Grouping Sites for Student Use

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Jeff Romonko on March 7, 2010 at 1:14pm

Good question Kristin. I think a wiki would work great for this kind of use as you it can be easily updated and modified. But I am coming from a teenager to adult ed context. With first graders you might want to take delete control away? Too many accidents that way.
But check out WIkispaces and see if there is a way to make this work for you. Ease of access is great.

Permalink Reply by Kristin Cook on March 7, 2010 at 2:59pm

ooh great! thanks for responding! the web 2.0 resources out there can be VERY overwhelming! i just want to start small since the first graders will already have a challenging task of navigating around the sites. . . thanks again!

Permalink Reply by Fran Riley on March 7, 2010 at 3:43pm

Hi Kristin,
I also teach first grade. I am new to using the web 2.0 resources and feel like I am behind, but I want to learn as much as I can. How comfortable are your students with technology? I find it to be quite a challenge for some of my students when I take them to the computer lab. Do you have computers with internet access in your classroom? I am familiar with wikis. That would be easy to create. If you create yours at www.wikispaces.com, you can request a free upgrade to the Plus plan as a educator using it for educational purposes. It will be ad-free, more private and secure. Would you have one page for each group with the links for just that group? Are the links to websites with games for the students to do? What other links will you have? How will students use the wiki and will they be able to add to it? Will the students have the information to access the wiki from home so parents can see it, too? I agree that you might want to not let them have control to delete items. They might delete something you don't want them to delete, but you can always go back to an earlier version of the page so it isn't gone forever-just more work for you.
Fran
Grade 1 Teacher-New Jersey

Permalink Reply by Denise Stewart on March 7, 2010 at 4:40pm

My favorite for this type of activity is http://www.kn.att.com/wired/fil/index.html. Aside from the obvious benefit of monitoring the content and eliminating wasted time in their trying to find sites, any work I create stays on the site for 12 months (longer if I access it periodically).

I have two hotlists on my website if you would like to see a finished product (hotlists). http://www.ellteacherpros.com/home/lessons/

You can also use one from their own collection.

Denise

www.ellteacherpros.com
www.teachingsuccesseswithells.blogspot.com

Permalink Reply by Kristin Cook on March 8, 2010 at 5:12pm

Thank you Denise! I will check it out and keep it in mind! =)

Permalink Reply by Louise on March 8, 2010 at 4:00am

I teach Kindergarten and have set up a wikispaces wiki (add free for educators) for just that purpose. I use screenshots from the sites I want them to use and add the links so it's just click and use, no reading required.
I'm teaching them to add sight word sentences to a Google docs presentation and I've embedded that as well for practice. Any Smart Notebook files can be exported as a powerpoint and uploaded to Google docs as well and also embedded for practice.
The children know to work their way around the page in order and considering they've only been at school for six weeks I'm pleased with the results.
Wikispaces allows you to lock the pages to avoid regrettable accidents but you can always retrieve earlier versions from the editing history. I haven't shared with the parents (we have a blog as well with links to use) because I see it as part of daily classroom activities that need supervision and feedback from me. I suspect some of my more savvy 5 year olds will work out the URL soon!
I want to be able to customise and personalise the learning space for each child so eventually I will add a page for each child and include those things that best suit their needs. I will keep some of their work samples too e.g., recorded news presentations, wordles, photos etc.,
I'm not sure we'll ever get to truly "collaborate" but hey,they can do that in the first grade!

Permalink Reply by Kristin Cook on March 8, 2010 at 5:15pm

Thanks Louise! So far Wikispaces has gotten a lot of votes! I like the "educators" option. . . I just wasn't sure if it would be too hard to navigate for first graders. I think that your idea to personalize each learning space is very cool. I teach a full-inclusion classroom so 10 out of 20 of my students are identified with special needs ranging from EMD to developmentally delayed. So this would be very beneficial to those students!

Permalink Reply by Deb Rottinger on March 8, 2010 at 6:33am

Kristin,
I agree that creating a classroom website using either wikispaces or googlespaces is an easy and free way to accomplish your goal. I like google a little bit better myself, but either is easy to use.You can "spice" things up using a variety of web 2.0 tools such as:

glogster edu.gloster.com - it is FREE. it allows you to easily create graphical "posters" that can easily be linked to or embeded directly onto your wikispaces or google pages. It also allows you to create up to 200 FREE student accounts so your kids can also EASILY create posters to share! Yes, first graders will easily be able to use this tool.

Wordle www.wordle.net - also FREE allows you to create word clouds where more frequently used words in your text gain visual prominence, a good way to work with your classes perhaps when learning about rhyming? the wordles you create can be added to your webpages very easily.

Permalink Reply by Kristin Cook on March 8, 2010 at 5:16pm

Great resources! Thanks so much for your input! I just started my delicious account so I will def. add those two sites! =)

Permalink Reply by Bob Zenhausern on March 8, 2010 at 3:24pm

Let me understand what you want to do. You want to create websites for different subject areas. What will the students do with the material they find?

Perhaps I do not understand your request, but a visit to www.educationalsynthesis.org will show you what is available and how you want to use or modify that site.

Permalink Reply by Kristin Cook on March 8, 2010 at 5:20pm

Hi Bob! Thanks for taking the time out to read my post! I am trying to create one space and subsequently a "shortcut" on the students' computers. Where they click on the shortcut and are taken to a site that has links to various educational resources. So let's say during one session, I want them to visit three specific links. . .then they can click on this "shortcut" and visit those three links.

I was thinking that by categorizing them by subject would be easier for me to navigate for now.

I guess I was kind of thinking of a public "delicious" type account that would be easy to navigate for first grade students (inclusion class). So any help is much appreciated!

Thanks for the site link! I will check it out!

Permalink Reply by Gini Moore on March 9, 2010 at 9:46am

I like www.portaportal.com
You can create your own categories, and add sites to them. You will have your own url that can be bookmarked on all computers. After they get to that one site, they can go to which ever category to tell them to go to, and access the link. You can also add little graphic icons like "Cool", "Thumbs Up", etc. Oh, and it's FREE!!! One caveat, though. If you don't like the ads, you can pay a once a year minimal fee to get rid of them.