PLEK12-Week 2 continued

What is inquiry learning?
Inquiry learning to me is getting involved in learning. Being able to take an active role in participating in lessons or learning. I believe that inquiry based learning is ongoing. It is working towards a goal not stopping at the “finish line.” One of the main purposes for last semester’s internship was an inquiry based project. I had to be completely immersed in the content and actively participating to reach my goal. Last semester I thought my goal was to get to the so called finish line, the end of the semester. I now realize that is not the case at all. I am still working on this project and I intend to work on it for the rest of my professional career. Inquiry is also interactive and exciting, learning new things everyday, exploring all the options and working towards that exciting goal.

What tools are available to organize a PLE?
I think that one of the tools, which we saw in examples and resources this week to organize a PLE is through the use of the technology resource Symboloo. It is such a fun and interactive website for children and it is easy to use. I learned about this resource back in my first technology class and it was very interesting. One thing that I think the students will love is all the ways to organize resources with all the different colors.

I think another great resource for organizing a PLE is the use of wikis. When I first started in the college of education I did not realize that there were such things as wikis and now I am well aware of their powers. I think that this is a great way to organize and share all of your information because it is an easy way to organize such a vast body of knowledge. I think that this is also a great place for others to see and interact with your work.

I am not really aware of other ways to organize your PLE so if you have any suggestions for me I would love to hear them.

What does a PLE for K12 inquiry look like?
This is actually a question I keep asking myself. I am interested in teaching lower elementary grades, probably K-2nd grade and this has been hard for me to imagine. One thing that I have found very helpful are other’s blogs in this class. I have seen a couple of different examples of PLEs in the classroom and that has really helped me. I think that one thing that it would look like in my own classroom is an interactive way to learn through technology. I think that I would have to some of the background work on the PLE when it comes to more complicated tasks but I would like even my Kindergarteners to learn the importance of Inquiry learning. I think this is one of my main learning goals in this class, to make sure that I learn more about incorporating this idea into a lower elementary grade level. I would love some comments and suggestions on how to incorporate this type of learning into that environment as well.


Some Links that I found helpful:

Inquiry Learning
This is a link that I found extremely helpful when I was first starting to learn about inquiry learning last semester. It is a website that explores the differences that inquiry based learning has compared to the traditional approach and I found a few great quotes on there that I really enjoyed.

Symboloo
Here is the link to symboloo if everyone does not have it already. I like this website for the use in the K-12 classroom because it is fun and interactive.


Delicious-Social Bookmarking
Here is a link to a social bookmarking website that I absolutely love. It is called Delicious and it is very easy to use. This could be a place where people can view your websites and sources that you have accumulated on a concept.