PTP Wall.fm

For the second half of my technology project, I learned how to set up a social networking site using wall.fm. here is the link to it: Social Network. I also have links to it on my class website under both the Honors physics and ap physics tabs.

Doing this project I learned that it is a lot easier to get answers faster this way than through an email. I had to use the help tab a couple of times to figure out how to do something that I wanted to do such as invite people to join my site, and it was a great help that anyone could anser my question. I didn't have to wait for one person to get online in order to receive the help I needed.

I could use this technology to help me answer questions wen the students are not in class. When students are doing their homework at home and they have a question, they can just go online and ask their fellow classmates for some help. This way I can see where people are struggling and what questions come up more often than others. This also helps the students to learn more because when you teach someone else a concept, you end up learning the concept better because you have to truly understand it in order to teach it to someone else. This technology is also good for online classes. This allows them to have an interactive experience with other students in a type of classroom atmosphere. Thus they get the social aspect of teaching along with gaining more knowledge.

Some activities I could use this foe would be things like group projects. A lot of times when you have a group project, you have to set aside a lot of class time in order to give the group enough time to prepare and work together. With this social networking site you can set up a group chat and although the group is not in the same room, they can still be working together on the project and throwing around ideas and you have a lot more class time to teach. Another activity would be to pose a question on the site and have the class discuss it throughout the week. Then you can give participation points to those who say something on the discussion board. This will allow the students to be thinking of the topics that are discussed in class outside of class and allow them to be study for the test without even knowing that they are studying. ONe more activity you can use the social network for would be to have students post projects on it for other students to critic or to learn from. A lot of times people turn in great projects to the teach but no one else ever sees them. This is a shame because they are great teaching materials. So if you had the students turn them in online and had the other students required to read at least 3 of them, then they will learn from other students work and it is less material that you would have to teach in the classroom.