MCSD ED TECH NEWS
Keeping you in the KNOW
Schoology Update as of 12.29.16
New Student Groups in Google Drive & Office 365
Google Hangouts NOW Available!
Check out this article, 7 Ways to Use Google Hangouts in the Classroom to generate some ideas.
Check out this website, Google Hangout Site for Teachers to get you started, but first, check out the video that shows YOU where to find it on your computer.
Using Fake Social Media Generators in our Content Based Courses
THE NEXT BIG THING
New forms of social media emerge all the time. But what's to be gained from leveraging the power of these Web 2.0 resources in classroom activities?
Along with generating increased student engagement, these activities can be used to assess what students understand about a topic. Anyone can look up Benjamin Franklin on Wikipedia and create a PowerPoint presentation of the information found there. Creating a fake Facebook wall for Benjamin Franklin that delivers the same information, but from the perceived perspective of Benjamin Franklin himself, adds a level of higher-order thinking to the activity that students will long remember.
Perhaps more important than the content we teach are the life skills we model by embracing these concepts. Using social media in the classroom allows teachers to remind students of the power their words can have online. This understanding will be crucial as they head to college, start a career and become adults in a digital world.
FACEBOOK WITHOUT FACEBOOK
When students see a graphic of a Facebook wall, they likely recognize it for what it is: a means of delivering and receiving information about themselves and others. Their inherent understanding of this connection can be applied to a variety of subjects and classroom learning activities, resulting in student-generated content that resembles the ubiquitous Facebook wall.
- Social Studies: Student groups could be assigned a specific person, event or historical concept to research. Each group could then build a fake wall that conveys the depth of their understanding of the assigned topic. For example, a group of students could capture the similarities and differences among U.S. presidents through role-playing. Each student would embody a different president, and together, they'd build a wall — complete with photos, wall posts, "likes" and comments — that portrays the way the presidents would interact with one another if they all were alive today.
- Science: Students in a chemistry class could be assigned a particular element for which to create a wall. Questions students might consider include: Which elements would they classify as "friends"? Which elements would post incendiary remarks on their wall? How would they reveal information about their element, such as its melting and boiling points or number of electrons?
- Math: Students could create fake walls for the individuals who developed certain mathematical theorems. I once saw a series of posts on a fake wall for Pythagoras about the mathematician's right triangle theorem. The posts' author, who identified himself as "future student," commented that Pythagoras had made his life more difficult by forcing him to memorize and understand what a2 + b2 = c2 meant.
- English: Students could create fake walls that reveal similarities and differences between books by the same author, books from different time periods or even books from different genres. What dating advice might Edward from Twilight give to Romeo, for example?
TWITTER WITHOUT TWITTER
Twitter has emerged as a powerful means of instant communication and information sharing. In fact, news reports, TV shows, movies and other media often include a Twitter hashtag or user name for readers or viewers to follow for more information.
- Social Studies: Students studying a historical period, such as the Great Depression, could embody a persona from that era — a banker or farmer, for example — and record their experiences or impressions in 140-character entries. Using fake tweet builders, students could then exchange their feeds with their peers to develop an ongoing dialogue on what it was like to live at that time.
- Science: Students could consider what it would have been like to follow James D. Watson, Francis Crick and Rosalind Franklin as they worked to understand the structure of DNA. Were there other scientists they might have talked about? What frustrations and achievements might they have shared?
- Math: Students could be given a formula for which they are responsible and then tasked with engaging in an ongoing dialogue with their peers and teachers about how to solve a problem using that formula. What sort of questions might an instructor ask to assist students in solving those problems?
- English: Students could be challenged to tell a story in one sentence or write a larger story in 140-character increments. Activities to reinforce (or demonstrate understanding of) "appropriate audience" could include fake Twitter feeds to a professional audience and to an audience of friends.
~Information pulled from, EdTech, Focus on K-12, by Elaine Plybon. Article found at: EdTechMagazine.com