Learning 2.0 has taught me that to learn in the 21st century means to collaborate, communicate, and create. I intend on providing my students with these opportunities in the following ways...
All students have Gmail and access to the Google Drive so I plan on having students submit lab analyses using google docs. This will allow students to work together towards a common goal, based from a common lab experience.
Flubaroo and Google forms are great tools for collecting and organizing data from various assessments and surveys. The results from both of these tools are automatically generated and sorted in a spreadsheet form for analysis. I will create google forms with QR codes for parent and student surveys and will use flubaroo forms for student assessments. I love that these forms can be either multiple choice or written response to accommodate learning preference and instructional flexibility.
Blogger will be used, one blog per class, to make it simple and to effectively share Newman News videos instead of emailing the files. That way the embedded video will be stored on our blog and students can add to it from home. Bye, bye USB and emailing large video files! Padlet is paired with blogging in my reflection because I really see it as a template for multiple students to add ideas. Padlet is more than a brainstorming tool because it can be used to present electronic images as well as words; I anticipate using it as an alternative to poster board presentations. Save Mother Earth!
Animoto and google presentations are two methods of sharing slides as an alternative to the Smartboard Notebook Presentation and Microsoft's Power Point. These can be embedded into our class blog but if you do not pay for the Animoto upgrade then the video is only available for a limited time. Google presentations are great because students can divide and conquer a presentation and share and continue editing within the drive. Transitions, commenting, picking slide design, embedding videos and images, etc are all as easily accomplished as within power point. Animoto would be a great tool for showing parents during curriculum night, automatically rotating through slides with pictures and background music.
As an educator, just starting to get her feet wet with social media in the classroom, I am comfortably admitting that I continue to hesitate with the real deal including Facebook and Twitter. I would love to create a Fakebook: fake facebook or Twister: fake twitter feed for students to specifically create historical timelines of various scientists and related theories.
Bloom's taxonomy has traditionally been the path followed to scaffold lessons and optimize high-order thinking within a classroom. The Bloom domains include Remember, Apply, Analyze, Create, Evaluate. This is compared with the technology scaffolding model abbreviated SAMR-Substitution, Augmentation, Modification, Redefinition. For reference and to gain a better understanding, the following it a host of examples of "walking the wiki above the line"
Online conferencing and google+, circles and hangouts allow us to learn and share our findings from the comfort of our own homes. Google+ is an active community where I hope my students can have more meaning class discussions and share articles or news related to science class. I intend to create a circle for each of my classes and encourage them to collaborate by hanging out. I wonder if they will invite me to any online hangouts... it could be helpful when reviewing for tests and other assessments.
Socrative is simply a tool that will replace the promethean buzzers. The creation of daily warm up questions and the ability to set a time for completion make this tool effective and easy to implement! I just have to make sure students have access to the mobile devices or other technology that can quickly get online.
In summary, this online learning opportunity has been extremely helpful. The tools are truly relevant to each of our classrooms. I hope that we continue to share what we try, tweak, or tweet throughout this upcoming school year. Thanks for so many great ideas!!
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Great reflection. You have a lot of great ideas for next year. Let me know if you need me to help bring them to your classroom. You mentioned the short timing of Animoto, if you sign up with a District email address, they should give you an educator account which can give you 5 minutes.
ReplyDeleteIf you have your own iPad, load the app Haiku Deck. It's a presentation program that creates great presentations. You can create them on the iPad, then import them to google slides. Once in Google slides, you can add links and/or additional text. Haiku lets you easily pull creative commons photos to have more dynamic backgrounds. It's one of my favorite presentation apps.