Group items tagged

Collab-o-Write is a social media tool that lets students create or contribute to a story that is written by a number of different users.  http://library.thinkquest.org/2626 

Hi Megan, I was wondering if there was another link that would work for this topic of Media and Social Justice. I would love to see more! Thanks Tara

I get this newsletter every day and it has so many great ideas. The only problem is which ones to use and the time to use them all. I highly recommend their newsletter.

Social media can be a wonderful way to generate student engagement in learning, but still must be introduced in a way that will excite students to participate.

This teacher makes a really strong argument that you should not feel that you have nothing important to say. This is the way to make some strong networked relationships. I like her quote "This has led to many great conversations with other educators about teaching issues." Blogging has connected her to peers throughout the world. I find that being an online educator is lonely so this may be the way to go to share resources and to discuss with others that share our online world.

I really enjoyed reading this article because I'm feeling the same excitement as the author did when she first began blogging. While I'm just learning how to "officially" blog, I have been using Edmodo with my students as a way to connect with my students outside my classroom. It allows us to communicate and ask questions to one another outside of normal school hours, yet in a more structured classroom like forum, unlike Facebook. But because it works similar to Facebook, the students love it and don't mind logging on and doing their assignments. One day when I was out sick, I was able to log on an have real time discussions with my students. If they had questions about the assignment they were able to ask. They can also turn in their assignments via Edmodo instead of waiting for the next day/week. My feelings are if the students are into it, then it's something we need to be doing as well to keep up with them. Teachers who use Web 2.0 tools such as blogging have an advantage over those that don't because these are the social networks that students know and are familiar with. Also, the author of this article points out the fact that teachers have a new way of connecting to each other and share ideas. From what I remember when I was younger, the traditional teacher's only way of communicating and sharing ideas or concerns with other teachers were via phone or before/after school meetings. I don't know how often that actually happened, but now with blogging you can share your information any time with any body.

An brief article cautioning with interesting statistics about the number of teens who use blogging on a regular basis. Might have some implications for introducing and educating students about blogging into the classroom.

This is an interesting article about the small percentage of teens 13 to 17 that are blogging. According to the Millennials reports, although social networking sites have increased, they are more interested in text messaging than twittering or blogging. The author suggest that "Understanding why teens go online, and what tools they use, can give teachers clues into how they conduct research, and even complete homework". This is something to consider

This article suggests how to use Web 2.0 tools to assess students in the digital age. The article has many useful links. I wish that the examples of the actual rubrics were larger. Overall, I found the article to quite helpful.

How do we assess students' learning in these in Web 2.0 environments? We want to go beyond assessing the mere mechanics of using these tools; unfortunately, most current rubrics for Web 2.0 learning devote only a minuscule amount (usually 16% or less) to actual student academic learning.

This article is about standards-based learning and 21st century skills. How to improve student learning through teacher's decisions and technology. He has a excellent list of rubrics Web 2.0 tools. Some examples "rubrics" are......Wiki/Blog, Images/Photo/Flickr, Video/YouTube,Podcast, Social Bookmarking, Twitter, Videoconferencing, General Assessment: Prensky's 21st century skills, General Assessment: enGauge's 21st century skills, General Assessment: Partnership for 21st century skills. I really liked the links and rubrics and found them very helpful. However the rubrics were small and a little hard to read.

This site gave a quick tutorial on how to use Adobe Presenter 8. It seemed like an easy video and voice tool to use. It reminded me of a you tube video and it was a little like animoto. It was hard to tell with the brief overview. This presentation tool could lead to some real creativty for use in projects at school. I read a lot of articles while I was in newsstand icnluding: Tech in the Classroom: Earbud yo-yo, and Social Learning networks promote student engagement, global awareness, but I thought the Adobe Presenter was the most creative.

This article puts forth the premise that if student transgressions with technology are handled early on with an open school, parent, and student communication loop - then there will be a decreased likelihood of a major transgression later on in life.

After reading the article and as a parent myself. I tend to disagree with this article. Students learn by reading, seeing and applying. It's great to be book smart, but you need to know how to apply the smarts. I love my classes and the project based learning. I think that's all I do the majority of the day. It's great to be a teacher and facilitator at the same time. All students are different.

A timeglider is a web-based timeline software for creating and sharing history and project planning. Our computer apps students learn about the history of computers and technology. The timeglider I looked at could incorporate video sound and images. I also think the timeglider would be fantastic in a history class. It could make the lesson so much more interactive and engaging, rather than just listening to a teacher lecture.

This article written by two Danish academics, Johan Jessen and Anker Helms Jorgensen, discusses the issue of determining whether sources are credible and how we can do this online. They explain the credibility can be random and that perceived trustworthiness plus perceived expertise equals perceived credibility. However, they put forth that aggregated trustworthiness can actually be an accurate determination of whether information is credible. Readers can look at "likes" and user evaluations to determine if a source is trustworthy. As users of Web 2.0 tools we must become media literate and be able to determine which sources are trustworthy.

An interesting look at an "objective" method of assessing student work. Rather than looking at the Web 2.0 tool, this looks at the level of Bloom achieved and the amount of time spent.

Jane Hart gives a preview of her list of the top 100 tools for learning on the web.

Here is an amazing Prezi focusing on the creative potential inherent in collaboration, social networking, and humanity's learning to collectively think "outside the box." The link to the Prezi is via Eric Tremblay's blog titled, "e-Learning Acupuncture." Enjoy.

After viewing the award winning Prezi, I can see just how creative we can get using a Prezi. I enjoyed the History for Music video presentation set to Lady Gaga's song. Now that was pretty impressive!

I loved the History for Music Lovers video presentation set to Lady Gaga's song! Spectacular! The award winning Prezi in the shape of a musical staff sign is also special. "Oh the places we will go!" (Dr. Seuss)

Stoodle , an online white board service partly supported by CK12 Foundation, enables students and educators to quickly create and work on a collaborative whiteboard space.

This short article explains a new Pew study which explored the affects of broader access to the internet and social media and student performance. The article speaks of both the positive and negative affects that they are seeing as per standardized tests and teacher feedback.

I found this very interesting as our school goes to a Bring Your Own model and the entire High School becomes a 1:1 laptop zone. Many teachers have asked questions about this and the Pew study is something I plan to share with them.

This news article points out the different ways sound and visual technology can enhance student learning. No longer are students just creating information blogs, but they are able to include sound in their projects and blogs, using Chrome Classroom. Different applications are: BookTrak, BioDigital Human, Pixir, Geddit and MoveNote. All are programs used in the classroom to enhance learning by bring visual and sound into the students learning. Using the BioDigital Human on Chromebook and see the different parts of the body come alive using video and sound can only improve a student's memory. Three different senses experiencing the learning at the same time.