EDCI 5825 Week 3 Reading Response

The use of Web 2.0 in the classroom provides the ability for collaboration projects between students in the classroom, the teacher, and even students from other classes (Schrum & Levin, 2009, 48). The benefit of using these new technologies in the classroom are that they allow students to collaborate on projects and work individually on them while at the same time work together with other group members to accomplish a larger task (48). The first way that I would incorporate the use of collaborative technology into my classroom is to create a course wiki, which displays all the information about the class; including the syllabus, course calendars, and any other information relevant to the class. The benefits of this wiki will not only allow for the class to be organized into one coherent document, but it will also allow students to become slightly familiar with the use of wiki pages. Throughout the year, I would also create wiki pages to explore concepts within biology. One example of this is that I would want students to create pages on microorganisms and their many functions within the human body. Assigned groups of students would each choose a subject of interest in which these organisms play an important role in either how we function or something that perhaps causes harm to our bodies. These wiki pages would include information such as links to website, videos, and other useful resources to demonstrate what they’ve learned. The use of the wiki will allow for students to connect the concepts of what I teach them in class about bacteria, to the information they’ve researched and also to connect information within the separate groups to promote greater understanding of the material (50).
A second use of collaborative projects that I would incorporate into my class is the use of individual blogs for each of my students. These blogs would be used to not only give background on each of the students, but also would serve as a portfolio and place to submit homework, research, and in-class questions (53). Each week I would like to post a podcast onto our class wiki, which serves as a guideline for the notes for that week of class. This way, students could periodically check back into the podcast if they forget what was covered in class. Also, I would give class exercises and homework questions through this podcast so that I can provide clear and concise details about what is due for each class and what I expect in terms of quality work, thus expanding the student’s learning to outside of class time as well (54).
Using each of these three methods of collaboration, I would have students come up with their own projects as to why they feel bacteria/viruses are relevant to their lives. For example, perhaps the students are interested in how bacteria and viruses cause them to get sick. I would then have them create a wiki page about how viruses spread, what illnesses can arise from them, etc. so that many diverse topics are covered. I would then want them to predict the spread of viruses using surveys and graphing tools (57). Using tools such as Google Earth, I would want them to pretend a disease had just spread to a town on the other side of the state and predict the flow of the disease from town to town. Also, I would want them to formulate a way that they could track and manage the disease through using survey techniques about the general population. Finally, they would have to answer questions on their blogs such as what other factors may played an important role in the spread of the disease, how it could be contained, and how they could locate the original source (Schrum & Levin, 2009).

Resources
Schrum, L. M., & Levin, B. B. (2009). Leading 21st century schools: Harnessing technology for engagement and achievement. Thousand Oaks, California: Corwin.