Welcome to the first installment of Taking Learning to the Cloud! This is the first in a series of posts that highlights web 2.0 tools. Today I am highlighting websites that have some type of online sticky notes. The webslide show below features these sites. The sticky note and the webslide show seen below are both examples of things that can be done using two of the featured sites.
This webslide was created in Diigo. To see my annotated notes of each website, click here. My notes highlight key features of each of the websites in the slide show.
I hope you enjoy these sites. I will make future posts highlightingmath activities that can be done with specific sites.
In a recent TED talk, Rachel Botsman discusses the move of society towards collaborative consumption. Even though this talk is not directly related to education, it does speak about the increasing need for teachers to provide collaborative educational experiences for students.
Today's 21st Century learners are living in world where collaborative sharing is the norm outside of the school setting. It is beginning to become the norm in some classrooms. Many teachers are currently using Skype, Wikis, Blogs, Social Networks, and other collaborative tools with students. The potential for providing students with rich, relevant learning experiences has never been greater than it is today. There are so many useful collaborative tools online that will enrich teaching and learning.
I'm planning on sharing some online collaborative learning and tools in a future blog series titled "Taking Learning to the Cloud". This series of posts will contain descriptions, links, and math lesson ideas for using various online tools that allow learning to take place in the Cloud. We'll also discuss the advantages of going to the Cloud with students, parents, and other educators.
One of the biggest advantages to teaching in the 21st Century is all of the tools we have available at our fingertips. We now have the ability to share everything we use with our students in formats that can be accessed from any computer. How amazing is that!!! Uploading and/or embedding your documents, power points, videos, pictures, links, etc. have many advantages.
Here are a few of the advantages of going to the Cloud with your students:
all of the materials for your lessons are in one location
students and parents have access to the materials used in class
students are able to collaborate
students are likely to be engaged and motivated by using these tools
students can continue working on assignments after school (For example, they can continue to make posts about a topic or concept even after you've moved on to a new topic. This could be a great way to have ongoing review of previously taught material.)
students who are absent have access to the materials missed
There are many other advantages of taking your students to the Cloud, but we'll leave it with these for now. I've created some online post-it notes in Wallwisher that give links and explanations of some great online tools for teachers.
