" Extreme Makeover: Updating Class Activities for the 21st Century" written by: Rena Shifflet and Cheri Toledo
"Ever find yourself wishing Ty Pennington and his design team would roll their bus to your classroom and help you renovate your old activities?" It was such a perfect opening I had to borrow it... Well, this article was describing how as an educator you can use to free resources available to you on the Internet to update and renovate some old techniques and move them into the 21st century. The article had tons of recources (that I will list towards the bottom of the post for you to check out) that can help you update classroom activities. It first talke dabout Collaorative writting tools such as google docs, in which students can share and work collaborativly together on project - great for group projects. Secondly it talked about the article talked about blogs, which we know quite a bit about already, but yet again had some great ideas, such as students creating their own portofolios - great for parent /teacher confrences! Then the article continued to talk about social bookmarking, photosharing, and building reference recources (ie: wikis). Another idea I might just have to steal from this article is creating a lesson where the students make their own "Flicktion" - a story inspired by a photo. (I can see all the possibilities now...) Lastly, this article brought up one other important topic in regards to tthe use of technology in the classroom - Misuse. When using web-based application there is always the possibility of misuse, however this provides you with the opprtunity to teach the responsible and ethical uses of these tools, as we promote 21st century literacy.
Here are those resources:
Zoho http://www.zoho.com
Google Docs and Spreadsheets http://www.docs.google.com
Writeboard http://www.writeboard.com
Gliffy http://www.gliffy.com
Letterpop http://www.letterpop.com
Word Press http://www.wordpress.com
21Publisher http://www.21publish.com
Blogger Http://www.blogger.com
Edublogs http://www.edublogs.org
Gaggle http://www.gaggle.net
Think http://www.think.com
Delicious http://www.del.icio.us
Diigo http://www.diigo.com
Ma.gnolia http://www.ma.gnolia.com
Backflip http://www.backflip.com
BlinkList http://www.blinkkist.com
Flicktion http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/flicktion/
PBWiki http://www.pbwiki.com
Teacher-Based Teacher Webpages
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In the article, "Teacher-Based Teacher Webpages," Steven Moskowitz explains
how at his school, all of the teachers took a survey based on technology.
The s...
15 years ago
This seems like a great article! I think you're right in the fact that it's important to keep our classrooms up to date. If we don't stay on top of new technology, we won't be offering our students the best chances for success!
ReplyDeleteVery interesting article! I think some teachers are still stuck in the old ages of the typical classroom conduct and look. I think it is very important for teachers to stay up to date espeecially with technology as it can drastically enhance the possibilities of learning. As a teacher, you should be familiar with all of the technology tools that your students use as it can be of great benefit in incorporating them into your lesson and classroom! Thanks to EDUC 422, we have been given the opportunity to explore and learn more about the new and innovative technology tools available.
ReplyDeletewhat a great article, this is one of those article that you always have to come back and look at so you can get some great ideas. love the quote that you put in the begging. that is a huge list of new technology that you found. and how great is it that we are also learning how to use some of the new technology. i guess that we are ahead of the game for most teachers. i will have to check out some of those web cites. they sound interesting.
ReplyDelete