This week exploration of cloud computing, tagging, and social bookmarking was very interesting and interactive. For someone who is very active in technology, I was really surprised about how many new things are available that could be so easily implemented within the classroom.
Cloud
Computing Sites:
Nanoogo[beta] is the first cloud computing site that
I explored. It is set up for two
distinct populations: teachers and parents with activities designed for in the
classroom and in the home. This website “is
an online platform used by kids to write stories, create original artwork, and
express their unique talents” (Nangoo.com); and is completely free to sign up. This site engages students in collaborative
work to create presentations, newsletters, research papers, and even subject
specific projects. This site offers an
amazing opportunity to incorporate technology as well as collaboration and
enhance critical thinking and creativity skills. What I liked the best about this website was
the separation of classroom and home activities. The designers really gave parents an
opportunity to enhance their children’s educational experiences by featuring a
peer rewarding system as well as a parent monitoring system where the parents
can interact with words of encouragement.
The second site, Memrise, was very unique and
interesting with a lot to offer. This
site has so many different topics set up an online learning environment format
that I can’t even tell you how many there are.
The topics range from math and science, to foreign language,
entertainment, and professional & careers and everything in between; each
is set up with an interactive activity that allows for knowledge acquirement and
learning. I spent some time on the
German Vocabulary activity as German was my minor in College, and I can tell
you the interface as it is designed to promote learning through a variety of
well-studied and respected methods. This
site offers the opportunity for self-directed learning and for students to
actually learn the material at their pace and in a fun manner. I would highly recommend the use of this site
in a variety of ways.
Finally, I examined OpenStudy, a site designed to a
collaborative environment that connects students with other students in a way that
is similar to traditional tutoring with a twist. This provides a forum for questions and
answers, in a huge variety of subjects and grade levels. Instead of providing answers, the goal is for
those who know the answer to guide those seeking help to it. This system offers medals for
achievements which helps to keep users
engaged. Each group has at least one
moderator, (in reality usually several), that helps to ensure that the groups
are running smoothly and the environment is conducive to learning. This was my least favorite of the three, but
I can still see the benefits; especially because of the 24/7 availability of
students to go online search through questions that have been asked and post
their own.
Summary:
Cloud
Computing, tags, and social bookmarking are all very interesting topics that I
have had some experience with. First,
cloud computing is such an awesome feature to use with higher education
especially, and I love that I am able to work with my students even when we are
not in the same state to get things accomplished on research projects and other
various tasks. Johnson, Adams, and Haywood
(2011), stated that “the reason cloud computing is so relevant
in the near-term horizon is that is has opened doors for more flexibility, more
space, more collaboration, and ultimately, more creative uses of Internet
resources for educators to incorporate in their classrooms” (p.12), which is so
true. The collaboration and creativity
that comes from these online sources is amazing and truly helps students to
engage in and develop higher order thinking skills. I found the diigo social bookmarking to be a
very interesting and awesome tool. I really, really love the functionality of
it and its capabilities. Being able to
bookmark, screen shot, annotate and then open the same document on my iPad to
take with me on the go makes my life so much easier! Many of us from the early Facebook days think
of tagging in terms of “who’s in the picture” or “who are you with when…” but
the broader definition is “labelling and tagging are carried out to perform
functions such as aiding in classification, marking ownership, noting
boundaries, and indicating online identity” (Tag, metadata, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tag_%28metadata%29). #Hashtag is gotten very popular on sites like
Instagram and Twitter, but is not limited to social contexts. Labels and tags are becoming more popular in
a lot of other sites, such as Gmail and iTunes; and tag clouds are the hot new
thing. In education tags clouds can be
used for personal narratives, classroom polls, compare and contrast, student profiles,
and vocabulary. This concept helps students to identify the
keywords and gives them an opportunity to construct the “story.” All of the technologies discussed this week
are great additions to the educational field and allow for easy implementation
and monitoring.
Diigo:
The diigo group that I decided to follow was “Education Research.” Upon exploration, this group provided good
resources on a variety of topics in education and people’s current research,
research that they have read, and future research. This made the information easily accessible
and will help to keep me updated on the current “hot topics” and research. This was a no-brainer choice for me!
References
Johnson, L., Adams, S., and Haywood, K., (2011). The NMC Horizon Report: 2011
K-12 Edition. Austin, Texas, The New Media Consortium
Tag (metadata). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tag_%28metadata%29
I have to say, just reading your post makes me jealous. I am not a technology expert. I am just learning about all of the great things out there. I can tell by your posts that you have such an in depth knowledge of how to utilize a lot of the stuff we read about in class. As I said, I am just learning all of this, and I am sure it shows in my posts! For me to use some of the technology so far, I have to find ways or reasons to incorporate it. It seems like you naturally just gravitate to it and can use it with no problem.
ReplyDeleteI found it amusing when you explained that tagging has become popular on social websites. Before the assignments for this week "social tagging" is the only type of tagging that I was familiar with. Even then, not so much. I find that I was able to recall a few time that I have seen tags on emails sent to me at work, or on websites that I have visited and now I understand what they are and why they were there. A lot of the technology that I am exploring now I have already dabbled in without even realizing it.
Have you used word clouds before this week by any chance? I am looking forward to a mini lesson that I created just because I love the word cloud ideas I read about this week. How have you used them if so?
I also wanted to tell you that I agree with you, Memrise, is a very fun and exciting website. I am definitely going to use this site at school. Not only, can my students explore language as I did, but they can get extra practice and instruction on skills at their grade level. I already use my computers in the classroom as centers during rotations, and it is always nice to add something new to the list of sites they are allowed to use.
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