Texas ASCD 2010 Collaboration in the Classroom

Collaboration in the Classroom Texas ASCD 2010

Collaborative Note Taking with Todaysmeet.

If you are thinking about using a Web 2.0 tool for collaboration, there is not a better way to get started than with TodaysMeet. It is simple to set up, no user name or password required and students type their name into your meeting room to get started. Thank you to Heidi Hayes Jacobs for showing us this tool.

Go Try it... http://www.todaysmeet.com/

Wiffiti

Wiffiti provides a safe environment to express student ideas and even pictures of student activities.

Check out the Example below...

Should student's cellphones be banned?


How to join Wiffiti
Step 1:
Go to the Wiffiti website and click on the sign up button in the upper right hand corner of the screen.

Step 2:
Fill out the username and password form

Step 3:
Wait for confirmation email and click on link to authorize log in and re-log in.

Step 4:
Watch How-to-Video --- (Click to watch)

The 4 C's

Communication, Collaboration, Creativity, and Critical Thinking

CircleDoc: Collaborate in Real Time using PowerPoint

Have you ever tried to collaborate in PowerPoint? The conversation usually goes like this... "I will do slides 1-5 and you do slides 6-10 and I will combine them for our presentation" or you would simply log into Google Docs and collaborate in the Google cloud. CircleDoc is an add on to PowerPoint that allows you collaborate with unlimited users of your choosing in real time.

Educational Uses:

• Collaborate with other teachers on a project

• Have students collaborate in class without using the same computer
• Students can collaborate at home as longs as they PowerPoint
  

Collaborative Web Sites: Draw and Analyze with Others

Several months ago I shared Flockdraw a simple collaboration tool that enabled teachers or students to share content across the classrooms. One of Flockdraw's strength was its simplicity, so you might be ready to move on to a full featured collaboration tool. I am going to share two more that are powerful collaboration tools for the classroom.
Dabbleboard & CoSketch are Web 2.0 collaboration sites, unlike Flockdraw you can import your own images to modify, manipulate and share.

Educational Examples:

• Upload a battle map and have students draw troop movements
• Upload a picture and separate into quadrants for a "History Alive" type of analysis
• Challenge another class down the hall or across the globe to a game of Vocabulary "Pictionary"
  

Five Reasons to Celebrate the New Year

I’m really not into making New Year’s resolutions but this is a good time to reflect on the past and make plans for the future or make changes, so here are some ideas for your classroom along that line…

1. Take a picture of your class once a week engaged in some type of learning activity; post it to a blog and describe. Solicit comments from students about what they liked/disliked or what else they would like to know about the topic.
2. Have one student each week record an audio podcast of something that was learned, an announcement of upcoming events, or even a public service type of announcement and post to your website.
3. Create a USTREAM account and broadcast one lesson per week.
4. Expand your teaching resources by setting up a SKYPE account and contacting one outside source per week.
5. Pick the top 5 challenges on TAKS. Divided you class into small groups, and then have each group make a TAKS review video and present to the class. Videos can be posted online and shared with other classes.

If you have more ideas please share in the comments, and let me know if you need help with any of the New Year’s Celebration events above!

Thank-you http://technologyteacher.edublogs.org/ for letting me share this.