Learning Management Systems : The Online Classroom

This week we explored Edmodo and Schoology , both are learning management systems (LMS).  Which is a fancy way of saying software used for  administration, tracking, reporting and delivery of online education. (E-learning) .

I am not an online teacher, but I can see application for both of these LMS in a regular classroom. You can post resources that your students can then view or review in the classroom or at home. Students who are ill or sick can easily get and track their homework.  Edmodo and Schoology both have pros and cons.

I am most familiar with Edmodo so I tended to gravitate more towards it when checking them both out. Watch this clip to get a brief overview of Edmodo.

Schoology seems to be a clear winner if you are needing an interface for students to be able to easily submit assignments from an Ipad . I also really liked schoology's resources, they were easy to search and seemed to be some really awesome stuff. Check out this clip for an overview of Schoology.

Twitter not just social media... Your Own Personal Learning Network

Most of us have heard of Twitter.  In case you haven't...

Twitter is described by Wikipedia as  "an online social networking service that enables users to send and read short 140-character messages called "tweets". Registered users can read and post tweets, but unregistered users can only read them. "

This week I discovered another side of Twitter, Twitter Chats! I was struggling to understand how they worked at first  until I found this tutorial by @coolcatteacher. 

I found a list of some planned educational chats on cybrarymans page. I found some really cool chats about education and ideas to integrate technology into the classroom. Basically you search the assigned hashtag for the chat for example #edchat , and you can see all that is being discussed and talked about.You can retweet things you want to remember or favorite things you agree with. Chats are also a good way to  build your network. Other people who are interested in the same things as you will be participating in the chat. You can chose to follow them and some may even follow you back!

The Bloggers-Sphere ; Focused on Education

I like the idea of following educational blogs. I see value in it lesson ideas, motivation, and gaining more knowledge. I am more of a find a post I am interested in  read it and move on sort of person. I am not sure if that is because before I did not have an easy way to keep track of them . I am now trying to utilize Feedly . Feedly is a way to store links to and keep up with all the blogs you want to follow.

Here are 8-Tips for building your Feedly!! Tips for building your feedly 

^^^ Is a RSS symbol, I had to look up what RSS stands for. RSS (Rich Site Summary) is a format for delivering regularly changing web content. Many news-related sites, weblogs andIother online publishers syndicate their content as an RSS Feed to whoever wants it. 

Clicking on that symbol on a blog allows you to easily mange the things you want to follow. I found that this blog explained it best. Copywrite Blogger

Google Tools Are ...Not to Cool for School!

Google has many unique and great tools that you can use in the classroom. A few that I find to be the most useful are Google Body, now called zygote-body and Google translator.

Google Body/Zygote body would best be described as Google Earth for the body. Click here to check out Zygotebody . This awesome website explains how to use Zygote body and has links to lesson ideas.Zygote Body how to .  It is also an app.  which you can use it to do  3D dissections. Here is a video that explains how to use the app. 
Below are links to possible lesson plans you can use with Zygot body:
Systems of the Human Body
The Human Body Corp.

Google Translator:  is a free automatic translator. It works without the intervention of human translators, using state-of-the-art technology instead. Google Translate currently supports translation between 57 languages.

In the Spanish class here students wrote notes to their favorite teachers telling them about things they have enjoyed learning about in class. They wrote them in Spanish, I used Google translator and entered the words they had written then translated it from Spanish to English. It was somewhat choppy, since English and Spanish to not speak in the same direction if you will. I was able to piece together what they were meaning. I decided to use Google translator to respond to my students also in Spanish. My sister in law is Bi-lingual I had her check the return notes to make sure they made since. They did not to her, she said it was very garbled and hard to read in Spanish that the words it had used to translate did not really make since, but she said that much as I had to garble it together going from Spanish to English, it does get your basic point across but does always make use proper grammar and make good word choices.  

Check out this tutorial on how to translate your webpage to another language using Google translator. 

My VERY OWN website!!

This week I explored the  world of Google Sites, and created my very own class webpage. I am not going to lie it was QUITE a challenge for me.  I tend to be a jump in and play with it until I figure it out person. Unfortunately I picked the very user unfriendly classroom template, which I do NOT recommend. Since I am stubborn I stuck it out and worked with it until I created a page I am happy with check out my site here.  . The classroom template was the most confusing thing I have ever used. I would like to try to build once from scratch and see how that process goes.
FYI: If you decide you want to change your theme here are detailed directions.

Want to create your own?? This  video may help.

Check out these sites  on how to make your own classroom site. Make a classroom site 

A Teachers Guide for using Google sites in the classroom. 

Handy guides for teachers looking to integrate technology  

Other Examples of Classroom sites: Miss. Schoenbergers 3rd Grade   Coach Allens PE Page

Picasa from my casa to yours

Picasa is an image organizer and image viewer for organizing and editing digital photos, plus an integrated photo-sharing website. Get Picasa Here 

Picasa is an amazing tool for sharing your photos with family and friends or even for having students create projects. You can edit, store and share all your photos to this site and have access to them from any internet connected device.  

Youtube Who knew?

Most everyone who uses a computer has seen or used YouTube, an online video sharing site. Whether you are using it to view  fun clips , motivation or educational purposes. it is an amazing tool!  Make the most out of YouTube You can even edit your own videos.

 

A new feature I just learned about and love is Quiet Tube, it allows you to view any YouTube video without the suggested videos , ads or comments . Which makes them safe to show in class, or share on a class website.