Digital Learning Tools
Ithaca High School has been very aggressive with the technology implementation. Last school year (2015-2016) we rolled out Chromebooks to every student. Many teachers were nervous about what this would do to the classroom dynamic or if we would have students misusing them during class. I cannot speak for everyone, but I was very pleased with the effects of a 1 to 1 classroom.
The following are tools, software, operating systems, and equipment available in our school and classroom (including but not limited to: videoconferencing, streaming, photos sharing sites, video sharing sites, document sharing sites, podcasts, blogs, wikis, social networking sites, etc.)
Use the listed digital tools to help with building a student's global competency and to achieve your desired curricular goals. |
"IREX is an independent nonprofit organization dedicated to building a more just, prosperous, and inclusive world by empowering youth, cultivating leaders, strengthening institutions, and extending access to quality education and information." (This is the organization that made it possible for me to travel to Morocco in March of 2016.) They have put out a great document outlining resources to use in a global classroom (many of them are listed here and under additional resources). For extra information on international collaboration, check out their booklet below.
|
Digital Learning Tool Recommendations
Padlet is a user-friendly, free, and attractive tool for creating websites that look like bulletin boards or walls. You can post websites that look like bulletin boards or walls. You can post text, images, or videos in minutes. It’s also a tool for collaboration because multiple people can contribute to the wall during the same time without any conflict. There has been new updates added to Padlet that make it very appealing. For example, when you have a group or student posting on the Padlet wall, you can now reply back to them with a file, picture or video based on your need. If necessary you can make the wall private so no one can see the feedback that you are giving except for the person posting.
My Unit Based Design (UBD) lesson used Padlet often over the four days. This was a great resource for students to post their work, responses and summaries based on our Latitude vs. Temperature activity. It was more useful than Google Drive at collecting student work...it's nicely organized by class because I created separate Padlet's for each section. You can check out my UBD, here. |
I was not much of a Pinterest person, but as time went on and we were required to "pin" more frequently, I was coming across some really cool activities and even travel tips for Morocco. The possible items to search went far beyond what was even needed for class. I highly suggest making good use of this source, which can be placed on your phone as an app, too.
What is Pinterest? A social network that allows users to visually share, and discover new interests by posting (known as 'pinning' on Pinterest) images or videos to their own or others' boards (i.e. a collection of 'pins,' usually with a common theme) and browsing what other users have pinned. It is known as the world's catalog of ideas. |
TED-Ed is TED’s youth and education initiative. TED-Ed’s mission is to spark and celebrate the ideas of teachers and students around the world.
A great resource of videos spread over the educational spectrum. Many come with a few questions that you can do with your class as a recap. These videos are both thought provoking and informative. |
|
Edmodo is a 21st century learners educational website that takes the ideas of a social network and refines them and makes it appropriate for a classroom. Using Edmodo, students and teachers can reach out to one another and connect by sharing ideas, problems, and helpful tips. This site is very user friendly and is constantly staying up to date and allows you to connect with other "classroom" sites.
Asia Society is an excellent source as a leading dvocate for global education. They have published a guide for educators entitled "Educating for Global Competence: Preparing Our Youth to Engage the World" written by Veronica Boix Mansilla & Anthony Jackson. This document has many pages to help you understand each competence and follows up with student/teacher examples. At the end of each chapter they give you a section called "invitation to Ponder," with a few thoughtful questions to follow up from the previous examples in the chapter. This was a very useful resource and has been shared with teacher all over in the global education network.
The Global Citizenship in the Classroom: A Guide for Teachers, is a very helpful resource from Oxfam. They start with discussing what is a Global Citizen, and move to understanding what the key elements are. There is a section called "Global citizenship in classroom practice: a planning framework." This framework is designed to help you build the key elements of global citizenship into units of work on wide range of topics, including those that appear obviously global and those that appear less so at first glance. For any teacher who is looking to build their library with resources, this does a great job introducing how to ask questions, make connections, explore viewpoints and values, responding as active global citizens and assess learning.
|