Top Ten Tech Tools

I was asked a few times in Shanghai about a list of things that I consider to be "top tools," things that I think are essential both for me and my students. Here's my list:

1.) Google docs - I keep my daybook all online. This way it is with me no matter where I travel, if I'm at home compared to school, etc. It also allows me to share it with parents, kids, other teachers, my administrator, etc. In the classrroom using this suite of tools it allows us to create far less paper. Kids complete their work and share it with me. Then I can comment on it, grade it and send it back to them. No paper created. As well, over the year it gives us an entire record of things they have written. Easy if you need to do portfolios of some kind because nothing is ever lost.

2.) iGoogle - Another free Google product, using iGoogle we can design pages of feeds that we want to share with kids as a starting point to any study. For example, working on environmental issues, I started by designing a page with about five blogs on it that I had found and wanted the kids to read. Once I shared this tab with them, I then ask them to find additional sources of information to add that we can use as a class. This is a great way for kids to begin to evaluate information for their own use and for the classroom as a whole. Tab can turn into the textbook for a class quite easily so it is important for both you and your students to choose information sources carefully.

3.) Blogs - Our blogs are face to the world. They are our personal publishing platforms. They are open and public. Anyone can access them. I teach about safety and responsibility online. Kids are responsible for keeping their own spaces updated and well designed. I tell them that this space is their place to make their first connections and first impressions on the world so it is best if they are good. I consider their blogs to be hybrid spaces. The kids are free to write about their weekends, their home lives, their hobbies. They area also usually responsible for at least one post per week that has grown out of their igoogle reading.

4.) Wikis - Our major wiki is the textbook for our history class. It is a catch all funnel of information gathered from places online, from books, videos, audio files and images. It grows and expands over time, always changing. I love for kids to look back and see who else had edited their pages and what they have added to the information we have access to. I don't clear out this space every year as many people do. I believe it is a growing, living thing, something that kids can legitimately contribute knowledge to and feel proud of, knowing that it will still be there later

5.) Skype - Skype is the one application that for me, as a professional, has had the greatest impact on my life. I have a network of about sixty people that I am closely tied in with. I can talk to these people, in all of their corners of the globe when I need them. They can help me out when I'm stuck, contribute to the life of my classroom and also become real friends. In our busy lives across the globe and across timezones, several people who I consider to be my best friends live half way around the world and I don't think there is a thing wrong with that at all.

6.) Flickr - Flickr is coming on fast with me. While I always have enjoyed just searching around some times in it, the incredible vastness of this resource is becoming much more important to me. I have a pro flickr account for my classroom and this is the one piece of technology that I will pay for. This year I am going to get some of the kids in my class to take pictures each day. Over time I'm hoping this will help students to take better pictures, but also that it will serve as a great resource and record of the life of our classroom over the year.

7.) Phun and Scratch - This summer I listened as John Davitt described software such as this as "struggleware." I liked that. Free products like these require kids to take control of technology, perform some easy programming tasks and use them for creative purposes. Scratch  especially has a large community online where you can go to ask questions, view and download projects made by other users (described by Mitch Resnick, the creator of the software as Youtube for Scratch). I love the idea of being able to download projects made by other people, see the coding they have designed and then remix it yourself. Larning in action.

8.) Audacity - Another free must have, Audacity is voice editing software that allows you to make your own mp3s. They miht be music, voice or a combination of both. Simple to use and yet very powerful, I like Audacity because it allows kids to learn a new medium to express themselves in. Mos students are relatively inexperienced doing this kind of work so doing things with timelines, drawing in effects and generally learning to work in layers of voiceovers, music and effects forces their literacies often into new and unexplored corners. Once kids can do this the move to video editing is relatively easy because it is the same weaving together of information to form a coherent whole that takes place in both.

9.) Google Earth - Love Google Earth. While I don't use this tool as much as I could and definitely need to spend some time with somebody like Dean Shareski or David Jakes on this one, I simply believe that this tool has the potential to change our entire concept of studying geography. The ability to explore a place as you read a novel, study a country and also see the photos and videos that people have built in as well is an excellent, powerful resource.

10.) Video Games - I want to stop at ten so I'm going to cheat and bundle gaming together in classrooms. I use things such as SimCity, Children of the Nile, Caesar and soon (I hope, if I can pull some money together) Spore to explore and simulate things we couldn't do otherwise. These are the language of our students and there is an opportunity with them to extend and promote powerful experiences and discussions which grow out of playing the game itself.

This is a list of tools and it is always dangerous to do this because I don't want to be promoting and pointing to new tools for the sake of the tool itself. Each tool requires its own form of pedagogy and learning that circles around it that allows new forms of learning to emerge. You can play all the video games you like, but if you are not going to adjust your classroom practices to genuinely incorporate new ideas, you might as well keep right on photocopying worksheets.

Tags: classrooms, technology

Comments

[Cheryl Oakes]

This is so great that you have reflected upon this important list. We should all reflect, I feel a challenge coming on.
Cheryl :-)