In the classroom I am teaching in now, I have only experienced using a Smart board and an ELMO. These have been very useful technological tools to project worksheets on the board, create power points, and display pictures and videos to my students.
After exploring this weeks tools, I am glad that I have been introduced to all that is available for me a my students. Each of the tools that I explored has potential to be a great resource in my classroom. I also identified a few students in our Student Profiles that would greatly benefit from these tools.
I liked Diigo because you can create documents and students can post on it and you can post back. You and your students can add sticky notes and highlights. The main components are "Bookmark, highlight, sticky note, share." It makes reading interactive and you can work on it with your students. You can add questions inline in the work and it becomes a sticky note with a question and students can answer in line. I think this would be great for a student like Rebecca, who has constant trouble with organization. Diigo allows for constant back and forth conversation, in one place, which makes it easy to organize thoughts and answer questions. It has great study tools, and organization tools such as highlighters, and sticky notes.
I liked Little Bird Tales for younger learners because you can "capture the voice of childhood." It's a great tool because it's very creative, fun, interactive, and motivating. Classes can create online books with artwork, photos, and voice. Stories can be personally narrated by the teacher or students! Online books can be created by using digital pictures or scans, and even an art pad for digital drawings. The work you create is clearly displayed in slideshow format, and it's a great way to get students to show off their work!
I liked Titan Pad alot, and it was actually what my group chose as our tool for this weeks challenge. It's a great collaborative tool. It looks a lot like google docs, which I have always had success with! You can see the history of the document, there are colors to differentiate users, you can see each others edits and you can work together. I thought personally as a teacher, this is a great tool, especially if I am teaching in a CTT classroom. It really allow for collaboration. The document can be edited at the same time, so there is no conflict. Each persons idea is highlighted in a color specific to them, so the document is organized and concise. It's a great way to also keep track of lessons week by week. It can be added too and because of the "history tool" you can see the changes that have been made, and go back if something is not working.
Voicethread looks like an awesome interactive webinar tool. It would be a great resource for online classes. It is a cloud based application that allows you to upload many different types of media, and it stays on the internet. It works like a slideshow. It's great because others can join in and make comments through microphone, webcam, text, phone, or by uploading audio files, which all users have access to! It's a great multi-modal format for critiques, reflection, collaborations, discussions etc.
Popplet is place for you ideas. It looks like a web graphic organizer, where students can post their thoughts and random ideas about a certain topic. This is a great way to incorporate unique thoughts and ideas through personalized thought bubbles, and to brainstorm across any subject. It's also great for behavior management, because students can keep their thoughts in a cohesive location (thought bubbles) and they can be creative when expressing themselves, so they do not act out in class. You can share it with friends and it can be edited in "real time" on your computer or iPad! This could be great for someone like Michael who likes to explore his own interests, he can write down his questions and comments without calling out, so he gets his questions down on "paper," but does not interrupt the class, and he can use visual representation with this tool.
Stixy is a tool a lot like popplet, but using sticky notes. It looks like the “dash board” on a mac computer, where you can add in all your ideas. I had mixed feelings about it. I liked that you have the abilty to share with other members, and you can upload documents, photos, and sticky notes. However, it can be cumbersome and overwhelming in presentation and appears somewhat difficult to navigate.
Prezi looks a tool useful for presentations. It looks a lot like PowerPoint. However, I think that it is a tool that I would have to really explore, and get comfortable with all the options it offers. I do like how it is very flexible, and has a freestyle option for adding text and images. This makes it very easy to add in all types of files that I would like to incorporate into a powerpoint, with out much limitation.
These are all awesome tools, that I will try to incorporate into my classroom!
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