Group items tagged

Cool Tools for schools

Austin - this is a great site with a ton of great web 2.0 tools many of which I have never heard of but am interested in taking a look at. Well organized site I think this would be a great site for teachers to bookmark to easily access sites according to need.

Using Pinterest to teach technology to Elementary students

Thank you for sharing this! There are some great apps on this page. I am always looking for new apps for kids to use and this is a great resource. I have it bookmarked!

There are a so many of these lists out on pinterest anymore. I think it would be interesting to compare what apps tend to make the lists on more than one? I do love this site though and like that someone has spelled out exactly what can be used for teachers in the future.

Create a lesson that is built around a video. Students get to interact with the video as they watch it.

Nikki, I have this same page bookmarked on my Diigo, so I definitely find it very useful and inspiring. I think Ted talks are a great resource that we can use for our students! They have so many different Ted talks on very different issues, and being able to watch a video for a quick 15 minutes can catch the attention of the students. I also feel as though the Ted talks I have watched have been very inspirational and done very well! I would definitely be able to effectively use these resources in my future classroom. I believe this resources if for teachers to use and share good Ted Talks, but then those teachers are expected to share with their students. I would recommend following Ted Talks so you can see when they post new and similar videos.

This is brilliant! TED talks are so widely known and used in so many different walks of education! The ability to create and share lessons across such a well traveled network of people is phenomenal resource to help you find what you really need to get your things done. I am glad you bookmarked this!!

Edublogs

Edublogs 

Free Technology for Teachers

Free Technology for Teachers

I just used Poll Everywhere in a presentation on campus with pre-service teachers! It was a hit!! I've never seen a class so quiet and so focused with that many cellphones out!

I feel like this would be a great tool if it's used in the right context. I don't necessarily think elementary would be the right place for it. For the students that actually have phones you don't know if the students have texting included in their plans. You might get them in trouble with their parents, hence you get in trouble for telling them to send a text. In older grades I could see this going over very well and I've seen it used in a college class before. It's a nice change of pace in that context.

I actually used Poll Everywhere in my Level 1 Teaching Experience and loved it! The students got to see some results of our lessons, I got a quick formative assessment, and the data was nicely organized for graphing or applying to spreadsheets!

Story telling

Story telling 

This is an interactive website in which teachers share ideas that can be utilized within classrooms. It's great for first year teachers starting up there first classrooms. It can also be used in the classroom for students to research different content as there are resources on the website.

I love this website. It´s set up kind of like pinterest which I´m a big fan of. The layout is well organized, so it´s easy for teachers and students to navigate through. There are a lot of great ideas on it that I´m sure I could use in my classroom someday. Thank you for sharing.

Schoology is a relatively new free learning management system for educators. Similar in nature to Edmodo, it currently allows the educator a few more abilities, resources, and customization that isn't offered in Edmodo.

o Do agree or disagree that the resource can be used efficiently in your own future classroom? Explain why or why not. Yes, this feature CAN and HAS been used in my classroom to much success. Students really seem to prefer it over other LMS websites like Edmodo or Moodle because of the ease of use, different resources, mobile app, and the App Store. I use it for distributing and collecting assignments, taking polls and surveys, and for taking assessments such as quizzes and tests. o Do you believe the resource is mostly for teacher use, student use, or both? Explain your perceptions constructively. This resource is used by both the teacher and the students in order to be effective. The teacher is the one who sets up the page, creates the assignments, links, quizzes, polls, etc and the students use the site to effectively manage their learning process. It has really helped to take away the complaints and excuses that I typically get from students not knowing what they are supposed to do and where everything is located. I think one of the major advantages to Schoology is the ease of being able to find Files/Links and Assignments. o Are you aware of any similar resources that should be considered? If so, what are those resources. This task is similar to our threaded discussions. You want your comments to be constructive. Repeat this step for the remaining three bookmarks you are required to comment on. Other possible LMS websites that I have used are: Moodle, Edmodo, and Blackboard. There are many, many others as this is a highly innovative arena right now and out of all of them, Schoology seems to really impress most educators who have tried using it.

I really like the looks of schoolology, Jeremy! I can see how this would be very useful in a junior high or high school classroom. Especially in a school that has gone 1:1! If fifth grade students had their own computers, I would definitely use this as a classroom management tool! I think this is a great way for educators, students, and parents to all be on the same page regarding assignments and class expectations. I really like the Text/SMS feature! As you had stated in your description. This is very similar to Edmodo, which I'm familiar with. Thank you for sharing!

This teacher describes how she transformed her classroom into a 21st century learning environment for her students.

I found this post very interesting. It is easy to see how PBL may work in a science or math classroom, but I have always wondered how it would look for English. It seems like this teacher has truly grasped PBL, and her students are enjoying the learning process. I think this resource could be utilized by any teacher who instructs about English content, but depending on the age of the learners, the students may not reach full autonomy as those in this article did. I particularly enjoyed one quote from the teacher, "Finally technology is embedded into the structure of all we do... It's never an accessory tacked on at the end." As we have learned about in other EdTech courses, technology needs to truly transform the learning experience. I believe the teacher is doing that in this classroom.

This Blog is one that I have bookmarked and will coming back to. This teacher's description of her class is how I want to work to make my class to look like. She had her premise but she had been able to create a class based on inquiry, openness and trust. This empowers students to create a social media campaign, create their own curriculum, and at the same time become more advanced in the content. Ms. Barseghian, I'm gushing, but your class sounds inspirational and worth the gushing.

article discussing different ways in which twitter can be used in the classroom

Sarah, Thank you for sharing this article. Twitter exploded last year in my district, especially at the high school, as a form of communication for everyone. The middle school, where I am primilary at, is slowly catching on. However, I LOVE Twitter as a professional resource. I think it is like a social bookmarker. I can share the websites, and then go back when I have time to explore them more. I agree this can be used in my library to be an effective communication tool for both students and staff. I believe this resource can be used for both students and staff, but they have different purposes. As a professional, using hashtags can be very benefical to find information. It can also be a great way to network, using the Twitter Chats that go on all around the United States and the world. Students can use this to communicate. For example, the students wanted to have a blue out in honor of a student who has cancer at the football game last night. They asked the opposing team to join them in wearing blue to honor a young man who is fighting for his life. They did, and they donated an additional $425 because they found that information on Twitter! I am not aware of other resources that do that same thing. I believe Twitter is unique with their limit of 140 characters and the strong hashtag movement they begun all throughout the internet world.

Emma, are you in Clinton? I heard about the "blue out"! I like to use Twitter for mainly professional use, but that varies from anywhere between retweeting professional articles to reminding the study body to buy their yearbooks. I try to throw in some personal stuff every now and again just to show that their teacher is an actual human, too. :)

This site provides ideas on how to use app smashing as a learning tool

I've never heard of app smash before! It looks like it would be a pretty useful in the classroom. It definitely sparked my curiosity. I have it bookmarked for later when I have more time to read a little further.

Using Pinterest in the classroom for things like group projects (brainstorm and organize) and communicating with other instructors to gather ideas.

I think this article will be useful for my classroom. I use Pinterest now and we are working on maybe having a district pinterest page or links for people to follow and gather information from. I think of this article as more of a teacher article. I'm not sure how many students use Pinterest but in the education field this is huge.

I agree that I could use this article for my future classroom because I am already familiar with Pinterest, and the article provides tips for using Pinterest with other teachers as well as students. This article as a whole seems to be geared toward teachers because it is specifically about applying Pinterest to the classroom, but on the topic of Pinterest as a whole, students can also use Pinterest to share ideas with one another and possibly look at some of the boards of their own teacher. For instance, the article states that teachers could create a Pinterest board to share with students so that students could simply use resources from the board to begin writing instead of wasting time researching. The only other site that I have encountered that could be used for similar purposes is Diigo because teachers could also bookmark articles on this site to share with students in the same way that they could with Pinterest.

Kidblog 

Hi Austin! I had never heard of Kidblog before but it seems like a great resource for teachers to use in their classrooms if they want their students to have a blogging experience! It is specifically for kids and it is a safe and age-appropriate way to encourage kids to write. I have used Blogger, etc., for my own personal use but I don't think that kind of website would be suitable for kids to use, especially if they're just learning how to use a blog responsibly. This is a great resource for kids to create beginning blogs on!

Here are some major characteristics/ suggestions for a 21st century teacher, which all teachers should strive to be, some of the points could start an interesting conversation

This is one of the best lists I have seen for 21st-century teaching! I think that this article could be used in any classroom as ways for teachers to transform their practice. Some of the ideals I think are a little hard to achieve... for example, going completely paperless would be difficult, particularly in the early years when students need to learn handwriting. But this is a great resource for teachers, regardless, to get ideas on how to challenge themselves and adapt their teaching to the needs of their learners in today's age. I am not aware of any other list that is as comprehensive as the one you shared; I like this list!

This is a great article, I have many articles from Edutopia bookmarked as well. Any teacher could learn from this list of characteristics and suggestions. Although I do not think that as a future teacher I would be able to follow all of these I believe many are possible.

This website is a good tool for teachers to map student's ideas within the classroom. Teachers can model the use of this website and have their students use it as well.

Mindmeister is a great resource for students! Graphic organizers are a powerful tool to help organize thinking. Mindmeister's ability to bring collaboration into the mix just makes it better, as well as being able to present. Works on multiple types of devices too, so good for everyone!

I really like this software! When I think of Social Bookmarking I want to use it to help me find different tools that will benefit me in my classroom. I can think of a time where I am going to want a nice mind mapping software that you can collaborate with, and I know I will be able to come and look at this resource. I agree that this software could be used very effectively, especially because it does have the collaboration tool. I believe this tool could be used both for the teacher and also the student. I could see how easily I could use this website in my life, both when trying to explain things and also in group work. I am aware of different concept maps you can create online, but I believe this one looks user friendly and I would like to explore it even more!