Click above to see my curriculum page
This week in EME 5050 we were asked to create a curriculum page using the wiki we created last week. When I thought about a curriculum page, the first thought that came to mind was a lesson plan. According to our textbook, a curriculum page is a “teacher created document containing hyperlinks to teacher selected web sites that assist in teaching content-specific standards and objectives” (Gunter 2010). After reviewing the samples in the textbook, I came to the conclusion that a curriculum page is very similar to what a lesson plan use to be when I was teaching. A curriculum page involves the integration of a lesson plan with technology.
Our curriculum page is based on the digital story project we created in week 9. Since I’m currently teaching out of field, I went with the 7th grade Geography class. My classes’ assignment will be to create a digital scrapbook of a European vacation.
Since I have never worked with a wiki before, I was apprehensive about this hands-on assignment. I set up my wiki very easily with PBWorks for Educators and then proceeded to use the One-page WebQuest Template provided by our instructor to set up the curriculum page. When I looked at the template, I was a bit overwhelmed with all the parts that we needed to complete. The template included several sections like introduction, task, process, evaluation and conclusion. After going back and rereading our task for this week, I saw we only needed to complete the curriculum page and the rest will be finished in the weeks to come.
I used Microsoft Word to help jot down my ideas and keep my ideas in order. After I had an outline of my curriculum page I added color and some clip-art. My next step was to paste into my wiki. This is where I ran into trouble. I tried several times to cut and paste from my word document into my PBWorks wiki. The text would show up but the clip art kept being left behind. I looked for an easy insert tab for clip art and tired to upload into a file but everything I tried ran into problems. At this point I was frustrated, and a friend mentioned another wiki site called WikiSpaces. After a bit of explaining what my trouble was, she thought that this would be a much easier solution to work with.
I went to their website and immediately liked the layout better than PBWorks. After working with the help section, I was able to paste my curriculum page and upload the clipart with very little trouble. My curriculum page is separated into several pages by using the links I provided. Hopefully, you can easily navigate between the pages. I created a home page and an evaluation pages for assignments to come. I’m looking forward to taking advantage of using a wiki in my classroom.
Works Cited:
Teachers Discovering Computers: Integrating Technology and Digital Media in the Classroom, 6th Ed., Shelly, Cashman, Gunter, and Gunter. Course Technology - Thompson Publishing (2010).
My experience with wikispaces vs. pbworks in the past was the same as yours. I like wikispaces better because I find it easier to manage overall. One learning I can share with you is how to override the page listing on the left. Wikispaces by default keeps the pages listed in alphabetic order, but you can override this by clicking 'edit navigation' at the bottom of the page listing. That lets you setup the page list in the sequence you want and you wouldn't need to have the links repeated at the top of your page.
ReplyDeleteYour planning and organization paid-off...your curriculum page looks good and the activity sounds like students would enjoy it while they are learning the skills you are targeting (map reading and cultural characteristics).