Wednesday, April 16, 2008

Wimba, Inc.

Wimba, Inc., (2008. April 16). Momentum for Collaborative Technology Builds in K-12 Classrooms. Retrieved April 16, 2008, from Yahoo! Finance Web site: http://biz.yahoo.com/iw/080416/0387393.html


Wimba, Inc. is a technology company that introduces different programs and/or products to schools for their use in an online environment or in a traditional classroom, in order to enhance the educational process for all students. “Throughout the country, K-12 schools have started to use Wimba learning solutions to better address the educational needs of traditional, home-schooled, at-risk, and gifted students” (Wimba, Inc., 2008).

This article stood out to me, especially today, because I was just having a conversation yesterday with the GATE teacher (gifted education), who I work closely with, about our district’s idea to integrate an online education component into the GATE curriculum for next year. I found this to be very interesting, due to the lack of interest our district has had in technology. The GATE kids would still be in the regular classroom as they are now, but part of their GATE pull out program would include an online course component, in order to meet the needs of all of our gifted students. After having the discussion I had yesterday, this article seemed very interesting. I’m now anxious to see how exactly a program like this would work and how my district would implement it into a program such as GATE.

How much does it cost? Who creates the lessons? Do the lessons correlate with Ohio standards or are they used as supplements to what happens in the classroom? How are the lessons evaluated?

3 comments:

Sabrina said...

That is an interesting point. I think that an on-line curriculum could be beneficial to your GATE students. It would allow students to work at their own pace in different areas, thus potentially meeting their individual needs. It almost seems too simple! I bet it is expensive. I think with companies such as that one, they usually try to base their "curriculum" on national standards, but may tweak things here or there to say that it was "designed to meet the needs of Ohio's students"...at least we get a lot of that in Florida. :o) Keep us updated on the information you find out! Thanks for sharing!

Sabrina

Annette said...

Hi Jenn,
The program sounds interesting. I wonder also what some of their products are like...do they align with your state's standards? how are their objectives and lessons comparable on Bloom's Taxonomy?
It sounds like it would be worth looking into. Anything is worth a look. :) I would bet to believe that the software company has a FAQ that would answer many of your questions.
Annette

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