|
Plus
|
Minus
|
Interesting
/ Implications
|
|
Very
easy to use – click and drag functions onto webpage.
|
Kept
freezing (and no other website was freezing) and wouldn’t allow me to select
free Weebly pics to add to website.
|
|
|
Lots
of templates to choose from
|
Can’t
track individual entries from students (like a wiki)
|
Not
as suitable for group work as can’t track individual entries.
|
|
Headings
to separate pages
|
Have
to click “publish” before it goes “live”
|
|
|
Teachers
and peers can’t comment on work as it’s happening.
|
Teachers
and peers can’t comment on work as it’s happening.
|
Plus
and minus as less chance for bullying, slandering and unethical behaviour,
but no extended learning from teachers and peers as the assignment
progresses.
|
|
Provides
a polished, professional website.
|
Reliant
on computer and reliable internet.
|
|
I was very impressed by the many options presented in Weebly,
and out of the three tools this week, I found the Weebly the easiest to use. I was able to easily select a template from
the many free designs, and then add text, pictures, web links, Facebook and
email links, contact forms, YouTube clips etc.
The process of using Weebly was very straight forward and user friendly
(all functions were click-and-drag), with the end result being very polished
and professional looking. I liked how
the program allowed you to easily select new pages to then create, and I was
able to move the order of the pages around once they were completed.
Once I was happy with the website, I had to
click "publish" for it to go live. This
is very different to blogs and wikis, whereby these tools go live
instantly. So it is likely that students will wait until the assignment submit day before clicking
“publish” (similar to handing their written assignment in on the due date). There is no opportunity for
teachers and peers to comment on the work as it is being created, even if the
"publish" button is clicked early. I
think this has both positive and negatives … positives because there is less
chance of bullying, slandering and unethical behaviour occurring because peers
can’t post comments or alter the work of another student. However, it is negative, because it limits
the opportunities for teachers and peers to be able to comment on the work as
it is being done. This means that
students will not benefit from the teacher and peer learning that they can
receive when working on a blog or wiki.
Unlike a blog or wiki, a website itself does not allow for the higher order thinking skills of collaborating, negotiating, and commenting (as defined in Bloom's Revised Taxonomy). These higher order thinking skills can be done "behind the scenes", however, the website will just show the final product.
The other negative to a website is that teachers are unable to track the
inputs from different students (unlike wikis).
It would be hard to determine what contribution each student made, so
therefore, may not be the best tool for group assignments. In addition, if it was used for group
assignments, there would be one log in, and although I did not try it, I would
think it would not allow multiple log ins simultaneously. Another negative I found was that Weebly kept
freezing while I was using it, particularly when I tried to import a picture
from the Weebly free library. No other
webpage was freezing, I only had troubles with Weebly. Hopefully it was a one off problem, because I
would really like to use it again.
My weebly site is happykidshealthyfood.weebly.com. Please feel free to check it out. However, on the contact form, I promised that
I would send the reader more information about healthy food and drinks for kids
…. Please don’t expect that as this was a “dummy run”!I think a website has a lot of potential for individual assignments in both science and home economics. A research assignment on childhood obesity could be very effectively presented in a website, and have the added benefit of relevant webpage links, videos and images. In science, students could really have fun presenting their solar system assignment in a website. They could bring the solar system to life in their website (through YouTube clips etc), but still have the structure required for the assignment (in the form of separate pages for each new heading). One of the benefits of doing these assignments on a website is that it adds to the knowledge pool found on the web. Non web based assignments more often than not go into a black hole after the assignment is completed. However, a website that the student has created will stay live. There is also the potential for students to revisit that information and update or change as their learning continues (which may not affect their results of their previous assignment, but will help their learning).
But again, like all ICT, it does rely on students having access to a computer and reliable internet. I say reliable, because I have been without the internet for most of the weekend …. and even in that short period of time, it makes it very hard to complete study, weekly tasks and assignments. I can only imagine the angst of students who are trying to complete assignments and projects who either don’t have home access to computer and internet, or who experience unreliable internet frequently (which I think is the norm for many regional towns?).
PS Apologies for the MASSIVE gap between the text and the PMI table ... one of the formatting limitations of blogs (or me)!!!
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