I was one of the school judges for HD competition, looking at group web pages. It was interesting to see the gamut of both tools and content. As far as tools, the free software that was loaded on to flash drives (the district option) was the clunkiest. It was called Compozer (or something like that). Even the kids who had high quality content definitely will have to do a lot to get the appearance factor where it needs to be in terms of design. One group used iWeb (and incidentally, gave me access to a student who can help me with my iMac / iLife 08 questions!!!) and the product looked fabulous! Another group not only used Mac software, they had one kid's dad (a professional) teach them how to design and build the webpage. Theirs was stunning visually!!!
Anyhow, the problem that keeps coming up for me is that (IMHO) the district's software solutions are less desirable than the web 2.0 or other options that we have available to us. Moodle is not yet my friend the way pbwiki and blogger are. The web software (okay, I guess that IS a web 2.0 solution) is not as fantastic as iWeb. Maybe I'm just being a clueless whiner. Guess I shouldn't post past my bedtime!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
I couldn't agree with you MORE Jeanne! Seriously! If I hear one more time...why are you using blogger when you could be moodling...I might explode! I know and love blogger! I have not been trained in Moodle, nor do I have the time to figure it out myself. :)
We see this in a lot of districts -- the "approved" tools are clunky and training is not offered or not enough. It is tough. But all of you are Agents Of Change (AOC), so hopefully things will slowly change. Good to read about those cool History Day projects!
Post a Comment