Assessment 2 - Dipity Timeline

This tool should not be my favourite as some other tools are a lot more practical and enriched with effective elearning potential, for example a wiki. However I simply can not help it! I find Dipity from a history perspective as being a valuable practical tool to use. Even outside of history it can be used as a planning tool. One that I will no doubt will be putting into practise in the classroom.

Dipity is a multimedia interactive online time-line that is a great resource for teaching in a classroom. The students are able to embed links, digital images, you tube videos, podcasts and more into there timelines. People automatically assume timelines are only to be used in a historical context. It can be used as an activity for the students to understand the development of events and cultures in chronological order, in an e-learning environment to adapt to today’s digital learners. For a History subject in particular, the content is linked to its source, which can include visual aids, short documentary clips and citations.  Though this is not all that it can be used for. It can be created and shared interactively on any subject or topic. They can be used as topic planners, as a personal timeline in conjuction with students blogs and wikis.  This is a feature where Dipity takes your username and  URL code to automatically upload your information into a timeline. This can be done from any supported social networking site. Ie, Blogs, youtube and wikis.

 They can be created by students individually or as a class and posted on blogs, wikis or webpages to share with the class.    

Another great application of the Dipity timeline is that it can be viewed in four ways: Timeline, List View, Flipbook and Map View.

  

It can be extremely time consuming which could limit students use to larger independent projects or collaborative assignments. However once the student has the information at hand to be imputed it would be quicker. An issue I am not quite sure whether to see as a weakness or not is that the timelines can be copied quite easily. I found this by attempting to embed a timeline created by someone else on my wiki. However copying can be done regardless of technology so can it be seen as a weakness for Dipity?

Under a paid subscription, a teacher can be sent statistical reports to observe their students use of the resources given. 

Dates can be added or edited as a group when the creator selects the option, allowing members to contribute.

I had a play on Dipity linking it with my Wiki page on inspirational figures in History.

I created a biography timeline on Muhammad Ali the American boxer. I did this in order to demonstrate how online biographical timelines would involve a number of sources to create it. The experience exposes students to people whose dedication and achievements inspire and motivate them. A more in depth approach to the multiple sources available to them online as well as catering for a number of learning styles.

A brief biography of Muhammad Ali' life on Dipity.

Assessment 2... Glogster

I was right at the end of my analysis of using Glogster, within five seconds I had deleted the entire page, raced to get it back in time before auto save happened and no...all gone!!! 


I will begin... AGAIN! 


I created a Glogster account a few weeks ago and had a play around with it but did nothing more. I then looked at Power Point, thinking this is what I used whilst I was in education. Prezi on the other hand was a completely new concept though when I had a go at it, it was great but still thought no, Glogster is the one that has caught my eye. It is simple yet effective and can be used for all ages. After reading the education page Glogster created for educators to read up on the potential of Glogster as a learning  tool. I felt this would be worth learning about for future use! 
This webpage offers the reader key features, benefits and ways to use Glogster EDU in the classroom.

"A Glog is an interactive visual platform in which users create a “poster or web page” containing multimedia elements including: text, audio, video, images, graphics, drawings, and data."

I flew down to Brisbane this week to have all four wisdom teeth taken out and stayed with my family. My youngest sister is in grade eight and currently learning how to write book reviews. Rather than I carrying out the task of creating a poster as an example of my understanding of this technology, I decided to be cheeky and ask Olivia to create a poster on how to write a book review. It worked out well as I was not feeling my best and it helped Olivia recall the information she had learnt that day at school and display it in a way she would remember it in the future. I watched her create it to see how well she could adapt to this new technology that she had never heard of before.

Olivia was getting tired and slightly agitated toward the end of making the poster and I had to prompt her to look at embedding images and for relative videos online. This could have been because it was myself who had asked her to create it and not her teacher or that it was just before her bed time. Or Glogster did not keep her engaged long enough for her to take full advantage of its learning potential.

This is what Olivia created!  

Objective

• Diverse range of technologies can be embedded in the posters to cater for visual or auditory learners
• Fun
• Multiple Learning styles catered for
• Can be used for any subject or topic                                               
• Has own education resource library
• Need to research to discover other teachers opinions and how they have used Glogster EDU.

Intuitive

• A new way to express creativity fun learning experience
• Drives new interest levels around subjects that may have been seen as "boring" before
• Fosters teamwork and collaboration with classmates
•  Adds audiovisual aspects to traditionally text-oriented subjects
•  can be used as class presentations, projects or group work done by collaboration or individual assessment.
• Improves student- teacher relationships by allowing both to explore web 2.0 and learning concepts together

Negative

• Time Consuming
• Needs to be saved regularly 
• Dependant on adobe flash supportive software

Creative

• Attractive to all school years
• Promotes the use of technology
• wide range of uses though need to decide which are the most effective for subject and age group 
• Need to think how this tool can promote and enhance higher order thinking

Positive

• With regards to the safety and ethical concerns one would have for the students, the content and actions can be monitored by the teacher closely. 
• Online interaction within Glogster is limited to the classroom only
• It engages students to be more creative and further develop their IT skills
• Flexible in that it can be embedded in blogs and wikis

Process

• A great learning tool that can be used for any topic regardless of subject
• An effective tool when it comes to displaying what students have learnt but how else can it be used?

The great thing about reading into Glogster, is that I passed on this information to a friend who is a primary school teacher and she has just created a lesson for her grade 6 class! 

Wordle...

Hmmmm very easy to create !!  Fun to edit and great for visual learners! 

 A tool to support the learning of a subject by visualising important key words. 


Not as supportive as other tools for secondary school students


Can not apply other effects such as sound or images.

                                  Blogs in Education!!!