Wendy Maddison's Page

11th February 2009 – Web 2.0 and Education

Web 2.0 is certainly bringing cultural changes, for example the latest was Barack Obamas new media strategy, which played a big part in this win. He attracted the youth vote through social media.

http://www.podcastingnews.com/2008/11/05/how-barack-obama-beat-john-mccain-with-new-media/

Our children are growing up in a world that is changing faster than ever before. This generation are used to things like mobile computing platforms, semantic We… Continue

11th February 2009 - Tinkering as a mode of Knowledge Production

After watching the videos by John Seely Brown on the importance of Tinkering, it made me think back when children, even me, took things apart to find out how they worked, even if, in my case they never got back to the norm again! I would call this research instead of failing, learning from experience.

In the classroom I see this happening but usually with the critique reprimanding the child for taking something apar… Continue

10th February 2009 Mashup Videos

A mashup is the combination of two or more data sources to create a unique result. Often involves a map, photo, video and/or news. Mashup’s, are a simpler way to integrate Web-based applications and data in lieu of more complicated and expensive lower-level development.

They could be an asset within education because they could be interactive, creating curriculum activities using Google Earth and using Geographical Survey data to create a History… Continue

7th February 2009Research

What is research? I believed it was just getting a book or searching the Internet for an interest or topic you wanted to know more about. I did not realise just how detailed it can be!

I have learnt today that when I have researched in the past, I was ill-prepared and had the wrong perceptions about what research was.

I knew to research was to find out about a subject and if results were found to be repeatable, then this was probably correct. I did not… Continue