Student Web Presence: Sharing Learning With an Authentic Audience

Communication

Image from: langwitches.org

After students create online content:
Who will view it? 
Anyone online can view your students' content . . . but who are the people motivated to explore and digest this information?  The #1 viewers will always be the parents.  Additional interested parties might be relatives, peers, teachers looking for ways to present content to their students, or students from other schools who are looking for learning resources.  Online student work can also be viewed by your incoming students as examples when beginning a project.  Experts in a field may be willing to view and respond to students' content if notified.

How will this audience become aware that content has been posted?
Teachers can take an active role in notifying the target audience of new online content.  As a teacher, you can set up your infrastructure early in the year so that contacting your audience is simple and even automated.

One easy way to notify parents (or a larger audience) is by creating an email list.  When content is published, send one email to the entire list.  (Please remember to send it BCC so that email addresses are not shared with everyone on the list!)

Also, be sure that you use your webpage as a way to communicate with parents.  Promote high participation by sending home a letter and even offering to help parents subscribe to email updates.  By posting updates to your webpage, you can take advantage of the "be notified" option for parents. They will not have to come find your content - it will come to them.  Post links to your students' online content, and explicitly request that parents visit and comment.

Partner with teachers at different schools, sharing your students' content with them and exposing your students to other students' projects online.  Exchange comments and feedback. 

You as the teacher have the power and the responsibility to create a safe online community for your students.  Digital literacy and citizenship will be an integral part of their lives - so let's start building those skills now.

Student Web Presence: A Necessary Infrastructure to Facilitate 21st Century Learning

Communication

Image From www.slicktext.com

Our goal in educating students is to prepare them for their future.  The Partnership for 21st Century Skills has identified 4 key skills students must possess to succeed in tomorrow's workplace.

Collaboration

Critical Thinking

Creativity

Communication

Your students explore important topics all year long, and in today's world it is important for them to learn to share information online appropriately and respectfully.  This is a critical part of 21st Century communication.

Have you established the infrastructure to make online sharing available at just the right times?

Just as you pave the way for all other classroom infrastructure (procedures, routines, core skills) at the beginning of the year or quarter . . . pave them an online space.  Spaces for student sharing:

Kidblog.org

Google Sites

Tackk.com

Prezi.com

YouTube

PiktoChart

Blogger

If you have other favorites, please link to them in the comments.

Does the list seem overwhelming?  Pick one - familiarize yourself by trying it out.  Then, make the path ready for your students to access the site.  Set up accounts and create examples.  Click here if you would like Beth to contact you about getting this started.

In my next post I will explore:

Who will view all of this student-posted content?  

How will this audience become aware that content has been posted?

Book Creator for iPad

Book Creator for iPad is a great tool for your students to express their learning in a new way.  A student can create his/her own book easily, using images found online, photos taken using the camera, or illustrations drawn by the student.   

Text can be typed, or written with a finger or stylus.  

Students have the option to record themselves reading the text.  This becomes part of the book.

Books can be accessed by others through iBooks, as a PDF to print, or as a video (which includes the audio of the student reading).  

Check out this book, created by a MLE Kindergarten student.  

It was her first time using Book Creator, and together this took us about 10 minutes to create.  She took the pictures, arranged them in the book (by the third page she was doing this part independently), and read the text out loud.  As we began, I instructed her in how to use Book Creator.  She quickly caught on and eventually did many steps for herself.  I typed the text as she told me what she would like it to say.  Older students could do all steps independently after being taught and given some practice.  

Books can be shared for other students to read on the teacher's class iPad, or shared as a video so that parents can view it online.  

This is a paid app which I hope to have added to our iPads.  Would you and your students use it?

(K-12) Use Just One Computer or iPad for Students to Practice Math

Challenge students who "get done early" by allowing them to advance their own learning on Khan Academy.  

Khan Academy is free.  Each student can be assigned his/her own username.  Khan Academy leads the student through math questions, keeping track of what the student has mastered or needs to learn.  

On each question, the student has the option to access tips or video tutorials to help learn the concept.  He/she will only receive "mastery" once able to answer the questions without these, but they are there so that the student can decide whether he/she needs to be taught.

I can: 

*help you set up your class (or selected students) with usernames

*teach your students how to use it and facilitate beginning use (in small groups or whole-class)

*coach you in managing their accounts

Students can:

*access Khan Academy from computer, iPad, or smart phone anywhere

*accelerate to the levels they are ready for

*receive remedial instruction on basic skills

Teachers can:

*recommend content for individual students within levels K - Calculus

*view what students have worked on, mastered, and how much time was spent

*ask Beth for help anytime, for any reason while using this tool

Please click here if you would like me to reach out to you and discuss how this could be helpful in your classroom.