My Tweetwheel (or “why social networking matters”)
This week at Learning with Computers, Ana Ma. Menezes is helping us all learn about “Microblogging with Twitter“. She’s a great facilitator, and despite my limited availabilities I’ve felt eager to give this issue some minutes… Somebody either in this community or at Webheads in Action had mentioned Tweetwheel, and I gave it a try. You can see the result above (click on the image to see the original page, and hover on any “friend” to see how many friends we have in common). I’m currently following 81 people, mostly EFL teachers, all of them usually twittering about EFL teaching and sharing useful resources. I guess I needn’t explain how this does away with the isolation of traditional f2f teaching in the classroom, and how it maximizes opportunities for professional development with like-minded colleagues!
Gladys (gladysbaya on Twitter) Blogging, I'm studying..., Online communities, Teachers and technology, Web 2.0 | Comments (4)Wikis as collaboration tools
Educared@ndonos: el wiki y la colaboración
The document linked above reports on a project I have implemented during this school year, integrating a wiki (hosted at http://theoryofeducation.pbwiki.com/) into the curriculum of “Theory of Education”, a subject I teach at a private teacher’s training college (all lessons are held in English, to favour the trainees acquisition of the foreign language). I wrote it in Spanish to submit it to a competition held by Educar-Intel. (don’t look for my name among the winners! :-P)
The class was made up by 23 first-year students, who had just entered the institution. We met only once a week for 80 minutes, and the school had no access to computers.
By integrating a wiki into our curriculum tools (adapting a writing task assigned on previous school years) , I aimed at:
- transforming my f2f course into a blended course
- fostering group cohesion
- promoting peer collaboration
- introducing teacher trainees into the educational potential of new technologies
You may prefer to have a look at the slidesI created to go with the report. Even if you cannot understand Spanish, the images on slides #3 and 12 can help you see the effect on wiki integration on the student’s perception of the writing task.
As indicated in the report, the experience was really positive. I’m determined to repeat it again in future school years! 
Gladys
