Our school consists of 3 separate locations and we are exploring ways of holding classes and meetings using this type of technology. We have started using Moodle this year for classes and are looking to expand using that technology. As more of our students acquire phones and computers with cameras we may be able to use the WizIQ software.
I was also intrigued by Ning. Creating your own social network is something we have looked at for our alumni department. We have around 17,000 alumni and are working on ways to incorporate new web technologies into our web site so they can re-connect with the school. We are in the process of developing a new web site which will be online within the next 2 weeks. Within that web site we wanted to start using blogs and discussion groups for our alumni but now I am going to research Ning to see if we can incorporate that into our site.
Mike, I also am enjoying using the Ning as a gathering site for our class members. If you use it as a way to reconnect your schools alumni to the school how would you use it? Would it be set up to resemble some of the other social networking sites or do you have a more unique vision? Our school district also uses Moodle for our student and teacher learning communities, but it hasn't been as popular with some of the staff as I expected. Could you share some more about your experiences in getting teachers to use the site at your school?
ReplyDeleteRight now I am thinking of trying to emulate some of the other sites. We have a Facebook Fan page but we have people becoming fans who have no connection to the school and some of those people are not people we want representing us (questionable backgrounds and inappropriate pictures). This could be a turn off to donors. This system would allow us to create some of the same features like a wall, discussions, and blogs and have us control who has access.
ReplyDeleteAs for Moodle, our teachers are not as excited about it as I am. That is partly my fault. I have had some major network issues to deal with and have not had a lot of time to promote the software and provide training. I am hoping to correct that this fall. I do have a core group of users that I want to support and then use them as examples and trainers in the future.
Like you Mike, I have many ideas that I'd like to work into the curriculum at my school. The two that I'd like to start with are blogging and the podcast. Video conferencing does not appeal to me right now because I don't see a practical way to apply that in the classroom itself. The only exception might be where my class and your class have an expanded discussion. For a classroom discussion like that, I'd probably not use Skype or other such programs; I'd most likly use a Polycom, which has two televisions that sit side by side and allow both classrooms to see and hear each other at the same time.
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