Saturday 5 March 2011

Jog the Web-Guided Research

 The first time I had used Jog the Web was with staff to try and guide them through a series of Moodle resources for a CPD session I was running. With staff it did not work as well as I had hoped as I they did not seem to 'get it'.

Jog the Web allows you to visit a number of sites in a structured order. It embeds the sites within a different page on which you can add titles and instruction. Staff members seemed to be confused by this, and the learning stumbled. Maybe due to my own explanation, lack of differentiation or the wrong choice of tool. I really just did not work.

However...In the last few weeks I gave it another go.

With my BTEC Graphics students I was struggling to find a way to structure a research task in a guided and supportive way. I decided the learning need suited trying this tool again.

The students are currently redesigning logos and the look of the colleges own Moodle site and they needed to become more aware of how to visually analyse design and what sort of questions to ask. Jog the web was ideally suited to this.

To create the jog:
  • I found a range of exemplar Moodles and opened them up on seperate browser tabs 
  • Signed into Jog The Web (It is free to sign up though there is a premium option)
  • Clicked to create a new jog
  • Add title and details to categorise your jog 
  • Then it is you simply add the pages to your jog
  • A more recent feature is that you can also add your own content to a range of templates. These could be used to punctuate your jog or possibly extension tasks.
  • Make sure you save each page at the bottom.
  • You can easily change the page order at any stage or edit any parts.

This tool definitely supported the learning of less-able students in the class but was not overly intrusive and allowed more-able students to work more independently.  I it used to focus class discussion of Moodle sites as well as individually; where the questions along the top were used to help focus on what type of annotation might be appropriate for different sites. 
Visual Identity
Students 'got this' and on the whole annotation has improved because of the individual support using this allows. One student said "When you look at something you make judgements in your head but I only realised this when what my head said matched the questions at the top".