Virtual environments are extremely engaging and useful tool in supporting the 4 C's collaboration, creativity, communication and critical thinking. Teaching critical thinking and problem solving effectively in the classroom is vital for students. Learning critical thinking leads students to develop other skills, such as a higher level of concentration, deeper analytical abilities, and improved thought processing. Students must be able to effectively analyze and process the overwhelming amount of communication in their lives today. Which information sources are accurate? Which ones are not? How can they be used or leveraged effectively? Dede states, "That part of the challenge today is that students must master applying such capabilities not only in academic settings, but also in complex, authentic real-world contexts." This is a very good point, and virtual realities do just that. Virtual realities are an especially important tools for diverse needs of learners by doing all of these things:
InCell is a great virtual environment, especially if you are a science teacher! You get to travel through a human cell and try to stop a virus!! Players will be able to understand cell structure and organelles functions (which are similar to the real functionality of the organelles) players will improve their skills and will have a chance to impress completely suspicious The Most Excellent Assistant Robot Zero-Seven. Click the link below to see it in action! https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BzKVA--Bto53cmpOajB5dG1hR3M/view?usp=sharing The Digital Divide The digital divide in our school is fortunately very small. Our school is located in a moderately affluent area and I have maybe 1-3 students that do not have access to internet or some type of technology tool. I was extremely surprised by the number of people that do not have access to good internet or the ability to hook up to the internet. The video, Digital Divide between Rural and Urban America’s Access to Internet by CBS, was very eye opening and I am hopeful that this issue can be resolved soon. In my classroom, if students do not have access to the internet, I make sure they have the opportunity to complete any assignments in class and allow extra time for completion. References: Dede, C. (2015, June) 21st Century Students Crave Deeper Learning. Retrieved from: https://edtechmagazine.com/k12/article/2015/06/21st-century-students-crave-deeper-learning
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I thoroughly enjoyed looking at all the collaboration tools and apps available. I was extremely impressed with Kathy Schrock's Bloomin' Apps site and felt it was a great resource and also shared it with my school as well. I had several teachers respond with thanks and will use this tool going forward. I love how it is simply laid out so you can go to which level of Bloom's taxonomy you would like for your students to attain. I also appreciated how she linked it to the SAMR model as well as giving her thoughts on how each level connected to SAMR.
Collaboration in the classroom is so important. Collaborative learning teams are said to attain higher level thinking and preserve information for longer times than students working individually. Why is this so? Groups tend to learn through “discussion, clarification of ideas, and evaluation of other’s ideas.” Perhaps information that is discussed is retained in long-term memory. Research by Webb suggests that students who worked collaboratively on math computational problems earned significantly higher scores than those who worked alone. Plus, students who demonstrated lower levels of achievement improved when working in diverse groups (TeachThought, 2018) With this being said here is the infographic on 20 Collaborative Learning Tips and Strategies for Teachers. All of these are beneficial and are great suggestions to use in the classroom.
There are many apps available to increase collaboration in the classroom. I really appreciated Edshelf to organize the tools I wanted my students to use. I created my own
Ed Shelf if you would like to see it. I posted this for my students to use on their One Note. I feel this will make it much easier for my students to be able to go to one location to find what they need.
I found these tech tips extremely valuable when you begin to look at apps and what goal or objective you have for your students. I looked at a few and here are the top ones I chose. I have used a few in my classroom and some I have not.
Padlet is amazing for collaboration! You can literally use it for anything. Here is a link with suggestions. The post above is where we used it for the end of a poetry and reading unit. Students collaborated to create a poem of their choice pertaining to the book we just finished reading.
Microsoft Teams is the next one I recommend. I just got my students on this last week and they loved it! I had them create a mystery so they could work on citing evidence to support their claim. Let's just say they were having a blast! These students below worked on a document together after they uploaded a file. It was great to see them all working intently on the same project.
Mindmeister is one I would like to try. I think this is a great app to use for several concepts and skills. I created one on citing evidence since this is our focus in class. I will share it with the class and have them use this in their book clubs. This tool has many ways to be used with collaboration. This mind map is very basic in nature and I expect the students to expand and make it much more visual with their evidence they will add.
Canva is a new tool to me that I would like to try in the classroom. You can create many things with Canva including a post, flyer, bookmark, cover page and even presentations, the list is endless. I created a book cover for the book we are going to be reading aloud in class. I am then going to put this on Mindmeister and we will then begin to analyze the book. There are some amazing ways you can use Canva! Please click the link to discover some amazing ways to engage your class:
https://www.canva.com/learn/10-ways-to-take-your-lessons-to-the-next-level-with-canva/ This was by far my new favorite because of the many ways you can use it.
Another new one is Show Me. For teachers, you can create videos for your students and either introduce new material or reference old material. I like the ease of use of this tool. Here is a lesson:
area and mixed numbers. This tool does have lessons available for use, but they are limited. It seems fairly new so more lessons will become available the more it is used. For students, they can show what they know and create a video lesson demonstrating their mastered skill.
Voicethread is a great tool. you can use this for collaboration, presentations, teaching... the list goes on. I enjoyed making mine and it is extremely easy to use. Here is 26 ways to use Voicethread in the classroom. So many ideas the list is endless and extremely engaging for the students . I would definitely check this one out.
BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) Our school does not have BYOD implemented. We currently have one to one devices and do use troubleshooting strategies in the classroom. We start off the year with a device contract with specific rules they must follow or their device will be taken from them. We have several strategies for getting them logged on, if they cannot connect to the internet, if the device is all of a sudden not playing sound or not working correctly for some reason, or our strategies do not work, when all else fails, restart! References: Schrock, K. (2018, October) Bloomin' Apps. Retrieved from: http://www.schrockguide.net/bloomin-apps.html TeachThought Staff. (2018, June 28). 20 collaborative learning tips and strategies for teachers. Retrieved from: https://www.teachthought.com/pedagogy/20-collaborative-learning-tips-and-strategies/ |
Shelly WoodsLearn-a-holic, lover of books, dogs and travel. :) Welcome to my blog. Archives
April 2019
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