Widgets and Gadgets can certainly enhance instruction, especially when you can create exactly what you want for any occasion. It is a great way to connect with our digital learners! Today's digital learner is not excited about filling out a survey with paper and pencil...a survey with the same questions all teachers are asking to assess learning. But send that same learner to that survey on your weekly blog that they are required to read, and the motivation and eagerness to share might be quite different.
I see these widgets becoming great ways to start and finish classes as intros and closure. Having students read today's current news stories as they flash on a gadget, having students get their first instructions of the class through a Voki Talking Avatar (with a REPLAY button! Every teacher's dream!), flashing a series of student produced photos in a small slideshow to inspire and encourage students to create and practice their technological skills with cameras...all of these things are ways to reach, connect, and motivate the learners of today!
I personally enjoyed playing with the Voki. I will certainly find many ways to incorporate these into my computer classes, and I cannot wait to share them with my student bloggers!
I had much trouble embedding my Voki into my post. I was using a PC when I tried numerous times and got very frustrated wasting time with no positive results. I had heard that it might be because I had not updated Internet Explorer to IE8...but unfortunately, I could not do this, as we have a very important program that cannot be run with IE8, only IE7. This PC had some issues over the past months, so yesterday, I made the best move and purchased a brand new iMac. I am now a very happy computer user and also have found embedding this Voki to me extremely easy! Ahhhhh...technology!
