Sharing Tips and Tricks of Using Technology in the Classroom Part 2

[Carrie Albin]

In your courses you have been asked to share your tips and tricks of using technology in the classroom. In this forum we would like your class to nominate one tip or trick from each of your class discussions to post here and share with other educators in our other classes.

[Tyler Robinson]

Hi everyone,

In case you all haven't heard of VoiceThread, i'd like to briefly share its capabilities and possible applications to the education context. Basically, VoiceThread is an innovative way to share and talk about various images, videos, and/or documents in a one-on-one or group setting via the web. It's easy to access, easy to use, and practical for many educational settings. For example:

1.) This feature can be quite handy for our group pp presentations. Presently, in my CEP 810 online course, we are working on a group project/presentation. We, as group membes, are all admittedly very busy with our careers, families, grad classes, etc. which makes it nearly impossible to all be able to meet face-to-face at any given time. Obviously, VoiceThread will allow us to effectively collaborate, comment, re-order, argue, etc. regarding our subject matter from remote locations.

2.) In my classroom, I could make this feature available to group members in similar situations as we are in presently in terms of group project...and/or I could make this feature available to my kids so that they may contact me with specific questions, problems, ideas, etc. in cases of weekends and vacations.

3.) Similar to point # 1, VoiceThread can allow busy colleagues (for example, with my colleague who teaches the same class as me) to collaborate from great distances in terms of course/curriculum planning, etc. in times of vacations, weekends, etc.

4.) One potential drawback is the idea that VoiceThread can result in a lack of true, valuable, face-to-face human interaction where things like gestures, voice tone (assuming no mic is available), eye contact, etc. can be observed.

Hope this helps! Enjoy, everyone...

[Lisa Hall]

VoiceThread sounds like a wonderful resource at all grade-levels and in all content areas. I like your idea of collaboration with other teachers for content planning at your specific grade-level and subject.

[Tina]

VoiceThread sounds great. It is amazing to me how technology can bring people together. I have taken online courses and this would have made the group work so much better.

Thanks for brining it to my attention.

[Angela Stump]

Thanks for the information about VoiceThread. It sounds like a great program. What a great way to collaborate with group members when schedules seem to keep getting busier and busier. I do agree with the potential drawback. All this technology that is upon us is making for less human interaction. It is not good, socially, for our society.

[carp]

I like the features of Voice Thread as well, and am looking forward to finding ways to incorporate it into my classes in the future. The fact that all group members collaborating on a project don't have to be present at the same time is a big plus in my opinion - it's too hard trying to sync everyone's schedules. It would also eliminate students' problems when they have to deal with various family and practice schedules, without minimizing their accountability for participation.
I like your idea of letting kids post questions and problems - it's better than having them call you at home, but still gives them a venue for contacting you. And then others with the same question can hear your answer as well - good idea!

[Bridget Pamela Reed]

Hi Carrie,
Interesting thoughts... I have just used Voice Thread with my 8 year olds. Initially it has just been used to take a dip into the unknown but they are loving it! There is always a couple who need extra help with it but generally it's been good. I asked the children to upload a picture or two from the web or from their own files and then to click all the right buttons to share it with me and their friends. They then had to put a comment on it and look for other comments added.

It was interesting to see that most of them used the option to type a comment and many said they didn't have a mic at home. So it was a good exploration. They then uploaded their thread onto our class wiki on a page that I had created just for them individually. They really like the idea of taking ownership of their own space! Some of the voice thread's have comments on by mums, dads and other class peers which is great.

As most of them used the type comment option, I agree it's difficult to get a real feel for any emotions. Next I plan to do some short descriptive pieces with them... and I really want them to work on using their expression. Perhaps we will do this in class to get used to hearing each other in this way.

[Christopher Bowhuis]

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While this may have been true of the old CRT monitors, displaying a black screen on new LCD monitors may actually use MORE energy.

You can read more from the official googleblog
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2007/08/is-black-new-green.html

[Gary Franks]

Have there ever been ANY chain emails that are true?

[Sarah Angelini]

Hi everyone!

I am new to this group and honestly have enjoyed reading all of your tips and tricks. I am far from tech savvy and turn to my husband, Mr. Computer, for help with most of the things I do. I am learning...slowly but surely! He says I am further along than I think! Ha! I guess I have him fooled. :-)

For those of us who need a little extra explanation or help with new programs I highly recommend you go to lynda.com . Yes, you have to pay for it, I think it might be $25.00 a month. I am sure there are free sites out there, but I have found many valuable tutorials that even i have been able to understand. My husband isn't always available and I like to give him a day off every now and again...thank goodness for Lynda!

:-) Sarah

[Barb Benford]

Lynda is an interesting site. This one is new to me. It's great to have your own Mr. Computer right there.

[Estee Adery]

I am not sure if I added my tips and tricks correctly. I started a discussion instead of replying to the discussion.

[Estee Adery]

Here is one of the threads I started

I learned this tip from one of my professors, Susan Wright. Many students have difficulty with how to use citations with respect to various resources. Sue mentioned that Son of Citation Machine was created by David Warlick to assist students everywhere in properly citing resources used in their coursework. Sue also said that It is really easy to use - and that all you have to do is just select the type of resource you would like to create a reference for, fill in the fields, click the submit button. Like magic, the citation has been created for you.

http://citationmachine.net/index.php?reqstyleid=2