The Pros and Cons of Collaborative Tools Edmodo, CourseSites, and Collaborize Classroom

Hello All,


In this post, I will be looking and evaluating three different collaborative web tools called Edmodo, CourseSites, and Collaborize Classroom. I will be looking at the ease of navigation, and creating in these websites, and what they are most commonly used for. I will also be looking to see if these are somethings that I can see myself using in the future in my classroom. Now let's begin!

Edmodo

Edmodo is a site that from what I can see works great with students, and parents are able to log on in real time and view some of the progress being made. It also seems like a good way for teachers, and students to communicate and a good way for students to collaborate on presentations or simply ask each other about assignments. Something else that I really liked about Edmodo was it's Facebook like appearance. I think that this is something that would really appeal to middle school aged students, who are now interested in social media. I think that this would be a great opportunity to introduce social media, and how to navigate it. Netiquette is definitely something that would need to be discussed before working in the classroom with this site, especially since some of the conversations can be open for others to comment and leave suggestions.

CourseSites

CourseSites is a website that is powered by Blackboard, which is frequently used in colleges and universities, and allows for up to five free page creations for educators. The page creator can make the page and simple or as complicated as one may like. However, I find that creating and deleting some of the pages can be quite a hassle. While I think that it may be easy for students to navigate with clear instructions, I also feel that it may be a hassle combing through all of the excessive links to narrow down the ones that you want to use. It is similar to Edmodo in that students can also communicate with the instructor and other students through discussion board and email links. However, unlike Edmodo, responses can vary and may take time because there is way of knowing who is online to collaborate with. Still with it's flaws, I can definitely see some good in CourseSites. It is a great place for students and parents to find assignments, see what their child is working on in class, and you can even create various practice quizzes to help students study. I can see myself using this in the future to keep both parents and students informed of grades, assignments, and practices coming up in the future.

Collaborize Classroom

Collaborize Classroom is a website that allows students to connect in real time and participate in teacher created topics. Through the discussions, the students not only learn from the teacher but from other students through discussion. This is something that makes Collaborize Classroom completely different from CourseSites, but similar to Edmodo. However, like CourseSites, you can create more of a simpler discussion by uploading polls or mini quizzes in the form of multiple choice answers. Also similar to CourseSites, students also have to be invited because the discussions are small group and are not open to the public, which makes it safe. I thought that the ease of navigation through this website made it the simplest of the three to create and form discussions. And since this is a discussion based website, I think that this would be great for getting students to collaborate on issues, or topics such as social studies and language arts. I could definitely see myself using this in my Civil War section of my lessons.

Overall, as you can see there are many pros and cons to each website. I invite you to take a look at each site individually and decide which one meets your needs. They are all great websites, just for different topics in my opinion, but I'm sure can be used cross categorically. I have provided the links in the names above that take you directly to the sites. Good luck!

Pb Works Web 2.0

This week I had the opportunity to work with a website that would help me create my own web space. The name of the site is Pb works. Although I had the chance to look through other facinating sites (Wix, Wiki, Googlesites) this is the one that I chose to do my lesson on plants. It can be found here: Plants Webquest. I can use these Web 2.0 tools, especially PB Works, to further interest my class in learning online. My students love working with computers, and working with this website will help them to become more active in their learning. I feel that this could also be helpful when sharing presentations with co-workers, and presenting information in classes. This is are very useful tools.
This is my first time creating an online webquest, and I am very proud to share my work with you.
I hope you enjoy!

Power Point Alternatives

I have spent the majority of this week learning about alternatives to Power Point. I have found many useful ones, however, the one that I chose to use is Prezi Presentations. Some of the things that really drew me into using this one was the ease of use. My Presentation is found here: My First Prezi: How to Write a Research Paper . I found Prezi to be just as effective as Power Point and since all of your presentations are saved online, I found it to be very portable as well. You can't really lose what's online. I can see myself using this as an alternative to Power Point on a regular basis since it was so easy for me to use. I could use this with my students as well. I could definitely see them getting some sort of enjoyment out of seeing their presentations online.

While browsing the web, and working on different activities I have have the opportunity to learn about many different web 2.0 tools. I have explored, so far, Nings/Wikis, Blogs, and Social Bookmarking. All of these I can see be useful for many different reasons, but all are beneficial in keeping myself organized in the classroom, or keeping in contact with my students and other like minded educators.

The first thing I activity that I learned about was social bookmarking with Delicious. Delicious is a great web 2.0 tool that allows you to keep all of your favorite websites and links to other materials in one place. I found it very helpful that you could also create tag bundles using tags that you can create for the website. This is a really good tool for keeping things organized, and since Delicious is online, there are no flash drives to remember or to keep track of.

The second tool that I learned about in my quest to learn more about web 2.0 tools are different educational blogs or Nings. These blogs are especially helpful because they allow you to talk with other educators, share ideas, or talk about some of the things that are impacting education today. I chose to join the Ning Classroom 20 found here at www.classroom20.com The blog that I chose to participate in was the blog on Arts and Crafts Develop Thinking Skills by Debora Wondercheck. I thought that this blog was a good one to comment on because I still believe that allowing children to express themselves creatively through art is a good stress reliever, and outlet. Art is essential to learning.

These are some of the educational blogs that I also found useful. Links include:

http://ilearntechnology.com/

http://web20intheclassroom.blogspot.com/

http://kathyschrock.net/edtechblogs.htm

http://www.teachthecloud.com/2011/04/top-5-ed-tech-blogs.html

http://langwitches.org/blog/

I am looking forward to learning more about various other Web 2.0 tools! I will certainly update on the ones that I learn about. Thanks for reading!

Tameka