In the Clouds

 Site 1: Blendspace 

Blendspace is a free online platform that allows teachers to create lesson plans in less than 5 minutes. Blendspace makes it possible for teachers to effectively use online learning to get the most out of their class. The program uses a combination of in-class teaching styles as well as online assignments. The program allows for easy use of organization of content, assessment of students, and tracking of progress. Many teachers are using this program to “flip” their classroom. Flipping classrooms is a fairly new idea where the class obtains the lecture material as homework and does homework in class as class-work. Blendspace is available anywhere that there is an internet connection and is cross platform between computers, tablets and mobile devices. Blendspace is important to education because it offers a tool that is free for schools to use. This cost effective method allows for teachers to utilize online tools for no cost. This will make it easier for students to learn in the classroom. Since many educators are using this program to provide a flipped classroom experience students have access to the teachers when they are doing their homework to ask questions. This type of program is paced so the student has to do their learning outside of the classroom. Flipping a classroom is unlike expecting a student to learn out of a textbook and then come to class and relearn the material. Since the material is not taught in-class the students are expected to learn it outside of class. This will allow students to then ask questions of the teacher if they are having problems understanding the material or a more hands-on in-class approach. Blendspace allows for effective use of both online and in-class to be used in conjunction with each other.

Site 2: Lectrio

Lectrio is an online LMS (learning management system) system that will allow users to host and share course content with every student. Everything in used in Lectrio is cloud based and maintained and backed up by their support and IT team. Each course has the option to set up what is called “social learning” where students and professors can host a social feed for an interactive “Q&A” section. Lecture materials that can be shared include YouTube videos, PowerPoint’s, Google Docs and much more. Students can submit their work online and the program will track their progress and grades. Lectrio will also track the student’s attendance and what portions of the platform they did and did not access. Lectrio can be made into a personalized system by school branding. Lectrio is also cross platform between computers, tablets and mobile devices and available anywhere there is an internet connection. Right now Lectrio is free to create courses for a maximum of 30 students. Lectrio is currently looking at expanding to K-12 and university brands and are running pilot programs. Lectrio has a lot to add to education. The think that I think is the most beneficial is that all of the technical support is run by the company. Although there is no pricing available yet the price of IT support needed by the schools will be minimal. Also, if a teacher had less than 30 students in the classroom they can use this program for free right now. I believe that the social feature can add to the classroom experience. Since this program can be used on mobile devices this feature seems to be similar to social media. Where a student could post a question no matter where they were and someone could respond. This will allow students to apply real life experiences to classroom related material. By taking the classroom to the cloud the students can essentially be in class any time they have their phone on them.

Site 3: Study Blue 

StudyBlue is an online program that is free for storing lecture notes, flash cards and study tools. Study Blue provides easier ways for students to study. By using mobile devices students can now study with their peers. There are already online packages of notes that students can use to study from rather than creating their own. As each person in the class adds material into the program the studying tools evolve and gather more information. The information helps students fill in the gaps by the use of other student’s notes. Also, by using multiple students personal notes there is information which allows students to see different points of view. Teachers can also use the program to monitor group and individual study routines and the progress of the students. The teachers can see where the class is struggling to adapt the teaching to encompass this back into the classroom. StudyBlue offers many positives for education. Since Studyblue is a study tool that allows all students to provide content and the teacher to see how the content is reviewed it is considered an effective universal design tool. As I explain a little bit more below about my current career in disability services I feel that this tool would be great for students who are eligible for note-takers. The program will take the information and create studying tools. I believe that this is extremely valuable to the learning environment. This tool allows teachers to see what students are having problems understanding in the classroom.

Diigo group: 

I chose to follow the Web Accessibility Group. I work in the Office of Academic Access at The University of Toledo. As part of my job I have to research assistive/adaptive technology and give student’s resources. I am also always trying to look at new technology and see how things are changing in the way of accessibility. I like this group because it talks about different accessibility checkers and new technology to do with Web accessibility. The very reason why I chose to follow this group was the post on audio description. In accessibility audio description is fairly new. This is part of the WCAG 2.0 standards. While none of these standards have yet to have been federally adopted there is speculation that the federal law will adopt WCAG 2.0 standards at level AA which included audio description. Audio Description like closed captioning this will eventually become mandatory for certain programming. The post on the Web Accessibility group allows me to see effective techniques in audio describing so that I can become familiar with the way that this is done prior to it hitting the higher education arena. I also find that there are other findings from court cases and tools posted. This site will help me keep up on changes so that I know where there are gaps and what to report back to my director on.

Summary:

This week has taught me a great deal about use of the cloud and effective uses of tagging and tag clouds in the learning environment. A constant trend across the resources provided is the cost of technology. Cloud computing helps make a cost effective solution to this dilemma. According to the video Cloud Computing Explained, cloud computing is much like electric. If you need server space in the cloud you can turn it on and off as you need it. The 2011 Horizon Report also went into details about the cost saving in education with regards to technical support and upkeep. Cloud computing also offers use of ready-made applications and the ability to blend and online environment with the use of photos and videos. When using cloud computing tags are important. Tags are like bookmarks that allow users to find key points in a website. I found this section extremely important not only to typical users but users who may be using assistive technology. Tags can help users with screen readers to navigate around the pages for ease of use. More information about how this is effectively used can be found at http://accessibility.psu.edu/headingshtml. With the use of cloud computing, tags and tag clouds social bookmarking is an easy way for students to keep track of everything that they have researched. Social bookmarking can be incorporated in the classroom because it can allow students to share content to classmates that they found useful. The group function makes it possible for multiple people to share links. The highlighting function allows for key points in the pages to be identified. Social Bookmarking makes researching as a team more effective for students. Going with the trend of accessibility and relating technology back to my field I feel it is important to point out that many of the programs that I have listed above did not mention accessibility in their products. This is not to say that the products are not accessible but I would be willing to bet that the majority of these products have potions of them that would not be accessible to all students. While the online materials are great all students must be given access to the same content at the same time. There is a lot of speculation around this as the use of web in the classroom is fairly new. From experience if there is a program that is inaccessible generally to make a piece of that program accessible is impossible because it is run by a third party. I only bring this up because it is generally easier to make material accessible rather than go back and retrofit it.

References: 

Sheehan, M. (Writer) (2008). Cloud computing explained[Web]. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJncFirhjPg

The New Media Consortium (. (2011). The horizon report: 2011 k-12. (2011 ed.). Stanford, California: Creative Commons. Retrieved from http://utetpt5550.pbworks.com/w/file/fetch/49357920/2011-Horizon-Report-K12.pdf

Blogging & Twittering

I have learned a great deal about blogging and twitter. Prior to doing the exercises this week I had heard of blogs and twitter but I did not know exactly what they were or effective uses of them. I did not know that blogging and microblogging was considered news. I had a twitter account for 2 years leading up to this class but I barley used it. I learned how to search for trending terms and how to use Hastags. I did not realize that blogging could be an essential part of the classroom. Students are starting to use more technology and be more familiar with it. The ability to embrace this technology will help students to learn in communicate in a different way. A student who maybe was afraid to ask questions in the classroom may flourish in an online environment. Students have the opportunity to ask questions as they think about them by the use of technology in the classroom.  

I believe that there is a value and relevance of blogging and twittering for educational purposes.  As it shows in the 2009 Horizon Report the use of blogging and microblogging allows students to communicate out of the classroom. The use of these platforms can allow students to keep in contact with each other outside of the classroom. Students have access to blogging if they have any device that will run internet including mobile phones. Online communication helps students with social interaction around the world. The thought is that if students are out even at the mall and can apply their learning they will retain it better. For example if a student thinks of a question while they are at the mall they can put out a tweet. Then other students in the class can either tweet back or the teacher can reply. According to the Tweets for Education videos using twitter in the classroom can help engage students in a media that they are familiar with. Even though over half of the users on twitter are over the age of 35 the amount of younger users is growing. This is another point of why twitter can be used in the classroom. Many students are non-traditional students who are considered adult learners. Using this medium that these students are familiar with can help them learn.

I chose to follow The University of Toledo as the network that I want to follow. I selected The University of Toledo because I am alumni, a student and an employee. I feel that it is important that I know news that happens at the University. It is important to know the trends on campus so that when students come into my office and have questions I can answer them. I also think that it is important to know how students see the university. What students are talking about at the university will help the university staff to know how to best serve the students. I feel like this network will give me a better grasp on the students on campus for both purposes of being a student and staff member.

Blogging is important because news may be considered different to all people. What is considered news by me may not be considered news to someone else. Anyone can be a reporter or publisher of their own blog and share news about their life or a business with just a click of a button. Blogs are generally free and easy to use. There is a template that can be used to make the interface user friendly for anyone who is not familiar with technology. Blogs can also make communities of people. Once a blog is posted readers can write comments back to the bloggers. Once bloggers get familiar with each other they will read and link blogs creating different communities. I did not realize that many collaborative environments for students were considered blog sites. The sites include but are not limited to Moodle, Kaltura and Think Quest. These blogs also allow for students to use creativities in projects using photos, videos and texts in blogging.  Closely related to blogging is the use of social media such as Twitter. 

Twitter is a real life Microblogging system that allows you to share small updates about your life. People who are connected all over the world and have friends that they have never met may know them from blogs or emails. Twitter allows you to gain more of an idea of who a person is from their real life experiences. Once a person is found on twitter they can be followed and their information can be seen on the main twitter page. I always thought that twitter and Facebook was the same thing. However, I know see that the two are seemingly different.  Twitter has many search features that allow the user to search for trending topics. When searching for a trending word a radius can be set so only the news from that area is found. #Hashtags may become a trending word but are different. A Hashtags are used to tie conversations with the same Hashtag as one thread. Twitter is different from other Social Media sites because you cannot make the posts private. Twitter is made so that information is news shared into public.