Social+Learning+Technology

Information and Resources about Social Media Learning and Collaborative Online Software (Web 2.0)

Introduction: Students and teacher's in today's classrooms are no longer communicating through one medium at the same time. A student may be texting, on Facebook, may be sending a Tweet, or may be collaborating through Instagram all during the course of a school day. With Bring Your Own Device policies fully in place, it is the job of the educator to use a student's ability to communicate in various ways to help them to learn. Teachers also can use Collaborative Online Software and Social media to help them to create, plan, and access resources for all of their instructional needs. Students are also able to access these resources and respond to resources that are posted by their teacher.

Examples of Collaborative Online Software:

[|Pearltrees]

This website is dedicated to allowing people to organize their interests. They can pull together webpages, files, photos, or notes and save them in one place. Each collection can then be shared with others and accessed at any time. A person can also subscribe to the collections that others create.

Wikispaces

This website describes itself as a "social writing platform for educators." Teachers can create assignments, questions, projects, and more on this online space and students can access and work on it through all of their digital tools. It allows for teachers to easily comment and create class discussions as well as allowing for teachers to create groups for projects or assignments.

[|Google Docs]

This tool allows a document to be created anywhere and then accessed and edited by multiple people in different locations. Pictures, graphics, and tables can be easily inserted into the document. Documents are saved automatically and can be converted to Microsoft Word easily.

[|LiveBinders]

This website allows teachers to create "binders" with documents, websites, resources, assignments, and more. Each "binder" functions like a physical binder because it allows for specific tabs. The tabs can be easily shared and binders can be made public. Teachers can use this for students to complete projects, to give parents resources, and to collaborate with other educators. All of the binders can be edited and changed with ease.