'In the Clouds'

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TechLearning.com

The assignment 'In the Clouds' has been a lot of fun! I did not realize that there were so many online collaborative learning sites already in existence. The possibilities are endless as to the resources that teachers have available for them to assist them in educating students at any age.

The first site that I chose to explore was 'dynamo.dictionary.com' . The goal of this website is 'to empower word discovery and learning.' This site allows its users to build their vocabulary through the use of dictionaries, a thesaurus and even playing word games. What I like most is the ability to create your own word list. As you create your word list, definitions become available for you to choose from or you can create your own.  Then you 'tag' your list to help you and others find the list through a search. Students can study the new word list by matching, listening to the words or using flashcards. A creative and interactive way to stimulate the learning of words.

The next site that interested me was 'IXL.com'.  IXL.com makes math practice fun. It allows teachers and parents to monitor the progress of their students (Pre-K thru grade 10) and motivate them through interactive games and practice questions. This site is unique in that is actually allows you to choose your state standards (Ohio 2010 Common Core State Standards) and has practice questions that are linked to each standard. The site also allows parents and teachers to chart the progress of a student as they work through the practice questions and attain higher skill levels.

The third site that I thought might be useful as an education tool is 'Kerpoof'. Kerpoof is a website that encourages students to have fun discovering things and being creative. Students can make a drawing or artwork, tell a story, or  make an animated movie and vote on other movies, stories and drawings that other people have made.  This site would offer an enjoyable and interactive way for students to complete writing assignments in English and Composition classes and other courses such as science and social studies where a presentation or report is required.

The use of tags, tag clouds and social bookmarking is revolutionizing the way our educators approach teaching and the way our students learn. By using tags and social bookmarking, educators can influence the online content a student has access to for their particular course/subject. Students spend less time surfing the web for relevant data for research and the chance of getting useless, incorrect and inappropriate material is greatly diminished.  Through social bookmarking educators are able to track a students research progress by seeing what items the student has tagged and bookmarked. The same concept applies to students, as they can see what their classmates have tagged and bookmarked for research projects. Of particular value to an educator might be the ability to collaborate and share common content for their area(s) of study with their colleagues. The concept of tags and social bookmarking is not going away. In order to maximize the potential of this new technology, educators and students need to continue to explore how the use of these online tools can assist in the learning process.