In my four-year-teaching-expert opinion, there is one thing that most educators can agree upon: students must learn more than the set of skills listed in the Georgia Performance Standards; they must establish a more suitable set of skills that will grant them ability to “interact with information, analyze what they find, create knowledge, and then communicate the results to a real audience” (Solomon and Schrum, 2014). While there is not a one-size-fits-all approach to educating students with this set of skills, there are ample Web 2.0 tools to which teachers can turn. As Solomon and Schrum suggest, “Web-based tools offer new potential for learning.” This rings true for my personal classroom. Discovering Google Classroom has changed my outlook on lesson design and students’ display of content mastery. While I knew I wanted to move towards personalized learning and a student-centered classroom, I did not quite know how to get there until Google Classroom. Google Classroom, certainly, is not the end-all, be-all answer, but it opened my eyes to the endless possibilities of Web 2.0 tools. With Google Classroom, I am able to provide personalized feedback on assignments before they are submitted. In my paper-pencil days, it would have been nearly impossible to leave personalized, individual feedback for each of my ninety-nine students in less than two hours. This piece alone was a game-changer for my classroom. These web-based tools can also assist teachers in providing support for students with a diverse set of learning needs. For example in Google Classroom, I am able to differentiate assignments discretely; since students are on a device, it is not obvious that one student may have more supporting materials than another student. Even though I am obsessing over Google Classroom, there is a plethora of other tools to support the diverse needs of our students. Lately, I have been using the SpeakIt extension on Google which reads text aloud for students. This, too, is discrete within the classroom. Although I use multiple Web 2.0 tools in my classroom, I am thrilled to keep exploring! I am especially excited to learn more about integrating audio and podcasting tools, along with integrating presentation and video-editing tools. My initial thoughts of these Web 2.0 tools is that I feel comfortable using these types of tools for my instruction, but I am ready to get out of my comfort zone and set my students loose on these tools to show content mastery. As Solomon and Schrum convey, “using tools and learning with them are two different things.” I look forward to learning how to create a more authentic learning experience that is student-directed with these tools in a more coherent strategy. Solomon, G., & Schrum, L. (2014). Web 2.0 How-To for Educators. (2nd ed.). Eugene: ISTE. Thanks to wikimediacommons.org for the image used in this blog!
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Molly Scheifflee
8/29/2016 07:44:30 am
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