January 4, 2010

This week I was introduced to several new learning tools/ social learning websites. These sites give students the ability to collaborate on projects by having each team add, change or update information, share notes, interact with each other through the sites. These tools will help with collaboration for both teachers and students in the classroom. The book entitled “Using Technology with Classroom Instructions That Work”, states, technology plays a vital role in technology by facilitating group collaboration, providing structure for group tasks and allowing members of groups to communicate even if they are not working face to face. Social learning is one aspect of collaborative learning in which students have an opportunity to interact with a diverse array of students and share their experiences and ideas.

A couple of years ago I was providing in-class support to third grade students and they worked on a project about biomes. The regular education teacher and I sat and created the groups based on students’ diverse talents. I learned a lot about cooperative learning from this teacher because he believed in it and he created base groups. The base group was a long-term group in which four students were placed together based on the way Popsicle sticks were drawn. During their time as a team you could see how a base group built friendships, they learned how to work as a team and it was used for peer to peer learning in which students can check each other’s homework, complete tasks and other routines. But when the class was getting ready to create a picture board with captions as part of a science project on understanding biomes, we sat and talked and balanced the teams of four so they could learn from each other. It was a very successful project, but all the work was done in class. I can visualize how tools like Goggle Doc and Voice Thread could have made it better and have enabled students to have more ownership and pride in the project. First, students would be able to work independently from home sharing documents through the web. Second, students can create and build their information at their own time and lastly students are very engaged when working with technology.