Collaborative Geography/History for Grade 5/6 class

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Permalink Reply by Scot Laudenbach on July 15, 2009 at 9:18am

You can use Diigo.com to set up a blog for just your class or allow others to sign in and participate as well. Unfortunately I am not currently teaching otherwise I would be interested. However, on that site you will be able to connect with others who are. I have known of 2 different teachers using this with great sucess. Good luck!

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Permalink Reply by Chris Hebbard on July 16, 2009 at 6:38am

Thanks Scot. I have signed up with Diigo but I am a little confused with how to use it. Any suggestions, (besides watch the tut vid, it makes it all seem ridiculously easy!) would be great!

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Permalink Reply by Jamie Winfield on July 15, 2009 at 11:51am

Hi Chris and Kim,
I teach 6th grade Social Studies (US History) in Goochland, VA. I am interested in starting a class blog this year for my students to post about what they are studying. I haven't really worked out the details yet, I'm talking with our technology staff to work it out.

We plan on using a WordPress blog. There will be 1 class log in - students will either share the responsibility of posting weekly on our progress and other students will comment OR I will post a prompt/question and all students must comment. Again, still working out the details.

Maybe we could have students visit/comment on each others blogs? And possibly extend to researching each other's curriculum?

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Permalink Reply by Chris Hebbard on July 15, 2009 at 9:17pm

Wow! What a great response. OK, I have a class wiki. I did have a blog but I found it far too restrictive in terms of the content I could access and post. The idea I am thinking of (as you guys are all in completely different time zones to me) is email contact between students and the sharing of a combined Australia/US wiki. We could add pages as new people may come on board but the focus would be on presenting historical content and geographical research and comparing the "home" country to others around the world. So far it seems like Kim and Jamie are interested in working with me so thanks heaps guys. Also thankyou Scott for your advice.
I am a fan of wikispaces so check that out. Also have a look at my class wiki and student wikis linked to it. We are part of a 1-1 laptop program so our new found resources are helping a lot with this sort of stuff. My wiki site address is www.4chwiki.wikispaces.com.
Thanks again for your wonderful response and I look forward to working with you all. Cheers!

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Permalink Reply by Chris Hebbard on July 16, 2009 at 5:58am

Awesome. I thought about a single wiki for both classes which we could co-manage and have say, a USA page, Australia page, and pages of other classes we could gather from around the world.
I have just signed up with a user account in Diigo and am trying to find the educator upgrade. I am a little confused with it all actually.

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Permalink Reply by Suzie Nestico on July 15, 2009 at 9:54pm

Chris,

Have you considered using a Ning in conjunction with the wiki? Have you checked out Flat Classroom Project Ning and/or Digiteen and its corresponding Ning for organizational ideas and collaborative wiki development? There is a lot of information there but it is very organized.

Good luck!

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Permalink Reply by Chris Hebbard on July 16, 2009 at 6:09am

Thanks Suzie! Can you tell me what the advantages of having both are. I am a little daunted by the whole collaborative thing and all of this information is somewhat confusing.

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Permalink Reply by Scot Laudenbach on July 16, 2009 at 7:32am

There is a tutorial that will walk you through it. That is the only way that I have found to learn it other than trial and error.

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Permalink Reply by Bernadette Roche on July 16, 2009 at 8:45pm

I would be interested in collaborating on some web cam/video correspondence. I'd love to Skype, but the time difference is too much. I am in Missouri, USA.

My Kindergarteners are the ones who study Australia - geography, culture, customs, etc. Would you know of anyone who would be interested in collaborating briefly, mainly in April?

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Permalink Reply by Jamie Winfield on July 20, 2009 at 12:30pm

I just set up my classroom wiki - http://winfieldclassroom.wikispaces.com/

I think we can talk more about how we would like to collaborate later on. I plan on having students update portions of the wiki.

How do you use your wiki in your classroom? How do you contribute and how do parents contribute?

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Permalink Reply by Chris Hebbard on July 20, 2009 at 7:07pm

Hi Kim, sorry it took so long to reply. I haven't used pbwiki before but your's looks really good. My wiki is still very basic and I am having trouble trying to get content and the time to update it often enough but I am starting to get the hang of it I think.
I would be happy to let you start off the collaborative wiki and create a page for the US if you like. We can then add Australia and others as they come on board. My kids will probably just add research work and examples of writing and multimedia to start off but this will be a good way for them to get other students to check out their own wikis. They will also spend some time checking out your students' work and research on the US. This seems like a logical place to start, what do you think? Later on we could perhaps work on a research project together and use the wiki to build a knowledge base.

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Permalink Reply by Chris Hebbard on July 20, 2009 at 6:59pm

So far I haven't been able to get parents to do anything!! I have used the wiki as a way for students to access planning documents and resources, as well as showing off work. They each have their own page to maintain as well and that has a wider range of digital work on it.

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