Reflection on “If All My Classes Did This” by Wendy Wolfe (K12Online07)

Reflection on “If All My Classes Did This” by Wendy Wolfe (K12Online07)

I really enjoyed this workshop from Wendy Wolfe. The title is what drew me to it and is a profound statement from one of her “at risk” students, commenting that if all the classes were like Wendy’s, then school would be enjoyable. The reason the student is saying this is because Wendy has engaged her students through technology and shows how easy and powerful it can be.

Wendy goes through the following tools in her presentation: ToonDoo, Comic Creator, Gliffy, Zoho, and Gcast. Though I’ve used most of these tools, Wendy’s excellent examples of her implementation gave me a refreshed appreciation for their effectiveness. Her presentation serves as a great introduction for teachers who are starting the journey of bringing in technology to their lessons because of these clear examples, and I am happy to find that Wendy is continuing to share resources and ideas at her blog in a section called “Friday Five”.

One thing that really caught my attention in the presentation was the idea of students having their work “web based.” In this 2.0 Internet, it just makes sense to me to let go of software programs (such as Microsoft Word or Powerpoint) and move everything online. While I can’t do this at the elementary level for a variety of reasons (age of students, email access, to name a few), it seems like the easiest and most effective way to manage student work in the upper grades. Students can easily share their documents with the teacher and peers, can publish to the larger community, and have access to their work wherever there is an Internet connection.

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