Teaching with Resources on the Web

The Tower of Hanoi Puzzle is one of the problems I used every year to illustrate and teach the concepts and techniques of recursion in programming.

To provide hand-on practice to students, I have purchased 3 sets of Tower of Hanoi game boards many years ago.  Students are given these game boards to try and play in groups.

In recently years, these game boards are no longer needed.  Google “Tower of Hanoi”, plenty of online resources are available.  Some provide beautiful animations letting students to play and try solving the problem online, and animated solution is available.  One of them can be accessed by clicking HERE.
 

Web 2.0 in Education - Building a Virtual Classroom in SecondLife

Have you ever experienced a second life in the virtual environment provided by SecondLife? 

SecondLife has created a virtual world, each participant can create an avatar to represent himself/herself in this virtual world.  Every avatar we

meet in the virtual world corresponds to a real person in the real world.  We can chat or talk with others in the virtual world.  We can build our own buildings, rooms, and create our own settings.   We can share files, images, etc. in the virtual world.  You may click here to visit the website of SecondLife to get more information or to join it.

Thus, a teacher can use SecondLife to support distance learning.  The teacher can ask all students to create avatars for themselves.  He then creates a virtual classroom in SecondLife, and asking all students to log in and come to this place to attend the lesson.  The teacher can talk to the whole class as in the real world.  He can share the lecture notes and other resources.  Students can discuss with each others and with the teacher.

Creative use of Web 2.0 on learning

Creative use of Web 2.0 on learning

Creative Web 2.0 Learning

View more presentations from Judy O’Connell.

Drupal - CMS in education

Tsoi Hang Sang Ron
2006053839

What r kids doing with digital technology

Marc Prensky (2005) sees today's kids as "Digital Natives" who get tons of digital technology skills that they could express themselves in a different way from previous generation of "Digital Immigrants", seems he is not the only one who recognize the new trend that kids are creating another kind of new culture to learn and to express with the help of digital technology.

Lawrence "Larry" Lessig (born June 3, 1961) is an American academic and political activist. He is best known as a proponent of reduced legal restrictions on copyright, trademark, and radio frequency spectrum, particularly in technology applications. (Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Lessig)

The TED talk by him I found is quite interesting and inspiring, and to some extent, related to modern day's learning through technology.


Posted by Sophie Gu Jiaying

Re-purposing a Web 2.0 application as a Learning Tool

Audacity

Original design of the application

Audacity is a free, open source software for recording and editing sounds.

Re-purposed Audacity as a learning tool

In study the Physics of sound, we often use the wave diagram to illustrate the format. A number of properties are commonly used to define a wave. For example wavelength may be defined as the horizontal distance between two successive equivalent points on the waveform and  amplitude equates to the height of the wave; loud sounds produce waves of higher amplitude. Sometimes it is difficult for students to remember these terms. Audacity can be used as a tool for students to record the sound and then anaylse the wave pattern. Students in a group can take turn to record on the same computer. Then different tracks will be shown on the screen.

The waveform can be magnified so that students can observe in order to find the repeating pattern, compare the amplitude of different voices and find out the peaks and troughs. With the software, students can select part of the waveform and analyse it. It is easier for them to understand the different terms through this kind of experimnet.

The potential affordances of the application

In tradition, students learn this topic only through the textbook and doing experiment in the laboratory at school. With the help of the application, they can extend the learning at home. Since the software is free of charge, they can use it and record other sounds for analysis. Also, they can compare the waveform in the same window easily, even with other group mates,  as the application supports multiple tracks.

Posted by Van Chi Ho, Brian

Toondoo

Website:

http://www.toondoo.com/

Introduction

Toondoo is a cartoon-making website. Users need not to be experts in drawing, Toondoo provides thousands of cartoons and users can Drag and Drop to create cartoon strips. Moreover, Users can combine two and more cartoon strips into an eBook! Fascinating!

//Tutorial Youtube by barrynabdahl






Re-purpose into education


We all like to listen story, read comic. We can grab the chance and making some comic strips in History lessons. Instead of remembering boring historical facts, Student must love to read the eBook of Toondoo.

Beside, students can make they only Toondoo historical eBook as Toondoo is very user-friendly. As Constructivism suggests,  "I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand." Toondoo is a great platform for student to make their own historical  story and share their eBook to other classmate. It is more interesting than using traditional textbook.


//An example of students project. Toondoo is easy for student.



Ron Tsoi Hang Sang
2006053839

Re-purposing a Web 2.0 application as a Learning Tool

eQuizzer

eQuizzer is a free web-based quizzing program.

URL:
http://www.equizzer.com/

eQuizzer allows us to
- create custom quizzes that can be taken online.
- manage our quizzes and monitor our students' scores.

Original Purpose

The original purpose of this program is to help teachers to create custom quizzes and monitoring students' performances.

Re-purposed as a Learning Tool

This program can be re-purposed as a learning tool to help students to explore and consolidate their concepts.  After finishing a topics, teacher asks students to use this program to set a quiz for their classmates.

To setup a quiz in the topic, students will be motivated to make themselves familar with the concepts and techniques of the topics.  Besides, they are encouraged to explore in further details to set challenging questions for their classmates.

When attempting the quizzes, each student will have sufficient drills.  Besides, students may need to explain to their classmates regarding their own questions.  In the process, concepts and techniques of both parties are consolidated.

Justification

Students being frequently tested by teachers, they will be enjoyed to test others including their classmates.  When self-motivated, they will certainly put effort to finish the task.  In the process, they will explore the topics further to set challenging questions for their classmates.  Besides, they will ensure themselves to be familar with the concepts and techniques of the questions they set.   Besides exploring the concepts and techniques by each student himself, each can also acquire the extras explored by their classmates.

TSE Chi Kui (Andy)

1988054934

Re-purposed Web 2.0 Application as a learning tool

Re-purpose PhotoShow

Storytelling

Photoshow is an online photo album/slide show, Photoshow originally designed for creating and sharing photo album with friends, photoshow could transform your photos and videos into slideshow with sound, music and caption, user may share their photo with friends at everywhere as long as they have online devices.

Objectives

Stimulate the interest of primary student on Chinese traditional story and deepen the long-term memory. Typically student may feel boring in study Chinese narratives it is because of the traditional textbooks were only presented with a lot of text and a few illustrations.

Re-purposed

Encourage primary students use Photoshow to reproduce a Chinese narrative story in their textbook. First, students should read through the story to get the framework, and then students take photos or draw illustration which regarding to every scence of the story, caption could be added to explain the pictures, in order to reinforce the ambiance of the story, appropriate music, voice over and sound effect should added into the slideshow.

Kinley Chan Cho Kin