One Woman’s Wanderings with Web2.0
After watching Allanah Kings video on blogging and using social software, i was inspired by how far she had taken technology and social software in her classroom.
The use of computers in her school had begun from the acquistion of 12 i-macs, and from this advanced to major technological use in the classroom. I feel that the way Allanah approached technology was great as she was not an overly confident computer user, as many teachers can be, however, she had a ‘can-do’ attitude towards technology and really threw herself into it. She would approach each new technolgy she wanted to implement in her classroom, by testing it out herself first and developing some confidence in it herself, and then she would introduce it to students and let them develop thier own skills. By doing this not only did she allow her students to learn and develop confidence in suing computer technology but she learnt as well.
From her learning and determination, the rest of the school got involved in all the action too, this lead to class blogs, development of the school website, inter-class communication through blogging and inter-school and international communication. Students would be given opportunites to blog on the class page about what was happening in the class, this constant use of blogging even encouraged students to create their own blogs. An excellent idea that Allanah came up with was the geographical tours between her school and a school in Wales, which allowed students to see where their friends lived.
Overall I was really inspired by Allanah’s attitude and approach to computer technology, she was not afraid to use it and to learn new things, which rewarded her, her students and the school, by allowing them to develop a range of computer skills. The video really shohwed me the benefits of being adventurous and exploring the possibilites of social software and how far you can go with blogging.
