Who Owns the Learning
The Digital Playground
Learning on the Digital Farm
“To survive in the future economy, kids must learn how to research, publish & communicate, working with the Internet and other information tools.” -Alan November
You can find out more about November and his Digital Learning Farm analogy by viewing the link and/or watching his Ted Talk below.
TEDxNYED - Alan November - 03/05/2011
Tutorial Designer
"Students teaching students is a powerful method for building learning and driving creativity and innovation" -Alan November Who Owns the Learning (pg 79 iBook edition).
Provide opportunities for students to own their learning by creating tutorials to share their knowledge with peers as well as a potential global audience.
Educreations
Educreations is a free app that turns your iPad into a recordable whiteboard. Learners of all ages will find creating a great video tutorial is as simple as touching, tapping and talking. Lessons, once created can be hyperlinked to a website or blog. You will need to create an account.
Screencast-O-Matic
Screencast-O-Matic is a java-based screencasting tool that requires no downloads and will allow you to upload to YouTube or save to your hardrive.
Student Scribe
"Using a student scribe program encourages students who do not take notes to do so, and it helps students who struggle to take good notes improve their technique through positive feedback and advice from their teachers and peers" -Alan November Who Owns the Learning (pg 66 iBook edition.)
Students can work collaboratively to take notes which are then shared with the entire learning community. November suggests these notes can be posted on the class blog or shared through other digital means.
Evernote
Evernote lets you take notes, capture photos, create to-do lists, record voice reminders--and makes these notes completely searchable, whether you are at home, at work, or on the go. You can organize your notes into folders and share them with other Evernote users.
Google Docs
Google Docs let you create different kinds of online documents, work on them in real time with other people, and store them in your Google Drive online — all for free.
Blogger
Blogger allows you and your students to collaborate create a class blog and share as a community of learners or with a global audience.
Researcher
"Many classrooms have one computer sitting in the back of the room or on the teacher's desk that gets very little use while instruction is taking place. What if that computer became the official research station where one student each day was responsible for finding answers to all the question in class--including the teachers questions" -Alan November Who Owns the Learning (pg 66 iBook edition.)
YouTube
YouTube users have uploaded thousands of how to and informational videos. As with any online resource, you will find some great resources and some not to great. As educators, it is important that we support and guide students as they think critically to analyze the accuracy of the information they find. Here is a great lesson resource for beginning and intermediate learners that I have found beneficial.
Creating a Google Custom Search Engine
This video, suggested by November in the book, will walk you through the steps to create a search widget that your students can use to research topics at "appropriate" sites that you and your students have identified.
Diigo
Diigo is online tool that allows users to bookmark and tag webpages as well as highlight any part of a website and attach sticky notes. You will want to check out Diigo for Educators.