iLearn Technology

What it is: If you’re like me, you can think of hundreds of ways that social networks could be used positively in the classroom. The problem: most of us can’t access said networks in our classrooms-blocked by over zealous filtering! Not to worry, there are some great classroom alternatives including Diipo and Edmodo.

Diipo is a social network created specially for education.  I learned about this particular tool from @nottil, a high school student in Virginia (thanks @nottil!).  Diipo makes it easy to communicate with your students, connect with other educators, and other classes.  The interface is similar in feel to a Facebook or Twitter making it easy for students and teachers to pick up and start using right away.  We are talking LOW learning curve here. Diipo has dashboards and apps that keep students up-to-date, help them get questions answered, and let them collaborate on blogs and group projects.  Workpages keep students organized from project to project.  Direct messaging features let students start a private conversation with classmates and teachers.  Online project notebooks let students work together and share the information they collect in one, centralized location.  An educator community lets teachers share best practices, educational content, brainstorm for collaborative projects, and pen pal programs between classes.  A class roster makes it easy for teachers and students to communicate with each other. A built in microblogging platform lets students start a conversation, ask questions, and actively participate in class discussions.  Students can build blogs directly in Diipo to share thoughts, reflect on learning, and write collaboratively.  Teachers and students can upload and share documents, links, and resources with classmates or the entire class.  Every conversation and post is archived and searchable making it easy to catch up or find something later.  Students can also tag messages, content, and workpages to make it easier to organize and find content.  The Diipo platform is wonderfully all-inclusive!  Diipo is intended for students 13 years and older.

Edmodo is a social networking platform for classrooms that has been around longer.  Edmodo is a free, secure social network for teachers, students, and schools.  It provides classrooms with a safe way to connect and collaborate by offering them place to exchange ideas, share content, and access homework, grades and school notices.  Edmodo is accessible in any browser and from any mobile device.  Like Diipo, Edmodo allows teachers to post messages, discuss classroom topics, assign and grade classwork, share resources and materials, and network and exchange ideas with peers. Edmodo does not have an age limit, students under the age of 18 must have a parent or guardian read the terms of service prior to use. To learn more about how Edmodo came to be, take a min to watch the video below:

 

While Diipo is in beta, Edmodo has stood the test of time and is used in classrooms around the world.

How to integrate Diipo and Edmodo into the classroom: Social networking is a wonderful way to support your students in their learning.  It is also a way for students to take charge and support their own learning by collaborating with classmates.  Use Diipo or Edmodo to organize your class, support students, connect students in a collaborative study group, and to share materials with your students.  This is a great one-stop-shop for classroom communication and resources.  Upload lessons and handouts, websites and links used in class, videos, and any other materials students may find useful to Diipo or Edmodo.   Use the Diipo blogging platform to encourage your students to write for an audience, reflect on learning, continue class discussion, and write collaboratively.

Both Diipo and Edmodo promote anytime, anyplace learning-reinforcing once again that learning happens outside of the four walls of the classroom.

Using social networks in the classroom provides you with the opportunity to model proper use of social networking, digital citizenship, and teach Internet safety in an authentic environment.

Tips: Edmodo has excellent support and training, be sure to sign up for their free webinars!

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Diipo and Edmodo in your classroom!

What it is: IDroo is an educational multi user whiteboard that lets students instantly collaborate online.  Everything that is drawn or written on the whiteboard is visible to all participants in real-time.  IDroo supports an unlimited number of meeting participants, the only limitations are computer power and internet connection speed.  There is a professional math typing tool built-in making it easy to teach or work through math problems collaboratively. Best of all, IDroo can be used with Skype! IDroo is free for non-commercial use. Now for the downfall (and this is a HUGE downfall in my humble opinion), IDroo is currently only available for Windows.  I  know, disappointment for us Mac lovers. *sigh*  If you are using a Windows computer this is a great way to collaborate online!

How to integrate IDroo into the classroom: IDroo would be a great app for collaborating with other classrooms around the world.  Students can use the multi user whiteboard space to work together, share ideas, and brainstorm.  IDroo would also be fantastic as a way for teachers to tutor students virtually.  Set up an “open lab” time once a week online where students can drop in and get extra help.  Virtual lab times are especially helpful for elementary students who can’t dictate their own schedules and often can’t stay after school for extra help.

Tips: Don’t forget to allow IDroo to access Skype API after you download!

Please leave a comment and share how you are using IDroo in your classroom!

What it is: Magnoto reminds me of a mashup of a Tumblr blog, Wallwisher, Glogster, and Stixy.  Essentially Magnoto gives you a “magnetic” display where you can post and share text, audio, video, and pictures.  My favorite feature of Magnoto: content can be added to the page via email.  You can set up your Magnoto so that anything you send to your special Magnoto email address, automatically gets uploaded and placed on your online page.  With a few minutes of setup when you create your account, you can create an online space that is updated from your email. This is great for teachers who aren’t as comfortable with technology or don’t have the time to manage an online space.  I find the Magnoto online interface to be a little bit cumbersome (I expected everything to be drag and drop onto the page but it is much more “analogue” and you have to click “place on page” from the preview. Certainly not difficult but also not as clean as I would like…guess I’m spoiled!)  On the upside, Magnoto provides a lot of room for customization in frames around the pictures (click on the “M” on the picture), “magnets”, and the ability to free drag items anywhere on the screen.  The online page can be easily shared with a unique url that you choose, and updated on the fly.  Magnoto also has the benefit of allowing up to 4 users to contribute to and create one online space.

How to integrate Magnoto into the classroom: For students with an email address, Magnoto can be used to create a flexible online space where students can create virtual posters, brainstorming boards, virtual project portfolios, and share learning with others.  Students can work together on the same Magnoto space for group projects.

Teachers can use Magnoto to create a quick class homepage for students and parents to access.  Because Magnoto is so easy to update via email, it makes for a really fast build with impressive results.  Update daily with links, assignments, and resources for your students; pictures you snapped of learning; or to reference class information.  Create a new Magnoto page for every subject, semester, or special project.  Invite a few parents to join as users of your account and encourage those room moms (or dads) to email pictures they snap of class parties, field trips, or special events on the class Magnoto board- the pictures can be emailed to the special Magnoto address and will be instantly uploaded.  Pretty cool!  Magnoto would make for a great online weekly newsletter space. Parent’s will always be in the loop for classroom happenings and everything will be easy to access in one place.

Because you can add up to 4 collaborators, Magnoto would be a good space for grade level teams to collect and share resources for students.  This keeps all of you from having to create and update a separate page; instead, you can all upload and share from the same space.  Again, the email feature is really nice for this type of use!

To change your account settings to allow emailed content to be directly uploaded:

1. Click on the “Page Admin” tab on the right side of the screen.

2. Click on “Options”

3. Choose either “Classic” or “Floating” options

4. Click “Publish New Entries” via email at once

Tips: Magnoto is in Beta, I found that it works better in Firefox and Chrome than in Safari.  Don’t forget that students can use a @tempinbox.com account or @mailinator.com account for sign up if they don’t want to use a personal email address.  No email confirmation is necessary to begin using Magnoto.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Magnoto in your classroom!

What it is: Enter the Group is a fabulous online tool that makes it simple to work with, and organize, groups online.  The tool has similar functionalities to Wiggio. Enter the Group includes shared calendars, site email, file sharing, instant chat and message boards, the ability to create private groups and classrooms, tasks and assignments, polls, blogging, Twitter, and question/answer forum, and best of all: it is totally free!  Enter the Group has some really nice classroom features that other online group management sites like Wiggio don’t have.  The built in blog feature is useful for the classroom setting, it provides students with a place to reflect that can be set as “private” so that it is a closed network for your classroom or school.  This is especially helpful in schools where administration and the school community is hesitant to enter the world of blogging! Enter the Group Classrooms provides a virtual classroom space that can act as an extension of the physical classroom.  Teachers and students can interact, keep track of due dates and special events, share files, post messages, and more.  Students can take their learning with them anywhere and access the resources they need anytime.  Enter the Group is easy to use and has really helpful tips and video guidance throughout the tool.  No matter what your technology ability level is, Enter the Group has made it easy to get started.

My favorite thing about Enter the Group?  They understand that the classroom is about learning, from the classroom page: “What do we do in classrooms? Simple answer is we learn. The longer answer is we; listen, ask questions, start debates, get group feedback, work on assignments, take tests and exams, present our work and perhaps many other things I haven’t thought of as well. Should all these things stop once the bell sounds and the students walk out the door? We all know the answer is no.”  Enter the Group isn’t about the technology, but about the learning opportunities that it enables.

How to integrate Enter the Group into the classroom: Enter the Group is a way to extend learning beyond the walls of your classroom.  Use it to extend conversations, debates, and offer support through online discussion; help students (and parents) keep track of assignments and classroom events, keep track of and share files so students who are absent are never left behind, to collect shared resources and information (a kind of “digital textbook” that you create for/with your students); to expand on class topics with video; and to create a collaborative learning environment.  Students can use Enter the Group to plan and organize projects that they are working on in groups, providing a virtual meeting space outside of the classroom to collaborate.  Enter the Group is perfect for students who are out with an illness or to continue learning opportunities when pandemic illness or bad weather keeps us from the physical classroom (anyone had SNOW problems this year? ) Enter the Group provides a platform where students can continue learning and collaborating from any Internet-connected computer.

Do you have students collaborating with another class in another state? Another country?  Enter the Group is a great place for students to work together, discuss, debate, and share.  The ability to create a private network adds a layer of security and manageability to the online group.

Enter the Group also makes a great platform for working with colleagues and for professional development.  Share important dates, files, and reflections within the group.  Enter the Group is a nice way to gather and share resources from one centralized location making it easy to add to, and grow, year after year.  No more, “remember that great lesson we used last year? What was that site/resource again?”  (I cannot tell you how many times I have had THAT conversation!)

Tips: Enter the Group provides a few options for sign-up.  Teachers, parents, and students can sign up with an email address (don’t forget to use tempinbox.com or mailinaitor.com for temporary inboxes for students who don’t have an email account), Twitter, or Facebook.  It would be nice if Enter the Group had a feature like Wiggio where group members could join without registering-this is really helpful in elementary classrooms.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Enter the Group in your classroom

What it is: Phile is a fantastic new way for communities to “create a useful, lasting body of knowledge just by talking about the stuff you love.”  Phile makes it easy for groups of people work together on building collections and discussions based on shared passions.  Phile turns knowledge, opinions, and discussion into useful websites.  Turn any passion into a community of collaborators by creating one place for them to gather.  Phile lets you structure your site to gather the information that matters to your community of learners. Phile does an outstanding job of keeping your site organized as people add to it.  Phile is truly as site all about conversation and sharing information.  Phile automatically keeps all information organized and easy to find.  A group creator creates and customizes the “stack” (site) design.  Group members add and edit pages in the stack. Members can share resources, discuss in forums, on stack pages, etc.  Recent activity is populated on the home page including new pages, reviews, comments, etc.  Phile is currently a free service, the plan is to keep a portion of the service free with ad support and a paid service that has additional functionality. For now, Phile is in beta and completely free.  Phile is fairly easy to navigate and has an intuitive interface. There are helpful hints and tips on ever page directing you in the use of Phile (great for those of us who are too busy to endlessly play!).  I created a Phile for edreform, feel free to join me in collecting resources, article, videos, etc. relevant to the education reform discussion!

How to integrate Phile into the classroom: Phile is a great way for teachers to collaborate and share information.  Phile could be used for starting a variety of groups that would help organize information in one, easy to access, place.  Phile could be used to start a Children’s Literature group where members submit children’s books along with reviews, ratings and comments (any book-a-day people want to jump in and create that?).

Older students could join the group and add their own reviews, ratings, and comments on the books they are reading.  This could become a place where teachers could quickly find literature that has been reviewed by other teachers, students, and parents.

Phile would make an excellent directory for ed conferences (and virtual conferences) held around the world.  Because many of these conferences happen year after year, it would be a great place for new teachers to learn what is available to them and for veteran teachers to continue conversations and learn which conferences are rated as the most worthwhile and why.

Phile would be a great place for teachers world-wide to share, collaborate, and rate lesson plans, websites, videos, etc. in their area of specialty.

Phile is ideal for sharing iDevice apps for education, with the built in rating system and excellent organization it would make sharing and finding educational apps a breeze!

How about creating Phile’s for the discussions that happen in our education chats on Twitter every week? The Phile could contain information and links about the chat, important ideas and information that was shared during the chat, and give us a place to expand the conversation beyond the 140 characters when it was over.  I’m imagining this for #edchat, it would be wonderful to have a place to send those who are new to #edchat to get a feel for the topics that we cover.

The possibilities with Phile are really endless, it is a fantastic platform that is like a mashup of a Ning and a wiki.  The interface is really well designed, it makes information so easy to find and sort through.

As I said above, I created a Phile for edreform to be a collection of resources, articles, links, and discussion.  Feel free to join and help me add to it.  A Phile is only as good as its community!

Tips: Phile does require an email address for sign-up, it may not be appropriate for use with elementary students unless you are accessing it as a class.

Please leave a comment and share ideas for how you might use Phile in education.  Anyone want to start a Children’s Literature Phile? I think it could be great! Let me know if you are interested and I will be happy to pass your name onto the developer of Phile.

What it is: Registration is now open for the Spring 2011 SPILL Virtual Team Challenge for North America.  The Virtual Team Challenge is a real-time, multi-user business simulation that is played over the course of several weeks by high school students in North America.  As a team, students will take on business tasks and challenges that simulate real-world experiences of professional services employees. Each student participant will fill one of the several roles offered on a simulated professional services team and compete against other high school teams to clean up an oil spill in the river of New York City.  When the challenge is complete, Deloitte will make a real donation to the United Way on behalf of the winning team.  Registration is open now and the competition takes place from February 14, 2011 to April 1, 2011.

How to integrate SPILL! Virtual Team Challenge into the classroom: The SPILL Virtual Team Challenge is an engaging, hands-on approach and competition to learn about business, math, and economics. Get your classroom involved in this great learning opportunity and challenge by registering your school, entering students’ names and assigning them roles and teams for the game, downloading the free game and installing it on the school computers, and playing through the tutorial. On February 14 the official competition and game launches. Students can play at their own pace to finish the three game tasks by April 1, 2011.  This is one game that is packed full of learning, provides a realistic experience, acts as a team building exercise, and has the great outcome of providing a donation to the United Way.

Tips: You can learn more about the game platform and Deloitte by visiting the Virtual Team Challenge website.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using SPILL! Virtual Team Challenge in your classroom.

What it is: Rock Our World has one goal, to give students authentic global collaboration opportunities by connecting them with music.  Rock Our World has been doing just that since 2004.  Students and teachers collaborate in composing original music, making movies, and meeting each other in live video chats. Using GarageBand (Apple), each country creates a 30 second drum beat.  Every Friday, the drum created rotates to another country, where the bass guitar is added. It gets passed from country to country with another instrument added at each stop.  When it gets back to the original country, it is an original piece of music that has been created with the help of kids around the world.

While the music is being passed from country to country, students have opportunities to meet and discuss various topics of curriculum in live video chats.  Incredible companies have been involved in this project including Apple, Fablevision, Discovery, American Film Institute, Smart Technologies, NASA, Visual Learning Company, Lintor Publishing, Mariner Software, actor Will Smith and more.  Pretty impressive!

Applications for Rock Our World will be accepted for pre-kindergarten through university  in January. You can sign up for membership by providing your email address to be alerted to the exact date you can begin applying.

How to integrate Rock Our World into the classroom: This is an incredible opportunity for your students to work and collaborate with other students around the world.  Not only will your students be learning and interacting with new cultures, they will also be learning more about music.  Your students will be a part of creating a unique song by adding their piece to it. At the end, each country will have a song touched by students around the world.  How cool is that?!

It would be really neat at the end of the project to create an iMovie of the final song that includes the globe animation zooming into each country as their bit of the song is played and including a slideshow of students from each country.

Tips: Take a look at previous projects by clicking on the “Media” tab.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Rock Our World in your classroom.

What it is: Corkboard is a neat little collaboration tool that I learned about on Twitter yesterday thanks to @Grade1. Corkboard reminds me a lot of Wallwisher (which has been a little unreliable lately). Best of all, it is literally a one step set up process.  Just type in the web address: http://corboard.me and it automatically creates a unique url for your corkboard.  Click to add a sticky note on the corkboard. Give students or other teachers the unique url so that they can add a sticky note. Easy!  Sticky notes can be as big or small as you like.  Click and hold down on a sticky note to move it around the corkboard.

How to integrate Corkboard into the classroom: Corkboard provides an easy to use platform for students to brainstorm, collaborate, and share ideas. Students can use Corkboard to brainstorm ideas for writing, research, and collaborating on group projects. Ask students to add their thoughts to any conversation on history, literature, science, phonics, or vocabulary corkboard.  Students could practice spelling by typing out their spelling words along with a sentence or synonyms on sticky notes. Students can share a board to discuss a book they are reading together, predictions for a class science experiment, and to share what they are learning in any subject or lecture. You could create a new corkboard each week where you post homework, resources, to-do items, etc. for your students. Students can add sticky notes to the board about what they are learning throughout the week. These Corkboards can be added to a Weblist.me so that there is a record of the whole year.

Tips: Looking for other alternatives to Wallwisher? Check out: Edistorm or Stixy. Each has a little different features!

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Corkboard in your classroom.

What it is: Project Global Inform is an incredible movement bringing together education and a mission to do something about human rights.  Project Global Inform “is an in-school project where students use media to spread awareness about human rights violations. PGI came out of the idea that we too often “teach” our students about genocide and human rights violations, but never “do” anything about it. This project’s main objective is to create awareness about current human rights violations in our schools, communities, and abroad. Through the use of media and technology students have the power to make a difference.”  This is education and learning at it’s finest, it is a call to action and an invitation for students to do something important.  The project is made up of eight steps.  First, students learn about human rights issues through media and literature.  Next students form groups based on the humans rights issue they are passionate about.  Each group learns about the history of the human rights issue they chose including the current political stance, media, etc.  Students come up with an action plan for creating awareness.  Students use the action plan as the base for their project where they will choose a media outlet to spread awareness about the issue.  At the end of the campaign, students will collect data on the effectiveness of the campaign (based on website hits, video views, “likes” on Facebook, etc.).  Each team writes up a report detailing and reflecting on the project, success, and failures. Each student creates a video or slideshow (a kind of documentary) of their project.   This is an opportunity for your students to learn about humans rights issues and to get involved in an authentic way that has the potential to directly impact those suffering from human rights issues.

How to integrate Project Global Inform into your curriculum: Project Global Inform is an incredible resource and movement that get students involved in impacting their world in real and meaningful ways.  As a result of this project, your students will be more informed about humans rights issues, have a better understanding of social networking and how to virally spread a message, how to use media as a communication tool, how to track web 2.0 data and statistics, collaboration, and reflection.  This would make a great project for an ethics class, but could be used as a transdiciplinary project including literature, math, and technology (to name a few). Project Global Inform literally meets every single level of Blooms Taxonomy from knowledge and understanding to creating, apply, analyzing, and evaluating.

While the project appears to be focused on the middle school or high school age group, I think that it could be tailored to the elementary classroom.  For example, I had my students use Free Rice as the basis for a similar project.  They learned about hunger, created a video slideshow that we uploaded to YouTube and played on Free Rice to earn grains of rice.  If using Project Global Inform with younger students, choose a humans rights issue to study as a class.  Make sure the information you gather is age appropriate.  Students can create posters or pictures for a local coffee shop, create slideshow videos that they upload to YouTube, or hold an information day for the local community.  These are they type of projects that will make an impact on your students and the world.

If you decide to take part in Project Global Inform, make sure you let your local news organizations know about it.  They love covering stories of children impacting the world and it helps spread the message.  Here is our Free Rice story in the local paper.  I can’t tell you how this project transformed these two boys featured in the article. They became “celebrities” in the school and were so proud of their hard work.  Two average students became two of my top students after this project.  Give your students something important and meaningful to do, it makes a huge impact on them.

Tips: Even if you don’t have time for the full project, make sure to take the “Plus Two Pledge”.  As your students are learning about human rights violations have them sign the pledge to tell at least two people about what they have learned.  I told my two…hopefully more are reading this…who are you going to tell?

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Project Global Inform in  your classroom!

What it is: I am currently working on a fun project for Starrmatica tagging and organizing websites and resources.  One of the resources that was new to me is The Street: World Music.  This is a neat interactive learning journey from BBC radio where students can learn about other countries and cultures through music.  The Street features five families from five different countries including India, Ireland, Brazil, Turkey, and Nigeria.  In each house students can learn more about the country, instruments, musicians, religion, and food from the country.  Students have plenty of opportunities to listen to the music.

How to integrate The Street: World Music into your curriculum: Music is a neat way to introduce students to other cultures.  It allows an inside look into the culture by sharing the sounds of the culture.  What I like about The Street, is the way the music is introduced along side religion, food, and information about the country.  This site gives students a wonderful overview of five countries where they can not only read about the differences, but they can see the differences (through photos) and hear the differences (through music).  The Street is a great site to introduce into any classroom, music teachers will appreciate the look at the instruments and musicians of the country.  As an extension activity, have your students create their own “house” for The Street. This can be done offline with paper and a collection of music, photos, and information.  Alternatively use a website builder like Weebly or Wix or a Wiki to collect the information in an online space.  Students can choose a country to learn more about or create a house for their own country, thinking about what is important to their culture.  Want to extend the activity even more?  Connect with teachers from different countries and have the students learn about different cultures together.  Use Skype or Wetoku to connect the classes and play music from each culture.  Create a wiki together to collect and  share information learned.

Tips: If you are looking for teachers to collaborate  with, use and search the #glolab hash tag to connect.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using The Street: World Music in your classroom!