Over the years I have had the opportunity to work with and edit websites through my previous employment. I've used programs such as Front Page and Publisher but both have been extremely touchy and often resulted frustration. In visiting the weebly I was expecting a similar experience but much to my pleasant surprise I found this web based application extremely easy to use and manipulate
Strengths:
Engagement, ownership of technology and experience
Very easy to create, modify and update
Brings collaborative learning out of the classroom and into the world
Interactive! and enjoyable for students using different forms of media
Weakness:
Would be hard from a classroom management point of view if students were to create a website themselves, keeping them all together without students going ahead or falling behind
Addictive - learning my fall by the way side in replacement with enjoyment
Opportunities:
Collaborative learning furthered, students work with and support teacher can learn in and outs from each other through experimenting
Brings multimodal texts from home to school - improved opportunity for engagement
Threats:
Parental views on students creating content which can be viewed outside the school?
Without clear reason for use, may just be another "good" but not productive thing for students to do on the computer
See my website below, just did some basic experimenting and added some pages
http://elearningbyjustin.weebly.com/index.html
Hi Justin,
ReplyDeleteSince you are already familiar with creating websites I thought you might be interested in the idea of creating a classroom website. I have been following the blog of a UK teacher who has set up a website as a way to communicate with parents, students, other schools and staff. Her class website changes each term with the unit and includes interactive webquests, homework, assignment information, notes to parents and information about herself as a teacher etc. I thought this was a very organised and creative idea for using websites in the classroom.
I noticed in your blog, you have mainly focused on websites in terms of creating or presenting knowledge, but what are your thoughts about them as a means of accessing and gaining information. Personally I find it very frustrating being 'locked out' of so many resourceful sites due to EQ! Despite that, I think it is essential that we teach our students how to navigate the world wide web in a safe and constructive manner and yet so many teachers choose not to use it.
I'm keen to hear your thoughts,
Cheers,
Kristen