Tag: forum

Collaborize Classroom-free for the 2010/2011 school year if you sign up before November 15!

Kelly Tenkely3 Comments on Collaborize Classroom-free for the 2010/2011 school year if you sign up before November 15!3199 views

What it is: Collaborize Classroom is an online learning platform developed for classroom discussion and engagement.  Collaborize lets students and teacher collaborate in online discussions. It can be used for meaningful conversations related to classroom curriculum, to ask and answer questions, to collaborate on projects, to vote on ideas/issues, and more.  Teachers can continue valuable discussions, facilitate online learning groups, encourage the sharing of resources, and provide students with space to engage in collaborative learning.  Collaborize is easy to set up and navigate for both teachers and students.  Questions can be posted easily including multiple choices, yes/no, vote or suggest, and forum.  After the questions have been answered, the results of the discussion can be published on a results page.  Collaborize has great teacher features.  Add attachments to any question including photos, videos, and documents.  Send a message to students using the built-in messaging system.  Participation reports track each student’s activity on the site including number of logins, votes, comments, and replies.  Activity reports can be sent to your email daily for review. Set up a watch list to follow a discussion more closely.  Collaborize has fantastic supporting materials including lesson plans, helpful tutorials, and research articles.  If you sign up for Collaborize before November 15, 2010, the product is being offered at no-cost (read FREE) for the 2010-2011 school year!  In partnership with Democrasoft, The Kids in Need Foundation made this free year possible…take advantage of it before the 15th!

How to integrate Collaborize into your curriculum: Collaboraize is an awesome tool to facilitate discussions in (and out of) the classroom.  The format of Collaborize makes it flexible enough to use in any classroom and in a way that works for you.  Use Collaborize to facilitate discussions and literature circles, plan a science lab or experiment to be conducted in class, practice second languages with online dialog, post current events for students to reflect on, work with classrooms around the world to discuss and debate any topic, pose a math word problem and ask students to discuss the different ways the problem could be approached.  Collaborize is a wonderful tool for student discussion and collaboration, but the teacher tools are what make it such a perfect fit for the classroom setting.  It is easy to sign up, get your free year today!

Tips: Collaborize has really helpful resources for teachers.  Learn about the do’s and don’ts of student forums, the art of asking questions, lesson and activity ideas, rethinking your role in the classroom and much more.  Even if you don’t sign up for Collaborize, I recommend spending some time checking out these free documents, they have great tips that can be applied to a variety of web collaboration tools.

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


BeMused- Museums and Art Galleries: Watch. Look. Do. Discuss

Kelly Tenkely2 Comments on BeMused- Museums and Art Galleries: Watch. Look. Do. Discuss3056 views

What it is: Bemused is another site from the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery.  BeMused helps students be excited, aware, informed, amused, and involved in the Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery.  Through videos and activities sections students can discover more about the museum and gallery.  Students can get involved by visiting the Your Say section or submitting their own artwork to the online Gallery.  Students can watch videos including an introduction to the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery and short poems created by kids inspired by the issues surrounding slavery and Olaudah Equiano’s life.  The online gallery holds beautiful artwork created by students.  Your students can create and submit their own artwork for the online gallery.  The activities section has interesting quizzes and activities about art, history and museums.  In one activity, students try to find the faces in famous works of art as quickly as possible.  The Your say section gives students an opportunity to talk about history, art, and museums.  Students can add to an existing topic or start their own topic for discussion.  Currently discussions include what would you like to see in an art gallery?; who is your favourite artist?; and Is graffiti art?

How to integrate BeMused into your curriculum: Bemused is a good place for students to be inspired by art and history.  This site encourages student interaction.  Students can join into forum discussions about art or history and even submit their own artwork to the online art gallery.  In the video section, students can watch a video of student created poems centered around history.  Use the video for classroom inspiration.  Your students can create and write their own poetry inspired by history.  If your students have visited many of the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery sites, they may enjoy challenging themselves to the quizzes in the activities section of the site.

Tips: BeMused was created for the Birmingham Museum and Art Collection.  They have several excellent websites that I will be reviewing.

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


edu2.0

Kelly Tenkely1 Comment on edu2.03130 views

 

What it is: Web 2.0 resources are amazing, I love the potential for connecting students and teachers in a new way. edu 2.0 is an incredible free tool that allows teachers and students to connect and interact outside of the traditional classroom. This is, in essence, a virtual classroom.

How to integrate edu 2.0 into the classroom: edu 2.0 allows teachers to add a new dimension to teaching. Post private classes online, upload daily lessons, keep a student roster, student attendance, a calendar, assignments, grade book, graph scores, start a class forum, chat, wiki, polls, and feeds, create surveys and quizzes that can be completed online. This is a great way to extend teaching, teach students how to use web 2.0 tools, offer tutoring and out-side of school teaching, and offering courses to home school students or small schools who may not have the resources to offer specialized classes.

Tips: This is an amazing FREE resource, be sure to participate in the edu 2.0 forum. Graham, the creator, is extremely open to new ideas from teachers and often creates new features and implements them quickly based on user suggestions.