Blog Post #5

I think that YouTube, blogs, and educational social media are useful in the classroom. Youtube can be used by teachers to find educational videos that will be beneficial to the audio/visual learners in their classroom. The podcast talks about how twitter can be used to learn from people who tweet about the topic that is discussed in class or about the subject of the class such as science or history. Blogs, similar to how we use them in this class, are a great way for students to write about what they’ve learned, share their ideas, and learn from their fellow students. Social media and blogs also allow teachers to communicate with students over the web, which communication and interaction is part of Web 2.0. These improve teacher professional development because they allow teachers to reach a wider type of learners and be more efficient teachers through varying their lessons. Web 2.0 contains a huge amount of knowledge that helps teachers and students.

No specific software is required to access blog sites, YouTube, or social media sites, however, access to the internet and a computer, smartphone, or tablet is necessary. No peripherals are absolutely needed unless the computer, tablet, or cell phone does not contain enough storage on their hard disk to save data from blogs or social media (Lever-Duffy 97-100). If they do not, then external hard drives or use of online or cloud storage may be necessary to use these web programs. Data projectors are required if teachers would like to show the entire classroom a particular blog or video from Youtube (Lever-Duffy 124).

 

Scribd is a Web 2.0 tool that is a digital library. In a classroom, it can be used by teachers to easily assign reading assignments to students, and for students to easily access the reading assignment rather than having to buy a copy of the book or look for it in the library. Scribd allows each person to create their own personal library that holds all of the books they are reading or would like to read. There is an app so my students and I can use it on tablets and cell phones easily. Scribd can be incorporated for use in the classroom and outside of the classroom. Teachers can have students use technology to do silent reading time on Scribd during class, and can assign reading homework for outside of school hours.

Scribd has audiobooks, which would allow those students who are more auditory learners to comprehend the reading material better. Besides using Scribd directly to assign specific readings to my students, Scribd will also become a tool that students can use to do research for various papers, assignments, or for personal enjoyment. Students can find profiles on Scribd that have books on specific subjects, periods of time, or even study guides for different subjects. Introducing students to Scribd would expand their accessibility to books as well as encourage them to read more often since the books would be accessible on their phones, tablets, and computers.

https://www.scribd.com/

 

While doing the concept mapping assignment, I learned how to use Webspiration. This was my first time using this program, and so it took a while to figure out how to create my concept map. I learned how to create new shapes, arrange the shapes, connect shapes based on what they contained, and how to change the color fill of the shapes. I found that it was somewhat difficult to move around and arrange the shapes to exactly where you wanted them to go and that creating the concept map took patience. However, Webspiration was a great tool to create a map that would help other students, and its collaboration and chat feature allowed me to complete a group project without having to meet up with my partner face to face. This was something that was very beneficial due to our busy schedules. Students will also be busy and so using Webspiration would make group projects easier for them and allow them to get practice using technology for assignments. Next time I can improve my concept map by making the map as a whole easier to read. Since my concept map was in the shape of a circle, it may not flow as easily to the reader, so that could be improved on my next assignment.