Module 10

ah at last...the journey into the realm of technology comes to a closure. Although I have clocked numerous hours discovering many new sites I had no idea existed, I can't help but feel that I still have not really touched the surface of what is truly out there. What's even scarier, is that by Term 1 of 2010, a lot of what we have looked at will become the 'old version' of something that is newer, more entertaining, more exciting, and of course...more confusing!!!!

I love the idea of blogs - or to make it sound more educational - 'learning journals'. Giving children the opportunity to reflect on their work independantly - and even as a smaller community - sharing ideas and thoughts on topics could potentially help them gain a better understanding, and potentially even foster higher thinking. The only concern however would be whether or not children were sharing information that was accurate, misinteptreted, or simply just wrong. I love the idea of blogs for high school students and even all the way up to a university component. This 'freedom' of speech would no doubt encourage some students to voice an opinion - or at the very least attempt to sound intelligent to lure the opposite sex.

Blooms is permanently lodged into my brain from my days as a university student. My Method Teaching teacher drilled us about the benefits, usefulness, practicality and so on....I must admit I never did pay a lot of attention to his rants, but I can see the importance of Blooms. The Educational Origami is a fantastic site jam packed with useful information and application of Blooms in the classroom. As a practicing primary teacher however, the language can be hard for a lot of Year levels. However I often try to incorporate Blooms into my teachings with Year 5/6, but not with the lower classes that I also teach.

In applying Blooms to Web2.0 tools I have learnt about - Second Life, Flikr and Mind Mapping - my personal suggestions would be:

Second Life - Seems to have a place in every aspect (in my opinion) of Blooms, and although a fantastic concept that Second Life is, it simply redirects children from what they should be doing - learning - and into a highly dangerous world where they could be subject to bullying, harrassment, coercion and even advertisements of inappropriate material. At the end of the day I believe the benefits have been considerably outweighted by the enormous 'unknown' factor that comes with 'online life'.

Flikr - Mostly into the applying section where students can apply knowledge they have learnt. On the other hand, used with other stimulus in addition to the picture, Flikr could touch on all levels of Blooms where children have to compare and contrast, create products, evaluate courses of actions ect.

Mind Mapping (glogster/Bubble.Us) Again this could touch on all levels of Blooms depending though on the type of activities children are expected to do.

At the end of the day however, applying these sites into Blooms is all limited to the child's understanding of the concept/s and whether they can push themselves to all levels of thinking. In most cases though we will find they can move through 1 or 2 levels with ease and then from there need clarrification and assistance.