Kick Start Activity 6 has been all about embedding media into blog post. Wow, what a great collection of sites are listed in this challenge. I have explored a couple and will definitely be checking out some more. One suggestion for a post was to review some of the tools so here are my thoughts on two of them.
Answer Garden
Answer Garden was so easy to work with. I like the simplicity of the site and had no trouble setting up my first garden. Another great feature is the way the answers are weighted – the more people who use a word or phrase the bigger it appears in the garden. This is a very neat visual trick. Having both the embed code and the link code for your garden means that you can add it to a blog or link to it from an intranet page or link to it from an e-mail and all of these may be ways of getting more of your class and extended community involved.
I can see myself using it to collect theme words, to explore spelling conventions, to add to discussions about parts of speech and for word challenges like the one below.
Add a word made from the letters in: Teacher Blogging Challenge… at AnswerGarden.ch.
WallWisher
Wallwisher is site I had used before particularly for an open ended maths challenge. I used the wall to post an answer to which my students were asked to give the mathematical question that may have produced this answer. Again I like the fact that you can embed or link to the wall. Wallwisher differs from Answer Garden as it allows users to add links and other media in the notes that are attached to the wall. It also differs as you are offered the opportunity to join the site and this gives you the ability to moderate more than one wall easily as they are gathered under your username.
Wallwisher could be used to collate ideas, create topic pages with links and sites, use it for spelling word observations, more maths challenges and collecting opinions on books read.
I did not have trouble using either site but the embed code was much easier to find in Answer Garden as it resides on the same page as the garden whereas in Wallwisher it is in one of the dropdown menus across the top.
Hi, Mrs. S,
Thanks for the information. I also like to use two word cloud apps. The forst, Wordle . If you feel adventurous try Tagxedo , which takes the concept of Wordle a step further.
J Selig
WallWisher and AnswerGarden are tools that are so intuitive and fun to use. I like your idea of using WallWisher for discussing maths problems.
How about using both for a brainstorming session or WallWisher for a class noticeboard. Evaluative an excursion, ask for feedback.
Thanks, Penny, for your suggestions. I am looking forward to trying both of these tools out with my students this year.
Mrs S,
Neat posting on two fun tools. I’ve used Answer Garden (just learned about it last week) and now I have another new one from you–WallWisher. I’m so overwhelmed with all the new apps (tools, programs, whatever we call them!!) I can’t think of another thing to do with these that you didn’t already, but I’m going to have fun trying! Thanks, Denise
http://mrsdkrebs.edublogs.org
I agree totally, Denise, with your statement about being overwhelmed with all the new ‘toys’ being shared. I will just have to keep telling myself to slow down and explore a few at a time.