The Class Wiki

I told the grade 12 classes today that they will be contributing to a class wiki. You should have seen the looks of fear and apprehension on their faces. Really, the fear was that obvious.

I told them that writing an entry for the wiki is as easy as writing in MS Word.

I am hoping that this fear will motivate the students into trying to write very good entries, i.e. they will really think about the topic about which they are writing the entry. To help accomplish this, I told them that their audience will be international.

I also told them that I will invite the other math teachers to comment on the entries.

The class wiki is here.

How Time Was Wasted in the First 2 Days

I am giving a review quiz to my grade 9 math class tomorrow. I feel uncomfortable doing this, because I won't be able to do a decent homework take-up. True, it is a review quiz and the last 3 days were review, and the kids today demonstrated that they knew most of the review material, and they should already know this material.

So why the uncomfortable feeling?

Because I won't be able to do a proper homework take-up.
Well, I can do what I always do, that is, take-up at most 1 question (time constraints). For bellwork, I can write the question "is there a question from homework you want looked at?" Write some of their questions on the board, and take a vote on which they want looked at. And remember, it is a review of grade 8 math.

Because the lessons finished just before the bell sounded. I feel that I was not able to teach in the manner to which I'm accustomed, i.e. I guide the class through a problem, then I let them do a very similar problem on their own, then give them homework time in class. Two days should have been enough for my usual method, but I didn't know I'd have to factor in administrative tasks, because this is a homeroom. So I needed time to write locker combinations, and collect tracking sheet info. Next time, I will let them take home the tracking sheets.
Still, it is a review.

I will see how many homework questions they want me to cover tomorrow. I may postpone the quiz until Monday.

Order of Web 2.0 Introduction

This is the order in which I'd like to introduce the students to the social software:

1. Firefox--done at home, with brief explanation on class blog, use Mozilla pages for explanation.
   
2. Wetpaint Wiki--done at home, with brief explanation on class blog, use Wetpaint pages for their practice
3. Bloglines/del.icio.us/Diigo--Bloglines done in E200, others introduced in same class but done at home, use del.icio.us and Diigo pages for explanation

• introduced later in the course, when I begin talking about ISU
  

ThinkFree will be introduced when I teach Excel--i.e. I will ask them to go to the class blog, and click on link which takes them to my ThinkFree docs with the Excel lesson.

Tree Diagram generator, flickr, flickrtoys, Bubbleshare--introduced if and when needed.