Edublogs - Learn Together, Blog Together

Edublogs provides some interesting features that might appeal to the classroom teacher looking to facilitate a blog where students can be active contributors. Based upon the Wordpress blog creation platform, Edublogs has a lot of features and for those who are new to blogging and managing your own blog, be sure to take some time to explore the features of this online application. As administrator of the blog I can invite students to join the blog as authors, editors, contributors or subscribers which in turn provides a certain level of rights and permissions to edit and contribute to the blog. Edublogs is designed specifically for education and thus cracks down on adult content and reduces embedded advertisements. It is quick to get started as an administrator, however you will need to be able to email Edublogs invites to your students in order for them to begin contributing to the blog.

VisibleTweets - the instant backchannel

VisibleTweets is a site that visually presents tweets based upon a hashtag search that you determine. I have seen this site used at various conferences as a backchannel. Could this be of value in the classroom as a way to gather feedback or questions from students before, during and after a lesson? It is important to point out that there is no way to moderate the comments online and thus the moderation will need to take place in the classroom where students will need to think about the appropriate use of this online tool (perhaps a nice teachable moment).
VisibleTweets
http://visibletweets.com/


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The Differentiator - Looking at Content, Process, Product and Environment

This is a simple yet effective way of looking at the framework of differentiating instruction. Through the use of tabs, one can instantly refer to a number of prompts and ideas to inspire instruction that is responsive to the learning preferences, readiness and interests of our students. The prospect of differentiating content, process, product and environment within a single task is a bit daunting, however if we can even look at the ways we can differentiate content, process, product or environment individually this website still stands as a great resource.

Check it out...
The Differentiator

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Front Page News From Around the World

Newseum.org captures the front pages of newspapers from around the world. This is a great way to instantly see the world's events through the media of newspapers. It would be interesting to compare and contrast the headlines on a particular event and gauge the reaction and various perspectives as indicated by a region's front page.


Check it out at:
The Newseum

There are different ways to view the front pages - by list, by thumbnail or by map.

Using Technology to Support Learning Communities

An interesting presentation from Michael Rees on the use of technology in the classroom.  The ideas presented here really support the idea that technology in the classroom is in the form of some sort of computer lab.  The power connectivity now presents greater opportunity for students to communicate and collaborate.

Building classroom community: collaborative technologies in use

View more presentations from Michael Rees.

Using Technology to help Differentiate Instruction

The Apple: Where Teachers Meet and Learn has posted a helpful article - Using Technology to Differentiated Instruction - that references specific Web 2.0 applications and how they can support the needs and strengths of students according their intelligences (Multiple Intelligences - Gardner).

For me this is where my particular interest lies in regards to technology in the classroom. The TVDSB has also started charting its own experience (DIA and TECH project) in using and embedding technology within the fundamental ideals of differentiating instruction.

Encouraging Good Questions

I wanted to add this blog entry that I found posted on Digygogy. It served as a reminder for me that formulating good questions applies in my own use of technology in the classroom. We need to invest time to ensure that we formulate learning tasks, challenges and questions that ignite curiosity and promote student engagement. Furthermore, we need to provide students with tools, skills and prior knowledge that allow them to attempt and answer the question presented.

http://whatedsaid.wordpress.com/2010/10/10/10-ways-to-encourage-good-questions/


Visit the Learning Classroom Webpage
http://www.tvdsb.ca/programs.cfm?subpage=82973