FirstClass

= = =Strategies for Using First Class Effectively=

Welcome! The purpose of this wiki is to collect ideas and resources around using the tools within First Class effectively. In the Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board we are very lucky as both our staff and students have full access to First Class. Conferences, websites, podcasts, blogs, workspaces and of course e-mail are accessible to any member of the HWDSB community and the potential to help students is outstanding. Rather than a how-to guide, this wiki will be more around the philosophy and pedagogy of First Class. For members of the HWDSB, you can access how-to reference documents within First Class (from the desktop go to **Using First Class --> Help Files**).

To participate in this wiki and contribute your own ideas (which is the whole idea behind a wiki!), all you have to do is login. To do so, use the following information:


 * Login**: hwdsbteacher
 * Password:** hwdsbteacher

One of the great inspirations for not only this wiki, but my personal philosophy of technology and education is summarized nicely by this video. Food for thought!

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Working with Conferences Using Podcasts Working with Websites Working with Blogs First Class Documents Calendars are Your Friend



Conferences
One of the greatest tools within First Class is the conference feature. With conferences, you can create a space to: The philosophy of conferences is one of **pull** rather than **push**. A user actively seeks out information (pulling in the necessary information) rather than simply passively receiving it in their e-mail in-box (and often deleting it without reading it!).
 * store information
 * create discussions
 * post announcements

Conferences have a wide variety of uses in the classroom depending on your comfort level with technology and the use of it in your professional life. The steps to creating a conference are always the same:
 * 1) Create the conference in a space (your desktop, staff only, staff and students, etc.)
 * 2) Set permissions for users to your conference
 * 3) Make users subscribers (or allow them to subscribe on their own)

Some uses for conferences in the classroom (and their respective permissions):
 * an announcement board (teacher has controller access, students have reader access)
 * a discussion board (teacher has controller access, students have contributor access)
 * a hand-in folder (teacher has controller access, students have access to submit and delete their own work)
 * a group project folder (teacher has controller access, some students have contributor access, others are banned)
 * a resource folder (teacher has controller access, students have reader access)

Conferences can be "nested". This means you have a conference within a conference. This is especially useful when creating a class conference. Think of a class conference as a classroom. You can assign a certain level of access to students to get into the room (for example, everyone can come in and openly discuss within the room) and a separate level of access for a folder within the room (for example a submission conference).

Conferences are great for creating a collaborative student experience. One way to encourage collaboration is to use a conference as a question spot. Students can post questions they have about course content and receive an answer from their fellow students. As a teacher, you can choose to actively moderate the conversation (i.e. correct errors, etc.) or wait and see how other students respond to misconceptions, etc. A small posting from the teacher that questions some of the ideas students have presented often encourages them to critically analyze what they are offering to other students.

Here is a sample conference that uses many of the strategies listed above, plus some that are discussed below:



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Podcasting
The latest version of First Class allows for [|Podcasting]. A built-in function since version 8.0 of First Class, users can create, upload and manage podcasts with First Class creating the necessary [|RSS] feeds.

Ways in which Podcasts can be used in the classroom:
 * teacher created podcasts that supplement in-class lessons
 * student reports -- the student creates a report and rather than doing a "live" presentation in front of the class, they record a podcast and post it to the web. Other students listen to the podcast and respond to it either in a conference within First Class or through a blog.
 * weekly "what I learned" -- students summarize the week's lessons in a short podcast
 * emotional response -- students create a response to an "emotional" issue, presenting their point of view

This is a common question... why even both podcasting in the first place!?! Podcasts provide a great opportunity for students to express themselves in a low-risk environment. Rather than be in front of their classmates and peers (and all the pressure that comes along with that), they can work on their presentation, recording it as many times as possible to get it "just right". Also, students can add music (preferably [|royalty-free]), sound effects and even visuals (if it's a video podcast) to further enhance their presentation. This is a great differentiated instructional strategy as what holds many students back from doing well in presentations is not their preparation or knowledge of the material, but their own anxiety about presenting.
 * Why Podcast?**

Making a podcast in First Class is really as easy as clicking a button (the record button) and speaking or you can make it more complex by using an additional program to record the audio tracks. [|Audacity] is a free-ware program that does multi-track recordings that can be saved as mp3 files. These files can then be attached to a podcast episode in First Class and voila... instant, professional podcast.

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Websites
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Blogs
[|Blogs] are great tools for having online discussions and First Class provides a safe environment for students to experience blogging. With First Class blogs, in order to respond to a posting, you need to be a registered user (i.e. a First Class member).

Another strategy for using blogs would be an online journal. In this model, students use the blog as a way of recording daily postings of research (what they've learned, what they are going to explore tomorrow, etc.) completed, experiences they've had (for example over the March Break or Christmas Break) or semester-long. Since blogs are designed to be short, snippets of ideas, they lend themselves nicely to a growing experience where others can respond and comment, or simply just read and appreciate.

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First Class Documents
First Class documents are basically just that... documents. Unlike an e-mail message that has a sender and receiver, documents are simply text files that are stored within First Class, but they can be more than a simple text file. You can add images, colours, sounds and links to the web. Here is a sample document:

Beyond simply using this as a "flat" document (one that isn't edited), you could also use documents for:
 * First Class wiki -- students edit the document and contribute to making it the best document possible
 * sign-up sheet -- students sign up for project topics or group members inside the document
 * parent/teacher interview sheet -- students book appointments through a document posted in a common location

Unlike a Microsoft Word® file, which can get quite large and bulky, First Class documents remain small and compact. They are great for posting in conferences when you really don't need all the extra bulk of a Word file.

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Calendars
Calendars are a great way to help students get organized. With a calendar you can post not only events, but attach files, include details (like test topics, etc.) and even link the calendar to a webpage (providing anywhere access). Since a calendar can be linked to a website, this can also be a great tool to improve parent communication by once again putting the onus back onto the student.

Setting up a calendar is similar to setting up a conference. You create the calendar and assign permissions. Unlike a conference however, the permissions are a little tricky to understand. It's a good idea to assign all permissions to yourself and then select permissions to the students. Here is one model which gives the teacher full access and then access to the students to view events and the details of the events (so you can place test details, etc. into the calendar).



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