This week in my graduate class, we have been reading about different tools that we can use in the classroom to better help our students collaborate. While a blog might be a wonderful way for our students to share information, pool their resources and reflect on specific types of information given. There are several other types of resources available to teachers to better help our students learn. Tonight's objective is to provide a couple of examples mentioned in the Richardson text.
The first resource that Richardson describes is a wiki page. The most commonly known wiki page of course is wikipedia.org. However, there are a number of wiki pages that are created, edited, and published on the world wide web for all sorts of information. For instance, several popular tv shows have wiki pages where fans can chime in on information about their favorite character and provide information about what happened on last week's episode. I could see one of my Language Arts classes creating wiki page about a novel that we have been reading in the classroom.
A second resource described by Richardson are the many different social media sites that are available at our disposable. I might not use these in my own classroom because I feel that my students are a bit young, but the students could create a fake posting in the same format. Richardson mentions Twitter, but I might have my students create a Twitter post in 140 characters or less, and posting their "tweets" within the classroom. A great, safe, alternative to Twitter is edmodo.com A web network for teachers that has many discussion elements of other online education systems (like blackboard, moodle, etc).
What are some ideas that you might think of in order to help your students to collaborate in a non-traditional way?
My biggest problem when my students collaborate is actually completing the task together. Each student has a different schedule during and after school which makes it hard to meet as a group. This year, I have encouraged my students to create collaborative documents. Google has a lot of different collaborative documents available. (http://www.thestar.com.my/Tech/Opinion/2013/10/02/Ten-Tips-for-How-Students-Can-Use-Google.aspx) This type of program allows all of my students to work together without having to be in the same room or even meet at the same time. I am also looking into other ways to have my students collaborate. Thanks for putting this in your blog.
ReplyDeleteMichele
I have heard of several friends of mine using Twitter as a way to share useful articles, homework assignments, and any class announcements they want to share. I personally do not use Twitter but it seems like a good way to stay connected with parents and students outside of the classroom environment.
ReplyDeleteRyan
Beth,
ReplyDeleteGreat post and I like how you broke it down and made the collaboration simple. In my class right now the extent of our collaboration is turning and talking with a partner about a story we are reading. We are also working on playing partner games in math. When we are young it is tough to remember to share ideas and give the other person a chance as well. I have seen the twitter board on pinterest and love the idea. I think it would be great in upper elementary classes all the way to high school. Nice post!