The first community that I am joining is a community on Thinkfinity that I stumbled upon called Reading & Language Arts. While I am still unsure about how the communities work on Thinkfinity, I like the posts that are on the site. In particular, the latest post there was all about mobile apps from ReadWriteThink.org. Since I am a high school English teacher, my students are constantly using their phones. While many teachers become aggravated by this fact, I am interested in finding out how I can utilize SmartPhones in my classroom. In her article "Expanding the Concept of Literacy", Elizabeth Daley discusses the changes in literacy from the traditional print literacy to a multimedia literacy. Since students are using the phones, why not figure out a way to teach the students academic skills around incorporating these multimedia tools. One of the apps that I always suggest to my students is an app where they can have flashcards on their phone. In certain classes, one third of my students now take out their phones and immediately put their new vocab words and definitions into their phones so they can study right away. Plus, my students always have their phones on them so I tell them to flip through the words on the bus, or even during lunch to help them study.
The second community that I joined is called Everything Google on Thinkfinity. (I would have joined a community outside of Thinkfinity, but honestly I don't know how to find a trustworthy one!) I joined this second group because I think Google has so much to offer an educator and I only know the tip of the iceberg! I encourage my students to work in Google docs and I use their blogger site, but that is all I know how to do. My friend Jose actually uses Google maps to create a show of all of the locations in the literature that he teaches. I am hoping to learn how to do more in my classes. I didn't know about Google docs until I started Rutgers and it has certainly helped me through many of my assignments. Hopefully it will help my students in the future!
You had some great ideas!
ReplyDeleteIt is true that now almost everyone has a smartphone. Even kids in 5th grade which was shocking to me. So why not make use of it? The flashcards on phone is a great tool. Students can flip through them anytime they want and all they need is their phone. My only concern would be how do you monitor if the students are actually on their phones doing work and not texting/social networking while in your class?
I commend your embrace of your students' phones as tools to engage for the classroom, not against.
ReplyDeleteI am also a part of the Thinkfinity Reading and Language Arts group, and I also loved the suggested mobile apps. The video we watched during the first week of class, "Pay Attention" also had some great suggestions for utilizing phones in the classroom. I am interested to see what you discover about the effective uses for SmartPhones in education.
Hi Susan,
ReplyDeleteIt sounds like you're not sure what you'd like to do for your MMP which has led to you not really being sure what the purpose of the community group assignment is in relation to your project.
Basically, the point of online community groups, particularly in relation to your MMP, is to garner ideas from other educators in your content area for including multimedia in your pedagogical practice.
When it comes to your MMP, if you're thinking about incorporating multimedia into a particular unit that you teach at school, for example, you may come across one or more teachers within a group you've joined that already did something similar, which can help you hone and develop your project over the course of the next several weeks. Does this make sense?
Additionally, joining community groups can be a huge boost to your professional development in general -- for your own personal gain. While a lot of the PD offered within school settings is your standard sit there and be lectured at, there are many educators who've taken it upon themselves to get tech savvy, who've joined Twitter and created hashtags that are specifically dedicated to educational technology (#edtech) educational discussion in general (#edchat) and even mobile learning (#mlearning, #ipaded, and #elearning). These are just some of the many networks you can look to for ideas. So long as there is fostered dialogue between educators about whatever topic you select for your MMP, then you've fulfilled the requirements (and purpose) of this particular task.
I hope this helps with your MMP journey... I look forward to seeing what you decide to complete for your project this semester.
Good job!
prof h