And the Baw12 journey continues...
Which tools should I explore??!!
This is the first time in the 9 years of the Becoming a Webhead (BaW) existence that we will attempt to continue the collaborative learning journey beyond the 5 weeks. There are many tools left to explore in Weeks 2 to 5. Tools that are simple and not so simple. Tools that may be very useful to use with your students, motivate them, broaden their horizons and diversify your lessons in an exciting way.
The BaW12 coordinators came up with a plan and will have the help of several moderators. Our idea is for you, participants, (and even some of us mods), to explore tools that are part of each week, but there wasn't time to explore during the 5 weeks of BaW12. Each type of tool will be explored for a certain period of time. About two weeks for each topic.
We'll start exploring "audio tools" and finish with "Google docs and apps". For each type of tool, go to the respective week, choose the tools you'd like to explore, do so alone or with friends, ask questions or report problems to the YG list and someone will help you asap. When you have created something, post it in the Participants Production wiki page and send a message about it to the list so that we can all take a look and make our comments.
Here's the plan.
| March |
|
| 7 - 17 |
Audio tools (look at the week 2 table and choose) |
| 19 - 31 |
Video tools (look at the week 2 table and choose) |
| April |
|
| 2 - 14 |
Blogs (look at the week 3 table and choose; we suggest Blogger to start with) |
| 16 - 28 |
Wikis (look at the week 3 table and choose; we suggest Wikispaces) |
| May | |
| 1 - 5 | Overview of the past weeks |
| 7 - 12 | Twitter and Tweetdeck (week 3). We'll try to have a TweetMeet. |
| 14 - 31 | Interactive exercises (look at the week 4 table and choose) |
| June | |
| 1 - 9 |
Google docs (look at the week 5 table, or the Tools page, and choose 2-3 programs) & |
| 11 - 23 | Google apps (look at Rita's presentation in week 5 and choose) |
| 25 - 30 | Overview of the past weeks |
Remember that there are tutorials for some of these tools. And we have a few others that we didn't upload, but will gladly share. If you're interested, please let us know.
Finally, remember that this a first time ever post BaW experience, so there may be a few corrections along the way. We may even come up with suggestions about interesting tools to explore, or show you examples of what we did in the past.
Let's leave at this point for now. Do start exploring and enjoy! Above all, learn as much as possible. :-)
Useful readings
The Complete Educator’s Guide to Using Skype effectively in the classroom - Sue Waters (3 Apr. 2011)
Rationale for Using Skype in the Classroom - K. Ferrell (5 Apr. 2011)
Skype in the Classroom (resource of projects to join, or start one)