Reaction to the weblog article
After reading the weblogs article by Alexander C. Halavais I was quite intrigued with the notion of creating personal weblogs, e-portfolios, and creating social networks with the Wiki. I was exposed to the Wiki in my Music class and I found it to be a very useful tool. The class created a resource centre for everyone to use. We posted songs for all occasions, seasons, academic topics, and numeric concepts. We also posted art activities, and projects for us to use for ideas to promote multi-cultural learning. The process of creating a wiki page was quite easy...even I figured it out so it is definitely not hard to do... Weblogs are a new concept for me for I didn't know they existed until this class. Creating links for others and myself to view easily that relates to topics is especially interesting and convenient for a person like me who is not very skilled in the technological field. I am broadening my horizons because I am participating in an on-line course as well this semester so I am going to get a chance to experience a virtue classroom. I found that this article had alot of interesting ideas about the promotion of learning through open classrooms. Allowing students to create electronic portifolios is an amazing idea. This allows the children to post their work and accomplishments on-line for all to view. The only red flag that enters my mind is the possibility of fraud and plagiarism. I wouldn't want to see someone getting credit for anothers work. The other part of the article that grabbed my interest was the exposure the children get by meeting children from all over the world by emailing and chatrooms. I think this is a fabulous way of creating a multicultural social network for children to learn about different parts of the world. It would open up the lines of communication and therefore allow us as educators to expand on new issues that are brought up on-line. Obviously this has to be closely monitored but I feel that this could be quite a learning experience for the children and the teachers. This article has proven that learning is a life-long process and the key to youthfulness is to keep your brain moving. You can never stop learning something new and exciting with technology.