RCE: 11 Tools, Thing 2: Building a Community

I like being able to view other people's blogs, gathering ideas for the classroom. Building an online community is neat, especially because it allows people to travel outside of their own four walls. For elementary students, I prefer to use wikis to create a sense of community, rather than blogs, because I feel they are more flexible and interactive with a group. However, I could see using blogs in the classroom to help students reflect on their learning experiences while tracking growth over time. I guess they both have their limits.

As I was exploring some of the posted tools, I came across these two articles:

1. Ways to use Voki in the classroom from an anonymous user (response edited):

I have used Voki in the classroom with fourth graders. Their first project was a research on the accomplishments made by, conflict and/or cooperation with the Native Americans, and what reasons did the explorer set out for North America. The students found the information then set out to create their voki as close to the explorer as possible. Their next project was a book talk. This was to persuade others to read the book of their choice. This must include the title, author, and summary of the book.

2. An article on the best Ipad/ Itouch apps--worth checking out:
Top 100 Best Free iPad Apps

I also signed up for Diigo. I plan to use this site to set up student accounts for research. When you sign up for an educator's account, you can:
■ Create student accounts for an entire class
■ Highlight critical features within text and images and write comments directly on the web pages
■ Collect and organize series of web pages and web sites into coherent and thematic sets
■ Facilitate online conversations within the context of the materials themselves

Check out this powerpoint presentation for more information:

Dig Deeper with Diigo

View more presentations from Jennifer Dorman