Chapter 4 in Untangling the Web, talks about social networking skills. Technology in the past two decades has certainly made its mark. TodaysMeet is a backchannel website that a teacher can use for discussions and classroom interactions. It can be private, or even public. One thing you can do is let them answer questions while watching a video.It can be useful for writing and answering questions.
Another network you can use is Skype in the classroom. Skype was one of the earliest online video chats to come about and has become very popular. Video conferencing has become a huge thing in businesses, as well as for individuals. You can now use Skype in the classroom to find other educators and experts, as well as the other way around.
An additional site is called Kidblog. Kidblog is a blogging tool that is designed especially to have a safe space for students to blog. What is great about this blog site is not only do you express your thoughts by blogging, but you get to create your blog look. An idea they give teachers is to have a Drop Everything and Blog Time. Once you teach a lesson, you can then give students time to express their learning experience. Edmodo is another useful site. It was actually one of the first social network sites assigned for schools. Teachers sign up for free, make a class, and the students enter a code to join the class. It is similar to a facebook page. Teachers will be able to post assignments, questions, quizzes, polls, and notes online for everyone to see. They can even add documents. You can also broadcast messages to the class, subgroups, or an individual.
The last social networking site they give us is Twitter. This semester is really the first one where I have used Twitter for social networking through my major. I never fully understood how I can use it, but now that I do, I understand how beneficial it can really be. You can send a direct message to someone, post a tweet, and connect. By
hashtagging you can find certain tweets, as well as, connect with a certain company or individual. Tweetdeck is a way that you can keep track of certain steaming tweets. You can filter them into different categories to help stay organized. It can seem like a lot to handle, but when you stay organized it really is beneficial.
Pinterest has become a new phenomenon that shares ideas through pin boards. You can create different pin boards for different subjects. It is almost like bookmarks for the internet so you can save ideas and come back to them later. Teachers have recently began using pinterest to their advantage. If you are new to Pinterest it can definitely be confusing at first. The website gives us examples of how beneficial Pinterest can assist teachers. You can start by finding lesson plans and other ideas for subjects. There are pictures and craft ideas to decorate and rearrange your classroom. You can even use it to find field trip ideas. It is also helpful to learn new ways to teach a lesson, or even download some material. You can even share your ideas and pin it to share with other educators!
IFTTT is a website that allows you to make connections through social sites. You can choose one thing using the statement; if this, then that. It is also compatible with Evernote which is awesome. This Evernote article gives us 5
examples of IFTTT to Power your day. One of the combinations includes if you tweet, then it will save it to Evernote. The second one is if you make a Gmail purchase, it will send the receipt to Evernote. You can move tagged articles as research into Evernote, and can even send a text and include a # as a to do list and it will send straight to Evernote. Lastly, you can submit your fitbit information straight into Evernote. These 5 seem very useful and I can’t wait to try them out.
Weebly is a website that helps build new websites! It is super easy and guides you through steps. They have released the third generation of their product, Carbon. Carbon gives you an app center that can help other business needs. The apps will allow people to see which ones are relevant to their business. Don’t worry because all of the apps in the app center will be approved by Weebly first. Weebly’s look as a whole has changed. It even is compatible for IOS and Androids now.
In class we were discussing websites we can use that will help us create a website. Google sites and Wix are two of the websites we learned. What’s great about these are that they are both easy and free to manage and work with. One of my favorite sites that I will be using to make my own website is Weebly. It allows you to pick a theme that you want your
website to have. You can drag and drop text and images onto your website where you want them. There is no coding required! You can even make an eCommerce store.
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