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A social networking site for classrooms. Teachers can create class groups where students can safely share post and share. This can also be used by teachers to give and collect assignments and give quizzes.

This long-term project has students creating a blog that serves as their reading response journal for the year. For this assignment, students created a blog to replace their hardcopy notebooks. As students read various things in their English class, they use this one place to do all reading activities. Once they have finished posting, they then receive time to go and comment on other people's posts. This gives students a place to practice their writing skills with an authentic audience. As the year goes on and students get more comfortable with commenting, students could end up having rich conversations based on each other's writing. I like this because it is easy to set up and use for the course of the year. This can be applied to almost any subject area. Even a math teacher could use something like this for students to summarize their learning and bounce ideas off of their peers. The functionality and utility of this project make it a must-have for educators of all subject areas.

This project has students using Instagram to post pictures that are related to the book they are reading. For this project, students were asked to select one line from the first two chapters of the book they were reading. They were asked to find a picture somewhere around their school that related to the line they selected and take a selfie with it as well. The final step was to post their picture with their quote as the caption using the classes hashtag. I like this assignment because students can select whatever part of the reading speaks to them the most and find a way to represent this visually. This pushes students to look deeper into what they are reading. Additionally, time can be spent looking at other posts made by other students and further depth can be added to the novel. This is a quick and easy task that can be done every few chapters for any novel. I could see myself using this project to supplement the reading being done in my class.

This is a great project where students get to demonstrate what they know about Quadrilaterals. For this assignment, students selected a quadrilateral to make an Instagram account for. They are to create an account that contained correct information about the shape and use an appropriate username. They also had to include at least 5 pictures of their shape. All of the posts used the class hashtag so they could easily be sorted on Instagram. When people finished their account page they had to go to other pages and check their peers quality of work. Questions, comments, and concerns were addressed by the students in the form of comments and likes. This particular example made use of a lot of poster paper and physical models. It would be easy to go all digital with this project and have students take or find pictures of their shape in the real world. This gives students another way to express what they know and interact with their peers.

Padlet is a digital board that can be used for for professional development for teachers or with students. The teacher creates an account, then creates a digital bulletin board that only requires web access via a link. Links can be emailed or posted in Google Classroom. Students can post using the link without signing in, which makes it easy to use. This tool can be used for brainstorming, formative assessment, collaboration, or an exit ticket.

I have used this in my composition classes to work on constructing thesis statements and to view the resources the students are working on.

Padlet is an online virtual "bulletin" board, where students and teachers can collaborate, reflect, share links and pictures, in a secure location. Padlet allows users to create a hidden wall with a custom URL. Padlet creators can also moderate posts, remove posts, and manage their board 24/7.

This article identifies 10 ways in which Google Docs can be used in the classroom to make your life as a teacher a little easier and to make lessons and assignments more engaging for your students.These ideas are useful, engaging, and purposeful.

Pretty good blog for learning about online education. Check out her 3rd post on using social media to create meaningful learning assignments.

This site was founded "to restore critical thinking, facts, reason, and civility to American public discourse." I assign debates in my classes and I go to this site for topics, resources, and a general model of how to debate.

Preface: I am not counting this as a resource for my assignment, but I do think this page is awesome in that it offers so many established PLNs to join by category. If you are looking to grow or expand your PLN, this would be a great place to look.

This webpage breaks down what a PLN is among teachers and also has some great videos. It provides some helpful resources that encourages teachers to join a PLN or create one. The simple break down of a PLN is helpful when someone is just starting out, or conducting research on a PLN.

This blog entry provides a basic definition for a Personal Learning Network(PLN) and links to supporting videos to conceptualize a PLN. This blog is appealing since it addresses PLNs from a teacher perspective. It further addresses how PLNs help educators stay connected.There is a nice visual of ways to create and grow a PLN.

This blog explains way more than simply the definition of a PLN, which makes it a great resource. This is a site that I plan to reference in the future in our 543 class as we proceed with our PLNs. I'm really glad I found this one.

This is my class website! Here you will be able to find a calendar of the assignments as well as resources and other materials that are helpful for my students. Please feel free to contact me with any questions you may have!

I love this website! I was originally hired as a cataloger and now I do reference and instruction. I spend 90% of my day teaching and I have never been taught how to teach. We didn't have classes on how to do library instruction in my library science program. What I usually do is come up with some ideas of what I want to do and then I search the freely available resources on CORA to see if anyone has perfected what I am thinking of doing in the classroom. It's a great resource for those who are starting out in the reference and instruction arena!

In this article faculty and graduate students at the University of Plymouth wrote about the growing use of blogging in higher education classrooms. The authors see connectivism as the theory that helps to legitimize the use of blogging in the teaching and learning environment. They acknowledge that Web 2.0 tools such as blogs give students the ability to easily make connections with their peers and others outside the classroom walls. One of the most interesting aspects of the article was that the authors advocated for the use of course blogs rather than individual blogs for the simple fact that it promotes a single platform for students to share and connect. The authors gathered much of the information for this article from a case study that they did with university students. They asked several students to complete a survey. Instead of a survey, the staff involved in the project were interviewed. Through this case study, the authors were able to produce both qualitative and quantitative data on the use of blogs. Overall, the results showed that blogs are an acceptable medium for using the connectivist model and that by and large, most students achieved the learning goals while completing the assignment.

Kelly, This is a very interesting article especially since I have had to use blogs for many courses and have considered having my own students use them as well. I definitely understand having a single platform, but I wonder if that takes away from the individuality students gain from getting to create their own.

Tiffany, I too am torn on the use of a single platform in the classroom. I love that it would be easier to manage one account rather than individual student accounts. I have over 100 Spanish 3 students (which doesn't include my Sociology and Spanish 2 classes). It could be a nightmare to monitor appropriate blog use of all of those students. At the same time, I agree that students lose the ability to create a personal site, and could be less engaged on the single platform.

Connectivist theorists argue that the way in which individuals acquire knowledge has changed. Academic institutions (which have historically been considered as the place in which individuals acquire knowledge and information) are being supported and/or replaced by groups of people within a learning network. The process of learning involves the creation of knowledge through these personalized networks and identifying the relationships between one's own knowledge and the knowledge of others within a network. These connections can occur in a variety of ways and with a variety of learners.

This article helped me to understand how to apply connectivism in the classroom. It also pointed out misconceptions that educators have about using social networking in the classroom.

Written by Kegan Remington, an Instructional Designer, the article discusses what connectivism is and how it can be applied in the classroom. He lays out the four simple ways of introducing connectivism in the classroom.