stupid torn ligaments (woes of a virtual teacher)

image from flickr under creative commons license

I took a tumble at work on monday and wrecked my ankle. Torn ligaments or so slightly offensive hospital nurse tells me after squeezing my legs over and over because of suspected achilles tendon issues. I didn’t enjoy it

So I’ve been virtual teaching via blogs, email and later today a wiki. I miss darting around the lab getting enthusiastic, but it’s been fun sitting with nice coffee, my feet up and watching Frasier while going through the fine points of protein folding with the AS students. Who last weeks were told they had to submit their homework without it being a written document. It’s given at least one interesting result,

I don’t think I could (or would want to) get used to this though.

wiki(d)

Last year I had a go at developing a department wiki site (invite key is snab) with mixed results. Only one other teacher got on board with the idea and used it and it was all a little bit stop start. I’m not discouraged though, in fact I’ve given over a bit of time to the pbwiki summer school these last few weeks. Benefits of completion include a free top grade wiki, rather than the usually free basic (but perfectly functional) wiki site.

It’s been an interesting course. Week one homework was to “wikify” a lesson plan. Task two was to create a video or podcast and embed it into a page. The course has gone through a lot of online media resources as well as practical ways of using the wiki.

So I’ve been spending some time getting the new (2.0) wiki ready for September. It’s called Stand back! I’m going to try science! after the very brilliant xkcd web comic. Some lessons I’ve learned from last year

1. While collaboration across courses isn’t a bad idea, the students are more comfortable when they have their own area – keeps it less confusing – cross course collaborative work can be in a “sand box” which is just a space to try it out. Collaboration within courses is way easier.

2. Structure is a good thing – modeling pages and having a universal layout makes it easier to navigate

3. The more work the students do – the better for them and for me so I’m adding the structure and the templates but not all of it. Enough to show how it should look and where they can start.

4. It’s an excellent space to add tutorials and how to pages for all sorts of things – from using things online to practical techniques

5. It has to be integral not incidental - students need to get used to using it from the start otherwise they don’t engage

6. It’s an excellent opportunity for student ownership of a page or subject – for them to become specialists over the course of the year and thus be really great for peer revision later in the year

7. Collaboration and long term projects are a great idea.

I’m guessing because students have such a strong pull towards wikipedia, that their own wiki site will be a much more valuable resource. As it’s them adding the important information there should be tremendous sense of ownership with this.

Here’s hoping so anyway!

die little cartoon man

I might be temporarily hooked on go animate.

I’m really looking forward to getting the students to make their own.

With the SNAB course they provide these awful ugly introduction to topic videos. They aren’t really engaging or, if I’m brutal, interesting. When I started teaching this I used it, but never again. But it’s a shame in a way, it’s nice to introduce the new topics, so I had a go with go animate this afternoon. It doubled up as my pbwiki summer school homework as well.

I’ve added it to the new wiki I’m trying to get ready for the new term. Now I’ve more of an idea of how to use them I’m hoping it’ll be more successful than the version 1.0 one I had last year. I love the idea of such a great collaborative resource so I’m pleased that I’ve had the chance to play with it this summer.

I’m hoping to set up some long term individual projects on the wiki for each student, no matter what course they’re on. For the vocational students it’ll contribute to their assignments wonderfully, especially the year two national students. For the AS/A2 it’ll be a great revision source for them I hope!

[edit August 6th] You can follow this link to see the video (thanks Sue).

Edublog hate go animate