Posts made in May 4th, 2009

IWB Revolution. It’s a Ning Thing

Posted on May 4, 2009 in Activity Ideas, Interactive Whiteboards, Useful Links | 2 comments

The world of Web 2.0 is full of odd new words such as Wiki or Blog and old words with new meanings such as Tweet or Twitter. For some people this swarm of new terminologies can be a bit daunting. And I am not going to help by adding another word to the mix – Ning.

Ning’s don’t seem to get as much coverage as blogs or wikis. Mention Ning in a training course and I get a lot of blank looks (or panicked looks from those that have just got up to speed on blogs and wikis and have another word to worry about).

A Ning is basically a very simple way of producing your own social network. You can create a space and have a forum, blog, friends lists etc. For teachers who want to set up a discussion area to supplement a course it could be an interesting option – it may be slightly more suited to your needs than a wiki or a blog. And like blogs and wikis, you can sign up for a your own Ning for free. All you need to do is head over to Ning.com and sign up.

Users of Interactive Whiteboards will benefit from signing up to a great Ning called IWB Revolution. Set up by Chris Betcher, the IWB Revolution Ning covers all aspects of teaching with Interactive Whiteboards. It’s free to join, and I would strongly recommend you do so if IWB’s interest you.

Other Nings that are worth getting involved with are Classroom2.0 which covers all aspects of using new technologies in the classroom, and Smart Board Revolution which, as the name suggests, is geared to towards Smart Board users in the main.

If you have never heard of a Ning before, now’s your chance to check them out!

Wall Wisher

Posted on May 4, 2009 in Interactive Whiteboards, Presentations, Web Tools | 0 comments

Wall Wisher is an online notice board maker. It gives you a virtual space where you can post short text notes in the same way that you could put post-it notes onto a notice board in your classroom. But this noticeboard can be shared between people all over the world. As well as text notes you can add images, video and links to other websites.

It’s a neat way of getting a shared space to collect ideas from people for a brainstorm. Or to post resources for a topic. Students could ask questions about a topic which you (or each other) can then answer

Doug Belshaw set one up and posted the link on Twitter – very quickly ideas were coming in from lots of people. You can see the wall (now locked) here. You can also see a “whats so great about the smartboard” wall that Jim Hollis posted on his blog the other day.

As an experiment – I’ve set a Whiteboard Blog wall up here. Apparently you can embed the walls into your blog, so I will try that below (although it uses Iframes which sometimes really confuses WordPress)

Obviously with any open online space there is a risk of abuse. Wall Wisher only has two mode – one where only you can add stuff to the wall, and one where anyone can add stuff. Obviously it would be nice to have a more controlled protection where you can set people up to access the wall, or need a password to get onto it. You can lock the wall to protect it once you have enough ideas on it.

Wall Wisher is an interesting idea – and I am sure there are lots of ways it could be used in the classroom. I’d be interested to see how it develops, and whether there will be future modifications that allow more control over the space.

If you do use it with your class – leave a note in the comments to say what you’ve done. I’d love to hear from you!