The other day when I opened up my netvibes feed I came across a post that was worth reading…twice!
The post comes from one of my favorite reads David Warlick over at 2cents Worth. The post – “Let’s just put them all in jail 24/7″ .
Go check it out!
Zoho Writer is a very easy to use word processing application. It is incredibly similar to microsoft word in its use and in some aspects it is much easier to navigate. Zoho writer has two navigation areas that help the user to quickly assimilate to it. The first is the navigation area on the left. There you can find your documents, shared documents, tag folders, template and the trash. It is very easy to navigate through this section. The other navigation area is the tool section above the document. The eight buttons that are used the most frequently are always located on the left hand side of the tool bar. The rest of the tool bar changes as you need it to. There are different tabs: format, insert, review, share, views, and page setup. With each of these tabs they have a drop down menu or you also have the ability to choose which tab is expanded for your use.
There are many features of Zoho Writer that I really liked.
•Sharing documents is incredibly easy. All you have to do is click on the share tab and click on the share button. At this point you have the ability to decide if you want to the individual or group you are sharing with to have read only or read/write capabilities.
•The comment bubble under the insert tab. This allows you to add a comment on a particular section of text. I think this would be incredibly helpful when collaborating with others on a document.
• Post to Blog under the share tab. This allows you to post the document directly to your blog. The blog options are blogger, livejournal, wordpress, and typepad. It does give you an option to add a metablog, however I was unsuccessfull in adding my edublog.
Classroom Application:
In order to use Zoho Writer successfully students would need a basic understanding of word processing. But other than that Zoho Writer is very straight forward and easy to navigate even for a beginner. Zoho also has quiet a few templates that are available to download. One such template is for a newsletter. Using this template sudents could very easily create a group newspaper on Colonial Jamestown or collaborate on our bi-weekly classroom newsletter. Setting clear guidelines and modeling will help students be sucessful while using this application. The biggest organizational consieration that needs to be taken into account is time management and computer access. If students do not have access to the internet at home more time will be needed in class to finish the projects.
When creating a computer-based instructional object (webquest and StAIR) I think it is incredibly important to make it relevant and related to the content standards. And with the number of standards that seem to be increasing more and more there needs to be a way to use the computer-based instructional object to streamline content standards. Many teachers (myself at times) will shy away from these technologies if they are viewed as one more thing to do. However, if they can take some of the pressure away they will be embraced.
Some other considerations that need to be kept in mind are:
Each of these areas listed above also need to be considered prior to using any CBIO.
Using computer based instruction is a new avenue for me. And I am excited to implement my StAIR project and the web quest in my classroom. But I’m also pretty cautious. I have only tried to use a webquest once before, and just when I found one that would work perfectly, the links were no longer valid. This was incredibly frustrating. The time it takes find one (webquest or website), check it out thoroughly and then implement it and hope it works in the computer lab is an incredibly daunting task.
Here are a few webquests that I am looking foward to spending some more time with in the very near future:
I will Survive! Animal adaptations…
http://questgarden.com/47/15/7/070303074334/index.htm
Enthusiatic about Edison
http://questgarden.com/41/48/7/061112165309/
Extra! Extra! Colonial/Revolutionary Newspaper
http://www.kyrene.org/staff/agavin/webquest/
State the Facts – Life in Colonial America
http://bhihistory.4t.com/Intro.html
Each of these webquests are related to the current content standards I teach. I’m most excited about the last one, “State the facts: Life in Colonial America.” I’m going to check this week at school if it is one that I can access! Keeping my toes and fingers crossed!
I am so excited that I can blog from my iPhone. Thank you Kelly for figuring it out and passing on the info!!
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