Classroom 2.0 seems to operate on the same principal as the English Companion Ning, but for a wider audience: any teachers interested in instructional technology. What I really liked about this broadened audience was the wealth of information it helped to provide. In simply browsing Classroom 2.0, I discovered numerous discussion posts because of the tags added to them; I especially appreciated how the tags were organized—by tool, by subject, and by area. One of the findings of a survey recently given by the Technology Focus Team at my school is the desire of teachers to participate in technology-related professional learning that is subject specific, as opposed to general technology training; Classroom 2.0 seems to help address that need! For example, rather than simply reading a list of discussion posts about possible uses of wikis in the general education classroom, searching by the subject “English,” quickly yielded an excellent discussion post in which one teacher shared about a strategy for using wikis to combat the online summaries students so often use as substitutes for their assigned reading.
Edmodo is a relatively new educational social networking platform that allows teachers to not only network with each other, but also with their students. I do not currently use Edmodo with my students, though I have created an account and joined several communities related to my professional interests—technology, language arts, college readiness, etc. What I absolutely love is that by joining these communities, I receive in my news feed questions and suggestions related to these specific topics, and while some are irrelevant because of grade level, I have begun to glean useful information from these feeds and to expand my professional learning network. Many recently have espoused the benefits of Twitter in creating a professional learning network, but I truly think that Edmodo may make this process of finding professional learning materials easier since the subject specific groups are simple to join and the newsfeed can be filtered by each community. Moreover, since Edmodo is specifically designed for education, the irrelevant or unrelated information one must encounter will hopefully be less than on an open platform like Twitter. I do, of course, plan on incorporating Edmodo into my classroom next year as a collaboration tool for my students. I love how Edmodo allows teachers to easily share information with student sand receive feedback in the form of quizzes, polls, and assignments, as well as how students can use Edmodo to work in small groups.
Google Docs, however, is a tool I’ve already incorporated into my classroom instruction as a way to foster collaboration between students. Currently, my AP Literature students are required to create Major Works Data Sheets for each novel that we read throughout the year; my hope is that before the AP exam, they will be able to review a few significant novels using these notes sheets, rather than being asked to read the texts again. A Major Works Data sheet is a lengthy assignment best completed in groups so I have used Google Docs to make this collaboration easier. Each group shares its work with all of the members so that each member can contribute a specific section to the final document. Instead of struggling with copying/pasting or emailing specific sections back and forth, multiple students can use Google Docs to edit a single document and save all changes in a single document. Once groups are satisfied with the final product, they share the assignment with me so that I can grade the assignment. Not only does Google Docs foster collaboration, it also reduces the amount of paper used since students can submit their work electronically. Another strategy for Google Docs involves the use of Google Forms. A math teacher at my school recently explained how she used Google Forms to record student attendance at tutoring sessions. Each afternoon before students can enter her tutoring session, they must scan a QR for tutoring on her door; the QR code directs the student to a Google Form where he or she records a name and the reason for attending tutoring. The teacher, in the end, has a time-stamped record of tutoring attendance. Though I have yet to implement this idea, I think it is so creative and such a practical use of technology. I plan to do implement similar during Open House next year; rather than having parents complete written contact information, I will create a Google Form requesting this information. Using a few laptops computers set up in my room, parents can complete the form during Open House or at a later time, but most importantly, I will have a complete list of parent contact information in a spreadsheet.
Below is a slideshow I created using Google Presentations to help my students review key words in Unit 4. Each of the pictures is from the Creative Commons section of Flickr.