release of the WWW to the public in 1991, and is the general term that has been creates to describe the Web before the "bursting of the Dot-com bubble" in 2001.



Web 2.0 - gives its users the free choice to interact or collaborate with each other in a social media dialogue as creators of user-generated content in a virtual community, in contrast to websites where users are limited to the passive viewing of content that was created for them. Web 2.0 gives the users opportunities to give feedback on the web.

Examples of web 2.0:

• Social-networking

• Blogs

• Wikis

• Video-sharing sites

• Hosted services

• Web applications

• Mashups

• Folkonomies



Blog - a type of website or part of a website. Blogs are usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in reverse-chronological order. Blog can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog.Most blogs are interactive, allowing visitors to leave comments and even message each other via widgets on the blogs and it is this interactivity that distinguishes them from other static websites. Many blogs provide commentary or news on a particular subject; others function as more personal online diaries. A typical blog combines text, images, and links to other blogs, Web pages, and other media related to its topic. The ability of readers to leave comments in an interactive format is an important part of many blogs. Most blogs are primarily textual, although some focus on art (Art blog), photographs (photoblog), videos (video blogging), music (MP3 blog), and audio (podcasting). Microblogging is another type of blogging, featuring very short posts.



Wiki - a website that allows the easy creation and editing of any number of interlinked web pages via a web browser using a simplified markup language or a WYSIWYG text editor. Wikis are typically powered by wiki software and are often used to create collaborative wiki websites, to power community websites, for personal note taking, in corporate intranets, and in knowledge management systems. Wikis may exist to serve a specific purpose, and in such cases, users use their editorial rights to remove material that is considered "off topic." Such is the case of the collaborative encyclopedia Wikipedia. In contrast, open purpose wikis accept content without firm rules as to how the content should be organized.



Social Networking - a social structure made up of individuals (or organizations) called "nodes," which are tied (connected) by one or more specific types of interdependency, such as friendship, kinship, common interest, financial exchange, dislike, sexual relationships, or relationships of beliefs, knowledge or prestige.



Media Sharing - occurs through online social networks and digital communities with a comprehensive platform and diversified interfaces to aggregate, upload, compress, host and distribute images, text, applications, videos, audio, games and new media. It is the interactive process of sending via email, instant message, text message, posting or linking to media on a website or blog and other methods of sharing media to a targeted audience. As media is shared it takes on a variety of different contexts and meanings.



All in all, i realized that Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 can be a tool that can enhance the teaching and learning proces. They can be the platform that can be used in learning. As teacher, we need to be well versed with the use of these tools so that we can use it to support the teaching and learning process in the classroom. The integration of these tool will enhance learning.