This week we learned more about software options that support inquiry based learning, social media use for classrooms, and working collaboratively on projects. I was interested to learn more about Scratch, and introduced this site to my son who now is able to work on projects with a friend who lived in our old community. The interactive, collaborative way that this website works in is very educational for my son while being very entertaining at the same time. Our kids spend so much time these days with video games, interactive software, and other media outlets that it is natural that "gamification" catches and keeps their interest.
Working on the class wiki was interesting as well. It was neat to be able to see classmates ideas and use of technology to support their topics. There were many neat ideas presented that made me want to practice even more with getting adept at new tech tools. We had a positive team with many good suggestions so hopefully everything went well (fingers crossed!)
I am new to the Twitter world, so it was interesting to jump on there and use hashtags to sort for topic conversations that I may be interested in. Using #edchat brings up some interesting resources for educators. My church is currently running #3WordStory using 3 words to define your life, so that was fun to see. With the popularity of Twitter, I can see using this tool as a way to extend students learning (or at least thinking about a topic) outside of the school day. It could be a great conversation starter - as well as lend some relevance/credibility to the teacher for using something so easy for students to relate to.
This week, I tried a new tech tool called FlipQuiz. This is a cool tool for review before tests or before moving into new material. Also, I can see it being a neat tool to use for students to create based on specified criteria - as actually creating the tool helps to solidify what was learned. Here's my first attempt at it:
http://flipquiz.me/quiz/7979
I'm still having trouble with embedding things into Blogger. Anyone who has some tips or suggestions for how to do that please feel free to leave in the comments! Have a fantastic week!
Maloy, Robert, Verock-O’Loughlin,Ruth-Ellen, Edwards, Sharon A., and Woolf, Beverly Park (2013). Transforming Learning with New Technologies. 2nd Edition. Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc.
I just put a link to a video tutorial in how to embed such web 2.0 creations in the Canvas announcements - check it out and then you can use for the future!
ReplyDeleteHappy to see you discovered Twitter - it is not just for following movie stars and reporting what you ate for breakfast! :) In fact, I've been on Twitter since 2007 and have watched it grow and develop into a pretty awesome conversation, sharing and search tool. There are amazing educators out there all over the world and you can tap into them - for me some relationships have developed enough to meet face-to-face and/or create collaborative lessons between my students in Naples with students in Finland and Australia (time zones were a challenge so we did things asynchronously, but that was awesome!).
Good also to see you exploring some of the online assessment tools...and BTW, love Scratch, too! What a great game to learn how to code, strategize, problem-solve and even work together! :) You hit some good ones this week.
Thank you! The problem I was having was that it was too big and I didn't realize I could change it. The video was very helpful!
ReplyDeleteYou got it! :)
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