Module 6 - Mind Mapping and Glogging

The sixth module entails looking at two very interesting ways to create and communicate online. The first site we went to look at was Bubbl.us, however this site didn't seem to be working. Lucky we had Scott to guide us and found another alternative in Mindmeister. What a great tool for creating mind maps and brainstorms with your class! I think this would work well on a smartboard and would like to attempt it for a new topic next term. Mindmeister was quite easy to use and definitely a site for the primary children to explore.

The second site we had a look at was Glogster. I had a lot of fun experimenting with the site and found it a great creative outlet. This is aimed at older children, however I could always use this site to present new information/pictures to my Kindergarten class. A glog is an online poster that is similar to the 'old fashioned' cardboard poster. The range of images, backgrounds, colours, fonts you can use is amazing. I thoroughly enjoyed making my New York City poster on glogster and actually didn't want to tear myself away. Glogster seems to be targeted towards teenagers as the online glogs available for viewing contained "teenage" content.

Another great session with Scott... look forward to some more in Term 4.

Module 4- Flickr

Another week, another module! This week was all about the site Flickr. After evetually finding a laptop that worked and moved at a reasonable pace, I was able to get on to this site. It's essentially a site to share your photos with others, but also can be used to find suitable pictures for your own use. Since I have an upcoming trip to New York, I thought I'd look for a photo of Broadway and was pleased with the results that came back.

It was an easy site to use and would be great for the classroom when sourcing pictures for various lessons, rather than googling images that are not always 'child friendly'.


The second half of our morning was spent looking at youtube. I am very familiar with youtube and have found some excellent videos on the site for educational and entertaining purposes. Recently, my grade partner and I have found some great clips of fairytales which we have been able to share with our class on our smartboards. We have also uploaded these clips to our myclasses page so our students can enjoy these stories at home too. Again with youtube, you have to be careful when searching for clips as they are not always suitable for children.