Student Showcase

Last Friday, my group and I presented our student showcase. In attempt to foster some meaningful discussion with the class, we tried to concentrate on how we might use technologies in the classroom, rather than explaining how to physically navigate through them. I think this approach was important, as we know, our students don't need direction on how the technology works, but rather they need guidance to ensure deep engagement with the material (which is caused by our carefully designed intentional learning experiences).



Skype

First, a big thank you to Seanna and her lovely friend in Korea, who had been up about 20 hours when we spoke with her over skype (AND she was impressively still coherent!) I think having skype in the classroom, provides a new, incredible learning experience. I found dozens of youtube videos which showcased students gathered around a computer and webcam, as they listened to experts (scientists, authors, politicians) in real time. This tool really lets us show our students that what they are learning, are things that are really going on in the real world. They issues and ideas they are grappling with, are the issue and ideas these adults face everyday. It allows them to see the "big picture" and feel that there education matters and is more than questions on an exam at the end of the year, it is also part of these experts life work!



I also have to thank our class, who shared many insights on how we could use this technology or how they have seen it used in their school. Before this presentation, I knew the basics about skype-- but because many of our classmates use the technology regularly, they had other information/pointers/cool features of the technology to share with us. I thought the virtual white board was terrific, and had no idea it existed (thanks Chad!) Thanks to everyone else who shared their knowledge with the class.



Voxopop

This was a technology that was shared by a teacher at the school Sarah and I were placed at last semester. It allows users to record their voices in different discussion groups-- which you can make private and require an invitation to join. It is also not blocked by CBE (as of yet) so many of you really could use it in your classrooms next year.It is similar to some other technologies, (as was mentioned by our fellow classmate) such as voice thread , which also allows users to post video and documents and their own commentary accompanying them. Awesome!

I think this tool is great for many reasons; such as ESL learners practicing the English language, student self assessment, and an interviewing tool. As was mentioned by one of our classmates,it is also a great tool if your school does not have macs or garage band software available.


Wall Wisher

This is the last piece we left the class with. It is kind of similar to delicious which Neil Stevenson introduced to us during his talk. Delicious allows users to create a "portable" bookmark of websites/URLs so others who are given the delicious link can have access to the list of sites. I think Wall wisher is a little easier to use, and Sarah set up our page so that she wouldn't have to approve the posts before they were revealed. Wall Wisher is also great, because students can identify themselves as anonymous. This would be great for example, if in the classroom we were asking difficult questions where identifying yourself may effect how you answer. The only downside is that you can't make you pages private. However you can adjust your user settings so the creator of the page must approve all comments before they appear.

Check out our SIPS Wall Wisher

This was also the artefact that we provided with our class. It was really a great way to gauge how the class felt the presentation went, and also a space for them to post other technologies they thought were similar/useful/interesting.

I learned a lot about the technologies through using them prior to our presentation, and really appreciated all the comments and ideas we received from the class as we discussed last Friday.
Thanks for your participation, and thanks to my group for a successful showcase!