Thinking Globally

This week, in EDU 642 we are exploring the connections that can be made through technology, both globally and locally. This topic is something that I have tried to incorporate this year into my students' technology class. With the help of my EDU 685 course earlier this year, I developed a plan to implement ePals with my fourth grade students. After endless weeks on ePals.com searching for a group of 65-70 students of similar ages, I finally made contact with an educator in Australia. Since mid March, our students have been getting to know each other and creating artifacts about themselves and their lives to share with their new friends across the globe. This has been a great learning experience, not only for the students, but for me as well. One of the first things that the students were curious about was the time difference. We then began searching for the current time each class. This sparked some great discussion and became a great learning experience. It also taught the students that although an email is sent, the recipient isn't always waiting on the other side to open it! On my end, I learned to trust my students more, and that they were able to demonstrate the digital citizenship skills we had worked on and developed. In the beginning, I was afraid. I was worried that my students would cause international riots and offend an entire country if I did not go over their incoming and outgoing messages with a fine tooth comb. I checked over 100 messages weekly for several weeks, then I realized, that I was worrying for nothing. What was I expecting them to do? They were being kids, friendly, kind and curious. The next time I do this, I will do a few things differently. First, I will reduce the monitoring level of the messages. Second, I won't check incoming message (apparently I didn't trust the other educator either!) and I will trust my students to make good choices. Lastly, for those that want to, I will allow students to take their ePals information home, and continue their contact with their ePal outside of school. Overall, communicating with students across the globe has been a great experience for my students, many of whom have never left New England.

Trying out a new tool-Animoto

This week I tried out Animoto as part of my coursework at SNHU. Initially I was excited, since I am always looking for great new tools. I went to sign up for the account, and that was where the trouble began. The tools available for free will only allow you to create a 30 second video, unless you sign up for a pro trial account, and then the video is covered by the company's watermark.
I chose to go with the watermark. I began creating the short video by inserting stock photos of animals, as they most closely related with my lesson. I then include several slides with short pieces of text. I was hopeful that I would be able to personalize the text, however that was not the case. I was able to choose from some interesting templates as well as choose from a fairly good selection of music to accompany my slideshow.
As a Mac user, I feel that the iMovie program, standard on my computer, provides a better experience and a better product without some for the hassle I encountered with Animoto. All in all, I am glad I had the opportunity to try it. Check out my short presentation below.

Google Apps For Education

Google Apps for Education (GAFE) is a free suite of products offered by Google specifically for educational use. Aside from Gmail, there are many other great tools such as Drive, Docs, Blogger, YouTube, and many others. These tools can be used by both teachers and students and can provide a great opportunity for collaboration, communication and critical thinking. 

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This year, I had the pleasure and the challenge of introducing the students and many teachers of my new district to Google Apps For Education. Although it has only been about 6 months since it was first implemented, it has slowly become part of the student and teacher culture. Teachers in 4th through 6th grade have begun sharing templates with students and having them use Google Drive to turn in their assignments. Additionally, we piloted a COW of Chrome books in the high school English department with great success. 


One of the great benefits of GAFE and cloud computing is the fact that students are no longer dependent on the server to store their work, and can quickly access their work in the classroom, at the computer lab, at home or even on the go. 

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Additionally, teachers in my district have used GAFE to participate in professional development, including a half day of self guided learning using links to YouTube and the expectation that afterwards the teacher will apply their own learning to create an artifact. 

Personally, I love GAFE and prior to joining my district, I had used Gmail for almost 10 years. I created documents in Docs but not having others actively using GAFE I had't used it much for collaborating. Now, however I love using features such as comment to give students feedback or sharing documents with teachers in the district. Overall, it is a great free tool that can be used to enhance teacher and student learning experience. 

You can also checkout the following tutorial I created, introducing Google Drive:

Social networking for learning?

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Social networking, and its place in education seems to be a widely debated topic. Many teachers have concerns about opening up their classroom and providing students access to social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter and blogs. However, other teachers see social networking as a valuable 21st century learning tool, that they can use to help engage students in real world learning.

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Through my research, and conversations I've had with my colleagues, I've discovered several concerns about incorporating social networking in the classroom. One concern is about student privacy and putting student information out in cyberspace for anyone to access. Another concern is that incorporating social networking sites would open another avenue for bullying and cyberbullying in the classroom (Dunn, 2012). Lastly, some teachers are concerned about which tool to use, and how to use it effectively in the classroom, not wanting to use without a clear purpose (Zhao, 2012).

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Although these challenges may pose some concern, I do not feel like they should keep teachers from using social networking to create a 21st century learning environment in the classroom. It is my contention that the educational benefits of using these tools outweigh the possible drawbacks, and in some cases, effective planning can eliminate many challenges as well.

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Some of the benefits of social networking in the classroom include providing students with a real life opportunity to practice digital citizenship, while also providing teachers with the opportunity to expand their Professional Learning Community. Social networking can be a great communication tool, connecting students to students, teachers to students, and to communicate with parents.  (Marquis, 2012). Also, utilized properly, social networking can help engage students in their learning. 

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According to Zhao (2012), social networking works by "increasing access to people and information in various forms, including Twitter feeds, blog posts, videos and books. These tools are also increasing people's ability to share information with networks and contribute their own thoughts." These tools provide great benefits to 21st century learning and should be used to not only engage students in their learning but to also allow them practice being a digital citizen. 

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Resources:

Davis, V. (2014, February 27). A Guidebook for Social Media in the Classroom. Edutopia. Retrieved May 4, 2014, from http://www.edutopia.org/blog/guidebook-social-media-in-classroom-vicki-davis

Dunn, J. (2012, January 4). Why Students Like Social Media But Schools Don't - Edudemic. Edudemic. Retrieved May 4, 2014, from http://www.edudemic.com/students-social-media/

Marquis, J. (2012, February 3). Pros and Cons of Social Media in Education. OnlineUniversities.com. Retrieved May 3, 2014, from http://www.onlineuniversities.com/blog/2012/02/pros-and-cons-of-social-media-in-education/

Zhao, E. (2012, April 30). Social Media And Video Games In Classrooms Can Yield Valuable Data For Teachers. The Huffington Post. Retrieved May 4, 2014, from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/30/social-media-and-video-ga_n_1465082.html