I would love to be able to use something like Moodle or Blackboard in my class to give students access to all assignments and reduce paper usage as well. Being able to post lectures and examples of lab set ups would be wonderful to use. Students could review lecture notes or see a lecture if they have missed class. Posting videos of lab set ups would save a lot of time explaining how to complete experiments, especially if a student were absent. It would also allow students to go through videos at their own pace and pause or rewind if needed. Moodle or Blackboard wouldn't necessarily teach just one piece of content; they could help the overall essence of the classroom.
As a science teacher, some of the online technologies that would help me most when teaching specific content would be the online field trips or the online simulations. Many times I don't have access to places that show my students science in action, so online field trips would be great. Many times we discuss topics in class that students do not understand because it doesn't affect them directly (we all know teenagers are keenly focused on themselves), so being able to take a field trip to a lab where scientists are doing stem cell research or seeing what an archeological dig looks like would be very beneficial to them. Perhaps even doing an online field trip at a museum where there is vast evidence of evolution or skyping with someone who is on the Galapagos Islands would help students broaden their visions of the world. It would be great to have them interact with scientists in the field and then create blog posts about the experience.
I think having a class wiki would be one of the most difficult technologies to use, and not because using a wiki is hard. I've noticed that with the internet becoming so commonplace that plagiarism runs rampant, and many students don't know how to formulate their own thoughts without plagiarizing. It seems like a lot of a teacher's time would be checking on students' posts to make sure they weren't stolen from somewhere else.
I agree that giving students easy access to posting online runs the risk of plagiarism. However, it could also be a great opportunity to address appropriate and inappropriate use of others' ideas. Definitely a challenge and something that would be nice to share with other teachers, so you know students are hearing the same message and being held to the same expectations across courses/grades.
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