Which Tool Is Best
May 12, 2008 by Intrepidteacher
As we begin to use more and more web tools to share our work, collaborate with each other, raise awareness, it is a good idea to stop every once in a while to recap which tool is best for each job. Some people may be experts with these tools, while others may still be very new.
We hope to be able to guide and coach you as you become comfortable with the various tools. Please feel free to leave a comment either here or send me a message from the Ning if you need further clarification. We also have a running tab at the top of this page called Web Tools with explanations of the tools we will be using.
Here is a basic run-down of why you would use each tool:
Blogs- a good place to reflect on your own learning, seek feedback on longer written pieces, express yourself with writing, multimedia, photographs, drawings and more. Blogs are a great home base to anchor your online activity. I will be using this blog as a way to share resources, give “lessons,” and keep all of our activity in order.
Ning- a good place to have conversations and discussions, make announcements, share music, and socialize. If you do not have a blog of your own, the Ning offers you a blog option to write longer pieces.
Wiki- this is the place for more than one person to work collaboratively on a shared project, like the logo. The wiki creates pages that can be edited by a group of people.
Youtube- this is a place where we can share the videos we will create, as well as a place where we can start to add favorites. I hope this will become a great collection for videos to help raise awareness and promote activism and peace.
For those of you who are new to all of us technology, relax, take a deep breath and jump right in. For those of you who are old pros, please help us get everyone on board!
Create a free edublog to get your own comment avatar (and more!)
I personally think that the Ning is one of Intrepid Classroom’s largest (and easiest to use) assets.
I just wanted to bring up the idea of a forum, maybe hosted by Proboards? When I taught an online class, it utilized the avaliable forum features (it wasn’t on a proboards server but a vBulletin instead, but the latter requires a paid subscription…) and it was wonderfully helpful in allowing myself to jump in and discuss with my “students”.
I’ve also been using proboards for at least three years and find it incredibly easy to use, both as an admin and as a normal member. Discussions and lessons are very easily taught on a forum.
Just a suggestion, I’d like to think that Intrepid Classroom is open for technology usage suggestions.
Intrepid teacher, I think this post is really helpful. I really like it because it explains everything really good and I totally agree with you. I also think, that the ones that are already used to this kind of technology should help the ones that are new. However, it was a very interesting post and at the beginning when I was reading your post I didn’t know what was Ning, but after reading the whole post I understood everything. Hope you visit my blog.
@Julia I love the idea of using forums, but how are these tools any different than the discussion boards on the Ning. I just don’t want to over do it on the technology. I hope that we can find a nice balance where we can communicate, share, and collaborate with th best and easiest tools.
If you feel these forums are good than I would love for you to start one and invite people over. My hope is that students here will take ownership of how the whole thing works. I will be here to share some expertise and answer questions, but I hope that you, the students, will take charge!
I am always open to suggestions about anything! I would love to take a class that you teach.
I would love to visit your blog Pamica, but you didn’t give us a link. Hope to see you on the Ning soon.
I really like the idea of a Proboards forum, but at the same time I almost already feel like we have too many different pages. Sometimes I think that a post was on Ning but it was on Edublog and then I spent 30 min searching the wrong site.
I personally think that Ning is the best, but I also like Wiki and Edublog.
Sorry about not leaving my link. I totally forgot. Here it is: http://www.pao13.edublogs.org. Thank you, hope you visit it!