Name of the site: Thinkgate URL: http://thinkgate.net/about-us/ Thinkgate can facilitate the creation of a customized assessment program that supports the teacher's efforts to individualize instruction for every student while ensuring that goals and objectives are being met district-wide. Thinkgate supports generative learning, as the learner is able to build connections between the verbal and pictorial models.
Name of the site: Quia Web URL: http://www.quia.com/web Quia Web provides educators with tools to create, customize, and share their curricula online. Teachers can create their own interactive, online experiences for their students. Teachers collaboratively develop and share their Quia-based materials, all the while contributing to a constantly expanding library of educational content. Quia Web supports generative learning, as the learner is able to build connections between the verbal and pictorial models. Quia is also easy to use.
Name of the site: WeVideo URL: http://www.wevideo.com/ WeVideo is a free online video creation platform that helps you tell compelling stories and share them with friends and family. It provides collaboration capabilities and an online editor supporting three editing mode (Storyboard mode, Timeline mode and Advanced mode) that can be switched between, at any time. WeVideo supports the essential and generative processing modalities with learner-paced segments and the ability to learn from the visual connections to the text.
Name of the site: Prezi URL http://prezi.com/about/ Prezi is a virtual whiteboard that transforms presentations from monologues into conversations that enables people to see, understand, and remember ideas. It allows teachers to present their lessons visually and engage students to participate in the conversation. Prezi is free and easy to use. Prezi supports the essential and generative processing modalities with learner-paced segments and the ability to learn from the visual connections to the text.
Name of the site: Mind42 URL http://mind42.com Mind42 is an online, collaborative, mind mapping application that allows users to visualize their thinking using the proven mind mapping method. Mind 42 is free and supports essential processing as students can learn the names and characteristics of necessary learning components.
Name of the site: Bubbl.us URL: https://bubbl.us/ Bubbl.us allows you to brainstorm ideas and create concept maps with no special software. It has interactive abilities: saving your mind map as an image, sharing (emailing) your work with a friend, printing your organizer, creating colorful mind map organizers, embedding your work into a website or blog, and working with friends. Bubbl.us is easy to use and supports essential processing as students can learn the names and characteristics of necessary learning components.
Name of the site: Educreations URL: http://www.educreations.com/ Educreations is a global community where anyone can teach what they know and learn what they don't. Educreations is a recordable interactive whiteboard that captures your voice and handwriting to produce amazing video lessons that you can share online. Students and colleagues can replay your lessons in any web browser, or from within our app on their iPads. Educareations is free and easy to use. Educreations supports essential processing with self paced learner segments.
Pre-training Name of the site: You Tube URL: www.youtube.com YouTube allows people to discover, watch and share originally-created videos. YouTube provides a forum for people to connect, inform, and inspire others across the globe and acts as a distribution platform for original content creators and advertisers large and small. I find You Tube to be easily accessible and free. You Tube videos can be used for generative learning utilizing the natural style of conversation. 8847_pre-training
Resources: Recorded Webinars is a website that list various webinars that are available to the educator to assist in becoming highly skilled with the Google Applications. Some applications are scheduled for a future date and some have occurred and are available for continuous viewing. Educators that are following with the video are able to stop it and rewind if necessary. You Tube is the medium that is being used to view the webinars. There are realistic images along with the voice. I would categorize this approach as technology-centered instruction, based on Mayer (2009) definition. http://www.google.com/enterprise/apps/education/resources/recorded-webinars.html
The K-12 Edition, Guide to Going Google, focuses on a K-12 educational institution transitioning to Google Apps for Educators. It provides training on how to make the transition and items to plan. It is inclusive of videos that provide how to training and feedback from current users of the platform. The site also provides the educator with a guide of 32 ways to use Google Apps in the classroom. The graphics, text and videos are not overwhelming for the user, because the site is designed in subject area chunks. This site also follows the learner-centered approach. https://sites.google.com/a/googleapps.com/k12-guide-to-going-google/pd
Edutraining has a site for Google Apps training. The site uses text and images related to Google Apps for Education. The Modules cover the introduction to Google Apps, Getting Around Google Apps, and Customizing for the Schools. I selected this site because the educator has detailed training modules in chunks of instruction. The realistic images should provide confidence for the educator that is learning how to use the application. Based on Mayer's (2009) description of learner-centered training, this site is focused on the learner and does not allow the technologies to be the focal point of the instruction. http://edutraining.googleapps.com/Training-Home/module-1
URL: http://thinkgate.net/about-us/
Thinkgate can facilitate the creation of a customized assessment program that supports the teacher's efforts to individualize instruction for every student while ensuring that goals and objectives are being met district-wide. Thinkgate supports generative learning, as the learner is able to build connections between the verbal and pictorial models.