Want to Start a HS TA Wiki?

I wonder if a wiki designed for the TA's at the HS would allow us to more easily keep up to date with what is going on in classrooms? The ability to quickly add an update or put something on the calendar might be a great tool. We share so many students in so many classrooms, yet we don't often have the time to share what they are doing. I think we could use the calendar to list upcoming tests and projects. We could use the wiki as a group to post info on issues that are important to us - maybe avoiding the e-mail conundrum of who should get what. I'm still a little unclear about privacy issues on a wiki, not sure if we could actually mention specific students. Still all in all I think this could be a very good tool for groups of people who want to be connected but can't always get face to face time. Since a wiki is more interactive, I think it would be a better tool for a group like HS TA's than a blog.

Looking at Video Sites

There sure is a lot of stuff floating around in cyberspace! As part of Assignment 5 we were asked to look at a few sites where videos for school could be located. My age is really showing, because I found many of these very visually confusing, much like fast paced video games. I envy the younger students to whom this is all matter of fact.


I really liked NextVista. There was a lot of content available for math and most of it was pretty good. I found the site easy to navigate. It was easy to find content specific videos. The best part was it worked very fast. I could bring this up during a class and have the video almost instantly available.


Teacher Tube had a wonderful amount of video available. But I was totally frustrated trying to navigate the site. It was so slow! By the time I could find a video, download it to watch it, then get ready for the replay to show I could have written an entire lesson myself. Also, I couldn't get the videos to download to another site. They had to be shown from Teacher Tube. (this may have been my problem, not the site's)


You Tube made me crazy. It was way too overwhelming for me to use it as a resource. It was FUN though!


I had the most trouble with ClipBlast because the videos I was trying to watch were housed at Teacher Tube producing the same time problems.


Overall, I think that when NextVista really takes off it will be a great teaching resource. Content is being added daily. I love being able to quickly find and play a video on the math concepts I am working on in class.You Tube could be a fun diversion for students, but I can't see using it in my classroom because it is not edited or filtered. I would encourage students to access it at home and use some of the videos to reinforce what is being taught.


The best thing of all is that I think our students and teachers could do a better job than many of the videos I saw, so there is a whole new creative area to explore for project based learning.