Podcasts, Webcasts & Webinars

This week I explored the following multimedia tools: Podcasts, Webcasts and Webinars. I am now a huge fan of podcasts for personal and professional use. I could definitely integrate these into the GED classroom to assist students in exploring subject matter or to record class lectures for review.
 I am considering adding a webcast to the website I am creating for tutor training because I like the personal connection that this technology allows for. Webinars I am still not a huge fan of as a learning platform due to the technological challenges but I do see the value in connecting professionals at a distance to share information.

Webcasts
Check out this on-demand webcast: Using Technology to Foster Collaboration in Education

Podcasts
Podcasts: The Nuts and Bolts of Creating Podcasts- Great place to start learning about podcasting and access resources to create your own.

Want to know how to  integrate podcasting into your classroom, check out the  Teacher's Guide on the Use of Podcasting in Education

Check out this list of podcasts that you could integrate as a teaching/learning tool: 10 Fantastic Educational Podcasts I can see some great applications here for adult basic education!

Webinars
Here is a great introduction to Webinars created by Deanna Criddle that explains how a Webinar differs from other multimedia tools and explains its features: Webinars in Education

Can Social Networking Tools Promote Learning?

Encouraging connections in the classroom

Social networking is such a buzz now as many people regularly tweet, post, and pin to stay connected to each other as well as keep informed on topics that interest them. I remember when Facebook first got started and ever since I have used it to connect with family and friends at a distance. I use Pinterest to search for and organize meal ideas and activities to get me through the long winters with my son. Have I been missing out on other potential applications for social media? Should I have brought this tool into the classroom long ago? 

Through this weeks exploration and discussion I, along with some of my peers have found some great resources on social networking in education. Check them out!

Articles: 

Build Your Online Reputation With Twitter

Social Media is teaching the world English

Can technology solve America's literacy problem?

Why Mobile Learning Apps Are The Future of Education

Social Networking Sites (some of the most popular):

LinkedIn- Professional networking site

Twitter- Information feed where posts are short 140 character or less updates (tweets)

Pinterest- Visual social bookmarking site 

tumblr- micro-blogging platform

Instagram- Share photos and videos on a variety of social networking platforms

flickr-  Host and share photos and videos from any device

Designed for the classroom to mimic popular social networking sites (Ex: Facebook)

Schoology- Safe social networking site for in the classroom

•        Student tutorial for Schoology
•        Teacher tutorial for Schoology

Edmodo- Safe social networking site for in the classroom

Are wikis a useful educational tool?

As Dr. Friedberg had pointed out in his video, wikis can be useful classroom tools for collaboration and creativity. If you take some time to look at examples of wikis in education, you will see that this learning tool is used as early as elementary school up to the Doctoral level. Below are a couple examples of how other teachers have implemented wiki's:

The Adult Literacy Education Wiki - One stop shop for learning about and contributing to the field of adult education. 

EduTechWiki- Technology resource wiki for teachers, researchers, instructional designers, etc. 

Remedial Work Wiki- Wiki designed for a 6th grade EFL (English as a Foreign Language) class

U.S History Wiki- Mr. Armstrong designed this wiki for his 8th grade U.S History  class to promote student investigation of history.


Looking for resources to implement a wiki of your own? Check out Tony Karrer's eLearning Blog for a list of 60 resources for using wikis in learning.
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This week I had an opportunity to participate in a class wiki, adding and editing content. I can see the potential for this learning platform at many levels of education but especially post-secondary. Editing required careful consideration of content already posted, synthesizing material from research, and posting in a way that continued to develop an idea as opposed to breaking it down. There was clear evidence of barn raising (collaborative discussion) in this weeks activities within the wiki. Overall I enjoyed the format but there were some moments of confusion since the content is being continually changed.The facilitators for the week did a great job of modeling, guiding, and monitoring student engagement which I would say is absolutely necessary for the beginning stages of a class wiki. Teachers need to comfortable with the wiki format and be able to help students trouble shoot prior to asking student to engage with it. 

BLOGS & BLOGGING

To Blog or not to Blog? A Question of application to higher education.

Issac Kwok 
Blogging Montage from the cover of a report on blogging by CK

Being new to the whole blog thing, which I am sure is blatantly obvious to a seasoned blogger, I needed a little help figuring out where to start. I took a brief and free online tutorial offered through gcflearnfree.org.

The specific tutorial I accessed was:

 All About Blogs http://www.gcflearnfree.org/socialmedia/blogbasics. 

 Beginning with a general overview of blogging was helpful to me as I would consider myself somewhat uneducated on the topic. Through six modules I learned the multiple purposes for blogs, how to develop my own, and how to follow multiple other blogs in an RSS reader. I appreciated the provided worksheet on developing my own blog. I downloaded this document to start brainstorming my own ideas for a blog and then used the Blogger flowchart to choose my own blogging service. And, that is how I ended up here!

Links were provided within each section so that I could access additional information in regards to RSS readers, micro-blogging options, or blog development sites. This layout helped the tutorial be very straight forward and gave me the option as the learner to take on as much as I could handle at once.

Of course, after taking the tutorial I found one of those "forgotten" books that had fallen behind my bookcase. Coincidentally the book is titled,  Blogs,Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms (2010, 3rd edition) By: Will Richardson. 

 Blogs don't get enough credit as educational tools. Although I have not taken a formal course that involved blogging, I see potential for this technology in f2f as well as distance education.  Blogs and blogging are a way to bring a non-traditional platform for collaboration into the classroom. Blogs can provide a collaborative atmosphere for discussion of ideas, debate, and reflection that are all based in critical thinking skills.  A sense of community is built through blogs through ownership of ideas, expression of opinions, and demonstration of value for individual ideas.  Richardson (2010) makes the case for blogs as a tool to promote constructivism, democracy, reflection and metacognitive analysis (p.26-27). I believe blogging in education can be used beyond its typical application as a digital journal to encourage collaborative and higher level processing and discussion of content.

Take a few minutes to hear an expert, Jeremy Friedberg, PhD., speak on behalf of his experience teaching with wikis and blogs in higher education. 

WELCOME!

I love working within Adult Basic Education and am always looking for new ways to re-energize the classroom and improve my practice. My career in education began in the middle school classroom where I taught for five years in 6th and 7th grade. A move out of state prompted me to re-examine my interests and I began volunteering for a local Adult Basic Literacy Education (ABLE) program. I became an immediate fan of the organization and the populations served. Realizing my career ambitions, I began my studies in Adult Education and Training through Colorado State University (CSU).  I continue to learn through my studies as well as in professional capacities as a GED instructor, curriculum writer, and tutor coordinator. This blog will serve as a platform to share strategies for adult education and trainings, discuss hot topics in adult and workforce education, and share reflections on books related to the field. 

I look forward to learning with you!