You Tube

I have several mixed feelings about You Tube and how you can relate it to a classroom. This semester we watched several videos and podcast off of you tube that was interesting and we learned something from each one. There are a lot of educational ones on there as well as entertaining ones and nasty ones. Therefore, educators need to weed out the nasty and noneducational ones. Your students may relate to You Tube better than a text book and lessons can be taught from a simple video! Teacher's could also post their lessons on You Tube and this could be a way for students to go back after school hours and recap for homework help! This just gets your students to be more technology literate and hopefully more active with school!

Google

Google was one of my favorite tools that I got to learn this semester in EDM 310. There is so much you can do with it! First their is G-mail. Second their is Google Docs. Google Docs is a program where you can make up documents and share them with co-workers, students, etc., and you can also make changes on this document that everyone that is sharing it can view. You do not have to constantly email back and forth. Third is Google presentations. With this you can make a slide show, a questionnaire, or even a test. This could be a useful tool for teacher's! Results are automatically sent to your email or your Google doc home. Google is also an excellent search engine! Google

Vocaroo

I found Vocaroo to be an interesting tool. I contemplated on how I would use it once I get my own classroom. I then came up with the idea that I could record my lessons, keep notes to myself for improvement, use as reminders for students. If a student has to be out, it could be used for him/her to catch up on assignments. There are many possibilities and as a future educator I see myself and students using this easy tool regularly.

Skype

When you open your classroom up to the whole world their is a tool that can be a wonderful, unforgettable experience for your students. Skype is a free tool that gives live feed from any computer in the world as long as they have the program. This was introduced to me this semester, and we Skyped with 2 people from Canada. They explained to us how technology is important and their ways of using technology in the classroom. After tweeting with someone and reading their blog post you find that their ideas and beliefs can be useful! Skype them and introduce their ways to your classroom and school! Download skype now Click Here

Blogging

Twitter leads you to many blog post. I have experienced how reading and interacting with other peoples blog post gives you an open mind and new ideas. At first I thought blogging was a waste of time, but after a semester of constantly blogging I realized that it was not only me reading my ideas and feelings about certain subjects. Other educators come together and express their ideas and beliefs. This helps most become a better educator and opens their classroom up to the whole world!
Student's can also be active in blogging. This gets the students started on the personal learning network and on their way to become "technology literate." Students could blog about assignments or have discussion with other students about homework.

Twitter

Edm 310 has taught me so much. Before now I never thought about how useful Twitter could be for educators. Twitter can be useful for teacher's in a way where it can connect you to other educators around the world. As a teacher you have to be life long learners. With Twitter one can relate topics and discuss them with outsiders opinion. I am not as active on Twitter as I can be, but when I become a teacher I believe I would like to get to know other teacher's from around the world and get to know their unique ways of teaching.