Thing 9

I loved the Curriki site and have included a blurb to explain it much better than I could. "Curriki is more than your average website; we're a community of educators, learners and committed education experts who are working together to create quality materials that will benefit teachers and students around the world.
Curriki is an online environment created to support the development and free distribution of world-class educational materials to anyone who needs them. Our name is a play on the combination of 'curriculum' and 'wiki' which is the technology we're using to make education universally accessible."

I found a lesson that might work for the study of weather in first grade.
http://www.curriki.org/xwiki/bin/view/Coll_NortelLearniT/HowDoestheWeatherChange


As well as an explanation of what a wiki is. How simplistic but so easy to understand.


Okay back to my mission....
How do you see teaching and learning changing as a result of Web 2.0? As we have all learned since starting this project we all need to teach to the "new student". A student who needs to know how to collaborate and access information instantaneously as it will change every second. Teachers are no longer the dispenser of knowledge and students are no longer the passive sieves that we, or at least, I used to be. I envision a lot of online courses in the future and perhaps a time when students don't go to school every day but perhaps meet once or twice a week for sharing.


What opportunities do you see emerging? I see opportunities for more sharing with other students in other states and countries. I envision learning a language from a teacher in Russia - real time. I envision lap tops built into desks, IPODS and cell phones on every "what to bring to school list."

What can educators do to practice and teach ethical use of these interactive resources? Every college student who is in an education program should have instruction on copyright laws and citing of information. Students in schools should be taught from kindergarten on up the importance of giving credit in whatever format media specialists feel they can handle. I think Newington has done a great job in creating a scaffolding curriculum for our students. Now we need to make sure every staff member and student is aware of the content and how to use the content. Teachers in classrooms need to support the require "these rules" not just the computer teachers and media specialist. We need to work together on this just as the vertical teams work in the "major" disciplines.

As far as the use of Wikis... we need to have students respect what others post and we need to have teachers make sure what is posted is accurate and of a good quality. I loved the wiki "Spice it up a Notch" for Nutmeg books but found sometimes the quality of the posts and comments contained grammatical errors as well as lacking substance. It's a great tool but we need to as we do with all of our tools, use it well.