Wikis, Blogging, and Social Bookmarking, Oh My!

          I feel as though I would use a wiki to provide an outline of notes for the semester,rather than any other way. It would be quick and easy to add notes each day and link other appropriate content for students to revisit during a lesson and prior to testing for review. For blogs, I'd have the students do small summaries of what they've learned for the week. I think that would be a great tool to see if they are taking appropriate notes and soaking up the appropriate knowledge and ideas I would be conveying.

          I like the Social bookmarking. I've been using it for a couple years, so I'm familiar with it. I don't see me using it with my future students, but maybe I'm not understanding how this could be useful. Now the VoiceThread on the other hand looks absolutely great! I've never heard of it, so I found it very intriguing. I could see myself having the students use it as a collaborative tool for projects or homework assignments.  The fact you don't need any extra software to use it makes it PRICELESS for students. No need to have them buy anything, which I'm sure is a hard thing to have everyone do in a public school. Being able to make extravagant presentations by adding multimedia such as audio, video,and pictures would allow a whole new dimension of integrated technology learning. Not only would they be more immersed in the subject being covered, but they would also be learning about computers and how useful they can be.

          Tapped in was yet another resource that I have not had any experience with. All I can say it WOW! I'm not sure how teachers handled such things way back when the internet was just an idea. Tapped In looks like it would be very useful not only for myself, but my students to have some interaction with other students, in and out of the country. As a new teacher, I'm sure it will be absolutely invaluable being able to ask teachers across the United States and the world how to deal with certain issues or suggestions for better learning activities.

Sources

Johnson, D., Howland, J., Marra, R., & Crismond, D. (2007). Meaningful Learning With Technology. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.

Voicethread. (2007). VoiceThread Features. In VoiceThread. Retrieved March 1st, 2011, from http://voicethread.com/about/features/.