Content collaboration tools such as blogs, twitter, Google Docs, Google+, and wikis would provide excellent collaborative learning tools for today's twenty-first century learners. Teachers would need to establish guidelines and set expectations for any project using content collaboration. Students need to know that they should only edit their own content. Students must also recognize no one person gets credit for the content they post. There are many different ways teachers can utilize these tools in an educational environment.
Twitter would be a great place for students to post headlines about current events or short book reviews. Students could also post interesting facts about a research paper they are working on for class. For example, if fifth graders are working on state reports, they can post fun facts about their state on Twitter.
Google Docs would be a great tool to use for group projects. Students could work on a cooperative report about a chosen country where each group member is responsible for researching a certain aspect of the country from clothing, food, traditions, etc. Students could also tweet about their country. Wikis would also be a great tool to use for this type of assignment as well.
Google+ can be used to post content or connect with experts through circles. As a newer user, I have not fully delved into other things educators can use Google+ for in the classroom. If anyone has any more ideas, please feel free to comment I would love to read them. :)
One thing you can do with Google+ is create a circle for the class specifically. Through it you can share and collaborate ideas with the students, or have them create separate circles with each other for group projects. The problem I personally find with Twitter is that it is hard to distinguish conversations from one another. Google+ can solve that and may be an easier way to communicate directly with ones students/peers.
ReplyDeleteI also find the interface super friendly and fun as opposed to Facebook. I know they are trying to keep up and do something like Google's circles but, they really need to come up with something original not just copy Google in that aspect.
I love the idea of posting fun facts on Twitter because they could be really brief which makes it Twitter-friendly content! And it gives students something tangible and fairly easy (content-wise) to share as they practice with this social networking tool!
ReplyDeleteAmanda makes a good point about the benefits of circles in Google+.
I'm still getting use to Twitter. For book reviews, I think I would rather have a library blog or library wiki for it. I think it would be much easier to search for reviews. I get the feeling that if everyone is using Twitter for book reviews, you might get bombarded with reviews that you might not care about.
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