Collaboration

Choose three collaboration sites that you find interesting and write a brief synopsis of them on your blog. Also discuss how technology can enhance collaborative learning between teachers and teacher, teachers and students, and students and students? Be sure to include sources.

Voicethread.com
Voice Thread is a collaboration tool that is unique and new to me because of the comment tool it allows. It is very similar to an application like iPhoto or even just a regular slide show. The main benefit is the ability to share your creation across the Internet and then let friends, colleagues, students, or strangers comment on what you are presenting. I also really like the tool that you can record comments with a microphone. This adds a great element, especially when talking about student use. They are able to hear their own voices and those of their classmates, which give them an extra sense of ownership and pride.

Delicious.com
Delicious is a website that I am just starting to learn about. I love the idea of having a page where all the links that are favorites of a teacher, friend, or colleague. Especially in education, I think this could be really valuable. If I were to use this in a classroom, I could have the link to the delicious web page on each of the student computer desktops and then they could choose from my links to do any research, web based games, etc. This is a safe and direct way to get my students to look at what I want them to look at. It is a time saver and convenient to boot.

http://rubistar.4teachers.org
Rubistar is a really neat tool that allows teachers (or anyone) to create rubrics for all different subject matters. You can get on and choose what is your “big idea” or what your rubric is for and it will give you a group of suggestions to have your rubric based on. You can choose which to use and which to not use and then even alter the wording of the criteria for more kid friendly language. You can either save the rubric or export and print it. This is a huge time saver for new teachers, especially those of us who are unfamiliar with rubrics. This could also be a really interesting tool for those older students to try to use for a group project.

All three of these collaborative learning sites can help to enhance collaborative learning by allowing quick, effective, and interactive communication between student and teacher or even teacher to teacher. We have obviously been learning how effective technology can be used in the classroom to enhance differentiation for some students. The video about Google Apps gave a new approach to how technology can help the school in general to be more collaborative, integrated, and on the whole, increase communication skills. When schools are communicating well with their staff and teachers, teachers can in turn communicate better with parents (one of the nine goals) and with their students. This allows alignment on all fronts and better atmosphere for collaboration in the classroom.


Sources:

www.delicious.com

http://rubistar.4teachers.org

www.voicethread.com

Using Google Apps in Education. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Leuvce3v5BM&NR=1