Both Students and Teachers need new approaches to learning. There are new Educational tools being developed and used on a daily basis. Everyone wants to use the most current and up to date tools. We are constantly searching for the next better and updated tool to use with our students to capture and keep their attention. One of the largest trends in education is the ipad. With the use of the ipad, the students do have access to websites, games, videos, blogs, skyping, and many other tools used for collaboration in the classroom. Many schools are now using cell phones in the classroom as learning tools. This is something the students use on a daily basis in their own lives so they are familiar with them when using them in class. Being able to talk across the room, school, town, state, country and world with the use of programs such as skype helps the students to reach out and find out how students do things outside of their small circle of friends or community. It helps them to find experts in what they are trying to do and also helps the students to get their ideas out into the world. When students use tools that they are familiar with, they become more involved in their own education. They stay focused longer in the class.
Finding content the students are interested in is important. Using a variety of videos help to ensure that the students can use what type of information helps them learn the concepts. Websites help to scaffold learning. Guest Speakers can give many different views of the same subject so the student can find out what he believes in and can relate to. Blogs can help the students to work together and to see what other students are finding out which can help if a student does not understand what they read in the course readings.
Communication tools are important. Being able to get the students point across a certain subject is important to the student. They want a voice to be heard. They can do this privately through email or openly in a discussion board, wiki, or blog. With skype, they can see the people they are collaborating with if they feel that is necessary in order to succeed in their education.
Collaboration tools are important since this is how the real world works. We all work together to create one project. Each person can be an expert in a certain part of the work and they can bring it all together to make one excellent project. Having collaboration rooms in a virtual setting is the best tool to use. Using blogs and wikis that others can edit are readily available on the internet. Cell phones are at most students disposal now. Students feel comfortable using their own technology. They can take it home with them and work on projects and then bring it back to school with them to continue working.
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Hi Lori,
ReplyDeleteYour graphic organizer is excellent! It is extremely easy to understand and yet very professional looking, as well. What software tool or app did you use for the creation of the organizer? Your reflection of how the tools and strategies that you included in your organizer provide a fantastic overview of the benefits and advantages and how they benefit the learning environment.
Sincerely,
LeAnn
LeAnn,
ReplyDeleteI created my own organizer in Microsoft PowerPoint. I didn't like other organizers I found on the internet. Recently I have been trying to figure out features that I have not used before in PowerPoint so I can use them better. One thing I did learn in which I should have known years ago is that when you create a powerpoint slide you can save it as a jpeg file. A lot of video programs only let you insert jpeg files and not ppt files. This is of great help to me. Even in this blogging site I had to save it as a jpeg in order to insert it. Thanks for replying.
Lori
Hello Lori,
ReplyDeleteI also love your graphic organizer. I like how I can see easily how the tools line up to support the combination of the Content, Communication, and Collaboration.
I notice that blogging could support all three components, is this a personal preference based in experience? I've found that even though it is possible to have more than one author on a blog, the main 'scribe' of the group eventually reveals herself and it just becomes one person posting.
Cheers - Shar
Shar,
DeleteI do not use blogging with my students because I feel that if I assign something like a blog, I have to monitor it. Monitoring over 100 blogs for 6th graders wsould be very hard to do since they are very talkative and very critical (in a negative way) to other students work. I prefer students using a discussion board within my LMS system for anything that they post. I agree with you that if we were to have blogs that eventually it becomes only a one person posting. It is hard enough for students to keep up with their own blogs along with keeping up with someone elses.
Lori
Hi Lori,
ReplyDeleteThank you for sharing so many useful ways to use PowerPoint. I appreciate your knowledge and expertise about a program that many people use, but do not know all of its capabilities.
Sincerely,
LeAnn
Wow Lori,
ReplyDeleteThis looks awesome. I see great minds think alike, or this how easily different types of tools intertwine within the online education world. I never would have thought to use Power Point in this way. I tried to use MicroSoft Word and with the transition from the document to my blog, my graphic organizer turned into a sea of shapes, formulas, and logarithms. I deleted it and I will try PowerPoint and repost.
When you use powerpoint, when you go to save it, you can save it as a jpeg file (a picture) if you are unable to insert a powerpoint slide into blogging.
Delete