Many teachers in my school had great activities for kids in Kid Pix. They used Kid Pix intensively throughout the year. But now we have introduced Tux Paint, which is a free app and could be used in lieu of Kid Pix. Teachers were reluctent at first and now they’re loving it. Sure Tux Paint doesn’t have as many features as Kid Pix, but students’ achievements are equally great and that’s what matters.
I have started using etherpad as a communication tool to keep in touch with teachers. We scribble notes to tell each other what we’ve done or intend to do in technology. It’s just like another way of planning with individual teachers, instead of physically going to see them and discuss. It’s going well, just that sometimes etherpad can’t be launched!
Teachers are given the choice to have their students’ digital portfolios using either iWeb or WordPress. We organized training on these two applications at different times and made sure teachers were familiar with them. So far most people chose WordPress, but a few tried it and agreed, as a grade to stay with iWeb.
I’m trying to understand why this divergence of opinion and here’s what I think. Personally, wordpress should be the way to go. One of the reasons is simply because it doesn’t cost that much compared to iWeb. If you want to eliminate the cost factor of iWeb, you could host it locally as we do, but you lose the privilege of allowing comments from your audience. The downside of wordpress is that, it can be really slow since you are working online.
As a conclusion, I think I’ll keep observing supporting both sides and try to get them do their best work. We’ll see how it goes.
About Me
I have many names, but I’ll just tell 2 of them: Jose Tumba. I’m an ICT integrator and have worked with international schools students for more than 15 years. Go through this blog and you’ll find out more about me and what I do. Happy blogging