Saturday, December 27, 2014

Evaluating Technology Tools for Global Learning

Web 2.0 allows teachers to connect their classrooms to schools around the world. This is a great way for students to learn global citizenship. There are many different tools and sites that teachers can use to connect to other teachers for their own personal learning network and to connect their students to other students and experts. 

Twitter is an amazing tool for teachers to meet and share with experts in the field of education. There are nightly Twitter Chats where people meet to discuss a relevant topic. Students could also use it as a source of informational articles when researching a subject or as a tool to have a local or global discussion or even a debate.  I created a video for EDU642 on using Twitter and Twubs, a related tool that allows following of hashtags and would be a great classroom tool.  There are several tools or apps that work with Twitter, like TweetDeck and Twitterfall.  Many schools use Twitter for student discussions. Here is a good article about how to get started using Twitter with students, by Steven W. Anderson. 

Sites like ePals and Global School Net allow teachers to connect their classes with others to work on projects and share email to learn about students from other parts of their world.  

 Blogging is a great way to share your thoughts with the world. There are several blogging platforms, but all can be shared via the URL link with others.  A good tool for keeping up with several blog sites is Feedly.  Quadblogging is a program that links 4 classes together to alternate blogging and commenting over a 4-week period on each others' blogs. Read more about Quadblogging at Sylvia Tolisano's Langwitches blog. 
Google Hangouts and Skype allow for synchronous communication between groups but are tricky with time zones. Students can interact in real time with those from another class, even play Mystery Location as an icebreaker to guess where the other class is. YouTube allows asynchronous sharing, for example, the sister schools project between Hannah Senesh Community Day School in NYC and St Andrews Matale Hill Primary School in Uganda.


Edmodo is also a great tool for teachers and classrooms to connect.  There are many teacher communities where you can ask for opinions or help with a topic, or find other classes with which to connect. The Global Read Aloud project created by Pernille Ripp uses many tools, including blogs, wikis, Skype and Edmodo to connect teachers and classes so they can share reading and discussing the books of the year.

 Site references:

 Anderson, S. Blogging about the Web 2.0 Classroom  http://blog.web20classroom.org/2011/06/twitter-in-schools-getting-started.html

Global Classroom  http://globalclassroom2014-15.wikispaces.com/Mystery+Location+Skype

Global Connectedness in Education    https://sites.google.com/site/globalconnectednessineducation/sister-cities-sister-schools/website-design

Ripp, P. Global Read Aloud http://globalreadaloud.com

Tolisano, S.  Langwitches  http://langwitches.org/blog/2012/07/02/quad-blogging-reflection/


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6 comments:

  1. MichelleJanuary 2, 2015 at 1:30 PM

    Your blog never ceases to amaze me! You have mentioned such a wide variety of tools here. I am wondering how you heard about all these tools, such as the Global Read Aloud project, Quadblogging, and the Mystery Location game. These are all new to me! Do you learn about these sites through blogs, Twitter, or some other way? Your blog has definitely become a place where I could see many educators coming to and learning from. Keep up the good work!

    I really like the idea of using Skype or Google Hangouts to connect with another class around the world. These resources are similar to ePals or Global School Net, but require less time and less of a commitment, which might be better for some teachers. Have you used either Skype or Google Hangouts to talk with another classroom before? If so, did everything go smoothly, or were there any issues that came up?

    Thanks again for sharing all these resources.

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    1. Cindy MJanuary 4, 2015 at 7:11 PM

      This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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    2. Cindy MedJanuary 4, 2015 at 8:01 PM

      Michelle, I forgot to mention that the global read aloud I first heard about from our school librarian. We don't want to forget about the personal connections too!

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    3. Cindy MedJanuary 4, 2015 at 8:12 PM

      All of the above. I started with Twitter which led to connections to different blogs and found several that really interested me. It seems like one leads to another as there are a lot of ideas out there. I tried to set up a Skype Mystery location last year, but our schedules did not work out so I am going to try to do it again this year. My favorite blogs are listed in my blog roll to the right.

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  2. Mrs.HLaneJanuary 3, 2015 at 7:59 AM

    Great post! I too use Google Hangouts and edmodo, they are great tools in the classroom and as professional groups. I have not used them globally but would love too. I have used them with other classes in the district and it worked well, we had a few bugs to work out but overall a success!

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  3. Cindy MJanuary 4, 2015 at 7:34 PM

    Hilary, I read this week about a way to do an asynchronous Mystery skype using video, here's the link, scroll down to #4 at the end. https://education.skype.com/mysteryskype/how-it-works

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