Jennifer sounds like a great mentor for integrating technology in the classroom. I especially appreciated her insight into how to go about including students that were not permitted to go online by utilizing the draft mode. Also having taught in a rural community, I ran into several students that were not permitted to go online.
I have just started working on building my Personal Learning Network and it was great to hear that there are so many benefits that can come from maintaining a PLN as well as furthering my professional development in regards to tech integration in the classroom.
I specifically was excited by the amount of classrooms that Jennifer has linked to through video-conferencing! I look forward to doing the same in my future classes and now that I am aware of what successful integration of video-conferencing looks like, I feel much more comfortable and prepared to work it into my classes. Have you have used video-chats in your classes or do you plan to? Please share your experiences, tips or thoughts!
Discussion Forums
I searched ‘flipped classroom’ using BoardReader and came across an interesting comment where someone’s child was in a flipped classroom. It turned out to be a negative experience but the parent posited that the negative aspect came from the instructor not the format. I think it is very important to listen to students and ask for feedback in any type of instructional environment. This was a great reminder of that, because as far as I could gather from the information within the post, the instructor was not accepting of any questions or feedback.
Video-Conferencing
As for video-chats, I recently moved and am now frequently using Google Hangouts to keep in touch with my family. The video aspect makes it seem like they are not that far away! Before video-chats came about, when I lived further away from family I had to depend on the phone to keep in touch and although sometimes phone calls are handy and enable me to multi-task, a video-chat is so much more meaningful of a connection than a phone call, at least for me it is! I have not used video-chats in my classes yet but as I mentioned earlier, I am looking forward to integrating them.
Photo Sharing
As a future art educator and current photographer (for art and fun purposes only!) I appreciated the link to ‘100 Ways to Use Digital Cameras’ in the classroom setting. I am teaching a Graphic Arts class in the fall and plan on integrating digital camera’s into some of the projects so that students can work from their own images, it also gives them the chance to get out from behind the computer and get moving! I hope to also have each student create and maintain their own digital sketchbook and portfolio, so they will be sharing their process and completed work on their own website. I love the Tag Galaxy! I was just going to implement the photo gallery that is already programmed into the website program we will be using, but perhaps a Flikr account with specific tags would be a better route and introduce students to more online tools!
Conclusion
Overall, I think communication tools in the classroom are important as they provide students with real-world skills while showing the connectivity that the internet and Web 2.0 tools can offer!
Further Research
I just completed a research paper and developed a conceptual framework for selecting Web 2.0 tools in the art classroom, here is the framework I created for researching - let me know if you want a text copy! Feel free to use it, you could replace the ‘Link to the Alberta HS Art Curriculum’ section with whatever subject you are working in and I think the framework would still work. Let me know if you use this framework/if it was helpful! <- Figure 1. Framework for Web 2.0 Integration |
Miss Pariseau ED 4764 Online Journal: http://misspariseau.weebly.com/4/post/2013/07/jennifer-deyenberg-video-conference.html?
Jill's Education Journal: http://jillianmacdonald.wordpress.com/2013/07/14/topic-4-communication-ii/comment-page-1/#comment-7