Wikis and blogs can be an environment without walls Presented by Jacqui Sharp

Part of Google Apps for EducationGoogle Apps for Education

Stored on servers at a Remote location

Best for showcasing events as they happen Process of thinking in words Critical and analytical thinking Creative and intuitive

A Web site developed collaboratively by a community of users, allowing any user to add and edit content. Google Web DefinitionGoogle Web Definition

If you have a Gmail account, you can make a Google Site

What you will see on these blogs Dance videos Trips Father’s Day presentations Reviews of other class presentations Work done with iPads What we have learnt from our topic Celebrating special days Report on Skyping our buddies

What you will see on these blogs Students writing turned into web2.0 presentations Students asking questions Students commenting on others work Home learning quizzes 2/09/guess-storybird.html

What you will see on this blog A student who enjoys writing A student taking pride in their presentation Her own thoughts, wonderings and opinions

What you will see on this blog Vision and philosophy of the school Twitter updates Discussion about student lead conferences 21 st century learning at this school

What you will see on this blog The journey of a new school being built from the ground up Weekly updates of what has been happening in the school Celebrations Open, translucent communication with parents

What you will see on this wiki Parents calendar Website game links to Letters Reading Numeracy Photos Study Ladder Songs Homework Topic Links

What you will see on this wiki Links to other wikis Cybersafety Literacy Numeracy Topics Learning Tools Calendar Timetable Tutorials

What you will see on this site WALTS Learning goals Resources to support learning Audio clips of their music Movies they have made of their learning Calendars Timetables Links to other blogs and sites in the school.

What you will see on this wiki Presentations Resources Tutorials Keynotes

To this

So what does this mean for your learners?

Wikis and Blogs can be an environment without walls Traditionally, if you wanted to create a website with your own information on it, you would have to pay somebody to do it or buy very expensive software and then learn how to create it yourself or learn HTML programming language. The first two options being very costly ventures, the third very costly time wise. Nowadays you can do it for free and with basic WordProcessing knowledge anybody can put together their own website very quickly. Plus it is online and accessible by anyone, anywhere, anytime. Because of this freedom websites are being developed for all sorts of reasons. In education, teachers are creating websites to hold their teaching resources (i.e. visual aids explaining learning strategies) and point students to learning sites that are suitable for their needs. In administration, websites are being created for collaborative, communication purposes to reach across all staff and/or to provide information for outside viewers. Students are able to revisit their learning in their own time, using their own devices and do not have to be in the classroom to access their teachers resources. In administration, paper trails are now stored all in one place, able to be accessed for viewing, editing, commenting by all at any time, on any device and anywhere.

References Jacqui Sharp ‘Where to start with Wikis and Blogs’ m/ m/ Jacqui Sharp ‘Cool schools wikis and blogs’ /14/how-wikis-can-help-schools-organise-their- content/