Week 4 Journal

How can I use tools "in the cloud" to easily manage 

and deliver feedback to my students?

 Last week was a whirlwind! That's why it's taken all of this week just to recover and get back on the ball. I got a taste of teaching full time in a 5th grade classroom BY MYSELF for a full week. It was so much harder than even my student teaching last semester- even though/because it was the same students. The reasons why children have to make life miserable for their substitute (whom they actually like, according to other teachers) would be a fabulous study!

To answer this week's question, I think Edmodo was the best tool I came across. I have heard it mentioned frequently in the last year or so, but never knew much about it. This tutorial is a great introduction to how this can be used to manage students' work AND your own: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sPqRanqJm6E

One of the biggest perks to Edmodo is that it's easy to use. I think just about every student has seen or used Facebook, and Edmodo is a lot like that. I asked a teacher I know about using it with her class, and she said they really like it. She can't use it for their assignments because of limited access; but many students interact with her on Edmodo just to get updates, keep in touch, or share their experiences with classmates. Like other social networks, students can post pictures and other materials to their hearts' content. The teacher can monitor posts, approve each post individually, or block selected students from posting anything. In a tech-saturated environment, this can be the only online tool you need for teaching. The creator of the tutorial above shows how to use it for saving all his teaching files in one place, creating assignments, grading, and much more. The students can use it as much or as little as the teacher decides- they could actually complete all their assignments online, as well as post their progress or steps along the way.

ClassDojo is a simple behavior management tool. It can be displayed on the teacher's computer or projected on a smartboard for immediate behavior feedback. The daily data can be charted to show improvement or challenges, times that are a particular challenge, or behaviors that can be targeted. Administrators and parents can also access the information to discuss it with their children.

Here is a great list of other free Cloud tools: http://www.educatorstechnology.com. These can just be used as easy-access storage, or a way to access student work and give them feedback. Here's another free blog with useful technology tools: http://educationwebcloud.blogspot.com/

A paid resource with lots of tools included is Adobe Creative Cloud. The current lowest price I can find for this is $19.99 per student and teacher per month. Ouch, quite pricey for us average joes, but if your kid was in a seriously technified school, maybe going for some kind of designing or other creative career, this could be worth it.

  

Last week I also finally got to talk "face to face" (I was just "voice") with my wiki partner. We used Google Hang Out, thanks to Chip and Lee holding our hands to get it started! That was fun, but since then with just the two of us being a "group", good ol' fashioned email has worked fine. We finally put the pedal to the metal and just might have the wiki page ready to go on the 19th.

I really enjoyed the twitter chat on Tuesday, which gave me some good info on using technologies like Diigo, Dropbox, Minecraft, simulations and how to stay safe from the snow blob (really!!)