My Classroom 2.0

The schedule is finalized.  I have two different schedules that alternate day to day.  During the first day I have an American Government/Economics class of approximately 25 students, a U.S. History since 1877 class of 15 students and a fifteen student Computer Applications class.  The alternating day schedule is a 20 student Government/Economics class, a 6(!) student U.S History class and an 8(!!) student U.S. History Class.

Web apps are ready to go and customize from here.  I have set up a classroom portal that is running on Drupal at http://www.colemanspace.info. I plan to do student blogs and forums here along with host any podcasts, presentations and files there.  I have grown enamoured of the embedding Google Doc presentations and embedding my Google Calendar and it is seeming to work very well.  I have a new Moodle install up and running and it seems to be working fairly well, thought there are some bugs with the theme transitioning to 1.9.  I have a MediaWiki install ready to go also.  I decided against using Elgg for now.  I can’t find a compelling reason at this time.  Maybe when 1.0 comes out in a couple of weeks I will reevaluate.

I have been showing the students the Common Craft videos on Web 2.0 and social media tools (embedded on my site here) and talking about the collaborative powers of these tools.  They seem to understand we are going to be doing some interesting things.

Students don’t have logins to the computers here at school yet, and I have two students who have told me that they do not have consistent access to a computer with internet access at home so I am loathe to get started just yet.  I recorded my history lectures (sort of an intro chapter, the Reader’s Digest Condensed version of the Civil War) with a couple of different mic placements that will determine the best placement.  I am still trying to figure out some standard procedures for the recordings.  I think an ID of period, date and lecture title or activity will simplify things in the editing and posting phase.