Collaboration in the Digital Classroom

Want to learn more about collaborating in a digital classroom? I am going to offer an online facilitated professional development course called Collaboration in the Digital Classroom. This is from Intel® Teach Elements. Below is a QR code that links to a flyer and video explaining more about the course.

Here is a description from Intel® on Collaboration in the Digital Classroom: 

"Provides an in-depth look at collaboration with a focus on online collaborative tools. In this course, you will see how collaboration helps students develop 21st century thinking skills, deepen content understanding, and prepare them for the global world. You’ll learn how to plan and manage collaboration activities that integrate online collaborative tools—increasingly part of our globally connected workplaces.

• Learn how to find and choose the best Web-based tools to support collaboration
• Learn how to manage and support collaborators
• Understand and promote ethical, appropriate, and safe online behavior.

The course offers opportunities to apply the collaboration concepts with action planning exercises."

The start date of this workshop will be September 23, 2013 and we will end on Friday, November 15, 2013. We will have an optional face to face meeting to cover how to navigate this moodle. The optional face to face meeting will be on Tuesday, September 24, 2013 at 4801 Bethania Station Road in the IRC computer lab from 4:00 - 5:00 p.m. This workshop is limited to 15 participants.

Read More

Are you addicted yet?

My name is Marlo Gaddis. I am addicted to Pinterest.



Pinterest is the latest tool for organizing and sharing content on the web. Visualize a large corkboard where you can collect ideas, plan events, or find inspiration. Now make it digital so that you can browse the ideas of others. Add a dash of collaboration and you have Pinterest.

By connecting with your social media accounts in Facebook and Twitter, you can easily find your friends, family and co-workers. As they pin new things, you can see what they find valuable on the web. Most people have boards that sort by recipes, books to read, fashion, home design, and much more. But as always, smart educators are finding a way to make this tool a great way to collaborate with other educators. As a former elementary school teacher, I love seeing my educator friends and co-workers share lesson ideas, posters, crafts, websites and so much more! The best part about Pinterest is that the links are visual so that you don't have to guess what they are.

If you have a smartphone, you can download the Pinterest app in the iTunes Store or in the Android Market.

Read More

Collaboration Corner

Most of the time when I think of classes collaborating, it involves talking or working on the same project at the exact same time. The many technology tools that we now have available make it even more possible for classes to collaborate even when on opposite sides of the world.
I stumbled across the Collaboration Corner Blog one day. This blog is an example of two classes in opposite hemispheres (one in America and the other in Australia) collaborating.
From a page on this blog:

Since early 2009, Mrs Yollis' third grade class and Miss McGeady's grade two class have been blogging buddies.

We created this blog at the start of 2010 to collaborate and learn together.
***

We are finding that through technology, the barriers of distance, time zones and cultures can be broken down and collaboration is a very powerful tool!

***

Have a look at some of the great things we are doing and leave us a comment!

On that blog, you can find clocks that show the current time for each school. (I think that would be a great way to introduce time zones.) There are a couple of projects both classes are completing throughout the year.

Project #1: What's for lunch? This project involves each class posting pictures of descriptions of the contents of a student's lunchbox a couple times a week. There are questions on the blog for students to discuss after seeing and reading about the lunches.
Project #2: Our School This project both schools posting about about various places around their school each week. The students in each class are hoping to learn more about their blogging buddies.
***Notice the variety of web 2.0 tools used for posting videos and pictures in the blog

Read More