I am in my last term of the MET program so I have collected and tested a few technologies along the way. One key point that I learned from ETEC 565 was that it’s important to think about why you are using technology and to use technology to support your teaching practice rather than having technology take the lead. I found the following illustration published in the creative commons and thought that it illustrated the point very well…
Below is a list of the technology that I’ve been testing and using since starting the MET Program. I only included technologies that I’ve actually worked with and found useful for my practice.
Communicate
Phone and Video Conferencing, Chats
Blogs & E-Portfolios
- http://wordpress.org
Very popular free blog software that can be used to develop an ePortfolio or many other types of blogs.
Multimedia Development Tools
- Clip Extractor
Extract videos for reference or reuse for educational purposes - Real Media – Video extractor
Extract videos for reference or reuse for educational purposes - ZD Soft Screen Recorder
desktop recording, video recording, and game recording - Windows Live MovieMaker
compose and publish videos
Storytelling
- Xtranormal
Animation software in which you enter text, select avitars, voices, and scenes and the tool works it’s magic. - VoiceThread
An application that supports collaborative storytelling focussed on voices but supports the inclusion of text and image as well.
Immersive Environments
- SecondLife
Immersive virutal environment
Educate
Learning Mangement Systems
- Moodle Learning Management System & Community
Free, open source LMS which includes functionality to incorporate chat, discussion boards, web pages, and assessments.
Assessment Software
- Articulate Quizmaker
software to support the development of interactive quizes that incorporate multimedia capabilities such as embedding videos, interactivity, images, and text.
Game Development
- Scratch
Game development software to support the development of educational games.
Collaborate
- Google Docs
Documents that support group collaboration within a single document with a side window for the team members to chat throughout the collaborative process. - Wiki Spaces
Free application which support group collaboration on Wikis.
Software Training
- Lynda.com
Video training offered through a monthly subscription format with some free components of videos. Includes training for useful applications such as Moodle, WordPress, and many paid applications useful for multimedia presentations.
Hi Julie,
I have always been interested on Scratch, but I have not been able (and have not had enough time) for exploring it well and understanding for what does it serve. Could you give examples on how have you used it before?
Thanks! :)
Angela.
Hi Angela,
I only tested out scratch for a course that our team in 522 designed for a venture project. It was focussed on the potential for gaming in education. I think it would be a nice fun way to teach kids how to tell a simple story through animation, it shows the basics about programming and animation in an easy way because you can just drag and drop characters, movements, and sounds in order to make a simple animation. You can also color in the characters in a coloring book fashion. I was up and running with the program in 10 minutes just by reviewing the basics in the getting started guide under the help menu.
For myself I prefer to use XtraNormal which has an extensive set of background scenes, character sets, voices, sounds and allows you to type in your script and choose from a wide range of electronic voices.
Hope this helps a little bit.
– Julie
Hi Julie,
My students love Xtranormal. I think they’d love SecondLife too but are too young. Plus, I’ve heard about newbies being abused by other avatars. Have you used it successfully in the classroom? Thanks.
Steph
Hi Steph,
I haven’t used SecondLife in the classroom but last term I had a team project which was centered on using SecondLife for teaching business skills like investigations and interviews. As a team and individually we spent a fair amount of time in the environment and I was starting completely from scratch.
I found it difficult because I unexpectedly became motion sick at one point. Something I hadn’t even considered. I found that learning the environment had a steep learning curve but that may be because I’m a digital immigrant. Younger kids may find it easier having grown up online.
From the perspective of having students be abused, you can create or join environments that have controlled access and I would definately recommend going that route. I would also recommend having a couple classes for the learners to learn how to get around and the basics about how to interact with one another. One of my team members started her avatar dancing and couldn’t make it stop, funny but a little distracting for what we were trying to accomplish that night. Also, make sure to focus the ‘getting to know the environment’ and ‘learning how to interact’ on specific activities. It’s too overwhelming of an environment to just drop in and start exploring.
If you are interested in finding out more I would recommend the studies by Ketelhut for the River City Multi-User Virtual Environment (MUVE).
Cheers,
Julie