Whilst there is a myriad of free online services for educators to create online lessons for use in a traditional or flipped classroom (click here to access the online learning management systems section), there are few that are easy enough for young students to quickly pick up and design their own lesson content.
Whilst Blendspace by Weebly can also be used by educators to deliver teacher-designed online lessons, I recently observed a school whose senior students were using Blendspace as an avenue to have students create their own multi-modal web-based lessons to:
Whilst Blendspace by Weebly can also be used by educators to deliver teacher-designed online lessons, I recently observed a school whose senior students were using Blendspace as an avenue to have students create their own multi-modal web-based lessons to:
- Address their own areas of weakness identified during Mathematics testing, and
- Demonstrate their understanding/mastery of an area of interest, which could then be accessed by other students to assist their learning.
As pictured on the left, students are given access to their individual test data for a variety of learning areas. This approach not only allows students to both see and explore their tests results, it then allows them to be an active part of the planning process in developing an approach to meet their points of need.
For example, students can analyse the breakdowns of their Mathematics test results (e.g. S.I.N.E.) to identify their various areas of strength and weakness.
During this analysis, students can highlight the areas for concern as well as those that show an established level of knowledge.
During this analysis, students can highlight the areas for concern as well as those that show an established level of knowledge.
Students then login to their free Blendspace student accounts to create or edit their own lessons.
Student accounts can be created in a matter of seconds with the option to be linked to an existing Google Account or a teacher-created Blendspace class account (using a given class code) so that teachers can:
- Access student-related material.
- Deliver online class lessons to students.
Upon clicking on the 'New Lesson' button for the first time, students are presented with the following video tutorial:
As demonstrated in the video above and in the student Math lesson pictured left, students can either create their own lesson content or drag and drop from filtered pre-made lessons and activities available from Google, YouTube, OpenEd, Flickr, Educreations and Gooru.
Students can also drag and drop in webpages and insert their own media from a computer, network, USB stick or Google Drive.
Students can also drag and drop in webpages and insert their own media from a computer, network, USB stick or Google Drive.
Students creating 'Blendspaces' to demonstrate their knowledge/expertise, such as their knowledge of plurals and the related spelling rules (pictured left), can also create quizzes.
Therefore, other students who complete a master's/expert's 'Blendspace lesson' can test their newly gained understanding in an online scenario that gives them instant feedback on their performance/retention of knowledge.
Therefore, other students who complete a master's/expert's 'Blendspace lesson' can test their newly gained understanding in an online scenario that gives them instant feedback on their performance/retention of knowledge.
Considerations
Before introducing students to Blendspace, educators should ensure that:
Before introducing students to Blendspace, educators should ensure that:
- School policies are inclusive of students sharing online content
- The ICT Administrator has unblocked student and staff access to enable content from Google, YouTube, OpenEd, Flickr, Educreations and Gooru to be dragged into presentations
- Teachers create their own lesson(s) within Blendspace to explore the offered features
- Student-created Blendspace lessons are reviewed before other students can access them for their personal learning, as students may not always choose the best web-based lessons/activities content, which could then lead to students developing misconceptions.