In today’s day and age classrooms have access to information
from around the world with only a click of a mouse. However, this information online is not
simply for viewing anymore. In the
classroom of today students, and teachers, have the ability to connect and
interact with others as never before.
From a Skype call to another classroom to a presentation made through
google docs, the ability to quickly and effectively connect with others from
around the country or world is now possible.
With this in mind, today I will be reviewing three different websites
that do just that. The three sites will
focus on the social interactions possible today, the creative ability and the ability
to store and easily access your favorite resources from the web.
With the
world connected through social media, I feel that exploring the social
possibilities of a particular website is the perfect place to start. I choose to review a website called Remind, which is a free text message service
that allows the teacher to text out a message and for anyone subscribed to that
class to receive the text. (As a side
not they also have an app that you can download for your smart phone.) This is an incredibly valuable resource for
today’s students, because they might come to school without their backpacks but
they always have their phones. This
resource also allows parents to sign up, meaning that if a message was sent out
to the class reminding them about a test each parent would also get that
message. Student’s private information
is also never accessed as the only information that is provided to the website
is their cell phone number. Throughout
the entire process the students, and teachers, personal information is not
displayed so students can’t send you annoying texts. Resources like this truly allow educators to
provide every opportunity for their students to succeed by reminding them
outside of class to work and study for tests and assignments. At my school a number of teachers use this
service and have found that both parents and students really appreciate the
extra reminders and the accountability that it provides. For any teacher, especially secondary, this
website/app is something that you should consider using with your class, as it
is free and easy to use with a huge upside to your students and their families.
As a
social studies teacher I am constantly struggling with finding creative ways
for my students to present the information that they have learned. Let’s face it, you can only sit through so
many PowerPoint presentations before you, and the class, want to beat your
heads in. To that end, I have found that
by having students put information down chronologically in creative ways helps
solidify their understanding of the material.
Now creating timelines on word documents is next to impossible and is
basically an act of frustration, but today there are great resources online to
help with this. The one that I found is
a site called Timetoast. This online timeline creator is free to use
and can easily be embedded in a presentation or a link emailed for an
assignment. The website also offers each
person the ability to have their creation be public or restricted to only those
with a specific link. While you do need
to register for this site by providing an email address, that is all that is
required. When I asked a fellow teacher
about this site, they raved about how it provided students with the flexibility
to be as creative as they wanted while still maintaining the educational goals
of the assignment. What this teacher did
was have the students create a timeline about an absolute monarch of Europe and
then embedded that information onto a wiki site. The students then visited each other’s sites
and quickly could grasp the main points of the monarchs rule by examining the
timelines that were created. To the
students it was more entertaining than a presentation and for the teacher it
allowed a quick assessment to see if the student truly understood what an
absolute monarch was.
The
final site that I choose to review is one that allows any user to quickly and
easily assemble all of the websites that you use frequently. I know that for me, as I go through out my
day teaching I have about four or five different websites that I frequent. Well Symbaloo
puts all of your websites on a homepage where they are within one easy click
for you to access. Using a 10X6 grid
there is more than enough room to get your favorite sites organized however you
like. All that is required is your email
address and then you are up and ready to start organizing your digital world
onto one easy to use platform. While
this is a great resource for teachers, this can also be used with students as a
great starting off point for research projects.
As the teacher you can create a webmix and then share that with your
students. On this webmix you could have
already bookmarked a number of trusted academically relevant sites for the
students to use to start their research.
Regardless of the age of your students, that function alone is worth the
time and effort of setting up your account with Symbaloo.
Hopefully,
you will find one of these sites a benefit to you and your students. If there are any other sites that you use
that fit either of these categories let me know by leaving a message at the
bottom of this post.
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