We were asked to go to the cooltoolsforschools website and pick a tool from three different categories and play with it. The three tools I chose were:
Presentation tools- Voicethread
Writing tools- Wordle
Organiser tools- Soshiku
The first one I chose was under the presentation category. It is called voicethread. With this tool, students can share their work with other students and are allowed to make verbal comments regarding the pieces. It's also a way for the classroom teacher to create electronic presentations to fulfill the technology standard as dictated by LCSD #1. You can scan it into a scanner, the kids read a piece, and others can comment and it creates a blog between students on their written work. You have to be really careful not to use the kid's real names due to privacy issues and exposure to the internet. It was very easy to use and pretty self explanatory. I would probably try it out in the classroom because of its ease to use and it sounds like a great way to get students involved with each other's work. My mom said she's used it in her classroom before and got a very positive response to it. http://voicethread.com/
The second tool I played around with was Wordle from the Writing tools category. This tool takes texts that you type and the words you most frequently are bigger and bolder. For the students, it shows them that they need to use more colorful words. You can type, or have students type the work giving them a visual cue on what words they use most often. This must be saved as a word document first or else your work is lost if you hit backspace. Again, my mom has used this one in her classroom as well and said it is a pretty good tool to use. I think it would be good as you can show the students that they can expand their vocabulary by using different words. http://www.wordle.net/
The last tool I chose was Soshiku from the Organising category. With this tool the High School and College students can keep track of homework and assignments so their work is not late. They can send you notifications via e-mail or SMS. With this tool you can also save notes, manage tasks, attach files, and share messages with your partners. It's very simple to use and guides you through on getting it set up. I think it's neat that you can "work together" with your partners online to get assignments done. I would definitely recommend this to my High School, and maybe even Jr. High School students. A lot of homework and studying is done online, so it would be pretty easy to pop in on this site to see what assignments and homework is due, and it's free! http://soshiku.com/
No comments:
Post a Comment