Blog Post 8 - Resources for 21st Century Learning

Throughout the semester, I have had a love/hate relationship with the idea of technology taking over the classroom...why? Well, I was raised by the philosophy to "think for yourself" and taught to learn independently without ever having to rely on a person or a machine. However, I have changed my perspective completely because of this course. I believe the ability to be comfortable in social settings is very important, but I now see that the ability to use smart devices or other forms of technology is equally as important. The sites I found useful for my classroom are sites that allow you to interact with others around the world who are seeking the same information you are-sites that allow you to correspond with classmates, teachers, or future educators who want to share and receive information with other people.

Using Tokbox, you can chat with up to 20 people online. The majority of people who use this site use it as a platform for products that they are endorsing, but there are several teachers who have stated online that they use this site to enhance their student's ability to hold mature conversations. I believe this site would be extremely helpful because it would be something I wouldn't necessarily have to monitor at all times. When you set up an account, it is much like having a Facebook-you choose who you want to talk to and you choose to allow certain people to be on your "list" or not. A lot of people have issues with sites that resemble chat rooms because of the uproars those have caused in the past, but I would only use Tokbox in a group setting. I would set aside days and times during the week to chat with people who could help with lessons we may be learning at the time. I believe this site could be very helpful in a classroom because it allows you to have several people in one conversation. More people = more opinions.

Hey, look! Everybody knows about Instagram! But, if you don't, it's a site/app that allows you to take photos and share them with the people who "follow" you. Instagram has been used for so many different things since it became popular, such as: selling items, promoting businesses, bragging about life happenings, announcing engagements, and now people are even creating their own hashtags for their weddings. Hashtag? What's a hashtag? This is a hashtag: #...or a number sign. With Instagram, you can hashtag things about the photos you upload which instantly creates links to other photos all over Instagram with the same hashtag in them. Let's say I upload a photo of a bulletin board that I did that I was so proud of that was all about how to use the iPad int he classroom, I would hashtag #bulletinboard #classroom #ipad #howto #teacher. All of these hashtags would take me to different instances on the app where people have done the same thing. This app could help teach students to use the internet to learn how others view things. I would give assignments where the students had to find objects in the classroom, take photos of them and upload them, hashtag, find other people's photos with the same hashtag, and report back what the photos were of-almost like a scavenger hunt.

My final resource for learning in the classroom is called Edmodo-a site that allows you to connect with strictly teachers and other students around the world. Edmodo is similar to Tokbox because it is chat-based, but completely different because Edmodo is monitored for content that is age appropriate for children. The site only allows people involved in the school system to have accounts on the site, which leaves little room for strangers or "unsafe" people to show up on the other end of the chat. The downfall is that, in comparison to Tokbox, you can only chat with one person at a time, whereas with Tokbox you can chat with up to 20 people at once. Ridiculous, I know. I would probably use this site if I were teaching about other countries or different races, because I would be able to set up a chat with someone from another part of the world (who is a teacher, as well) for my class to talk with. Edmodo makes me a little more comforatble that Tokbox does, but I believe they are both extremely helpful when teaching about technology, or with technology, in the classroom. This would also be fun to use in multiple classrooms at once-maybe have a teacher set up their webcam in their class, and my camera in mine, and have the classes learn from one another as the material is being taught simultaneously.