I enjoyed the small group discussions on Desire2Learn. Since the discussion was concentrated in one place, we could have more of a conversation. I like commenting on people's blogs throughout the course, but half the time I ask a question and do not get a response (nor am I good at responding to comments on my own blog) so I feel like I got more out of the D2L discussion. I briefly looked at the other discussion groups as well and it seems that overall, everyone was really pleased with the course content and how it was run. I think that all of us will find a way to incorporate at least a few of the tools into our classroom, no matter what age group we work with.
The main points that were brought up in our discussion group were using the internet as differentiation for students who need more of a challenge, using the internet as a motivational tool and to get students excited about learning science, and to broaden their opportunities to learn science since you can access resources on most anything in science. The internet is an incredible communication tool that students should be learning how to take advantage of to enhance their learning!
I enjoyed the discussion too. I agree with you that we were more or less conversing with each other in the discussion. It is not as much on the blog though it is true that all of us enjoyed blogging and reading each other`s blogs. Yes, Internet is a wonderful new world of opportunities for students to learn science. Online simulations help make 3 -D concept easy and visualizing is always appreciated by students.Online data helps the analysis of certain lab data(say Radioactivity, where an actual data collection is tedious)easy and students are pleased since the results are very precise.
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