Blog Post #8

Find some 21st Century Learning and Communicating Tools? Tell us about them. Tell us where we can find them. Give a thorough review of at least one of them.

Blogger is the first online tool that comes to my mind when I think of 21st century learning tools. Blogging is something that was completely new to me before I entered edm310 this semester. Since then, I have learned that blogging is about sharing thoughts, research, ideas, links to various webpages, and just about anything else that is on your mind. I have also learned that blogging is a useful tool for educators to use in their PLN's. Diigo, which is a site for social bookmarking; Twitter, a social networking tool but for educators it is also a way to create and be in contact with PLN's; Glogster which I have learned is basically a digital poster board. Glogster is a way to store and display different information about various topics that may be of interest to either the teacher or the students, (you can get up to 100 free student accounts). This is a great learning tool that involves projects on various subjects. The students can create a Glogster poster and display the information they learn about the subject on the digital poster board. The teacher has access to each students Glogster account and is given notifications as to when a student updates their student board. This is a great way for students to give presentations on a wide range of subjects that easy, interesting and exciting for the students. Great tool to incorporate into a project learning plan.

Padlet, which is a way to create a virtual wall to post notes to. The idea is for students or teachers to be able to share thoughts or ideas or whatever with others in their group or school. Skype, which is a video conferencing site. Khan Academy is a global site for tutoring available to anyone anywhere. It covers subjects ranging from biology and chemistry to math and humanities. Khan is a fabulous resource for both educators and students alike.

Icurio is a safe search engine that enables students to do research for class projects in a safe environment that is rich in information. This is a site that also provides information and tools for teachers and is a great resources for the classroom.
As you can see, (and as I have learned), there is a long list of 21st century learning and communicating tools and I have not even covered them all here. These tools are designed to make our lives easier and to make us more efficient at what we do.
The information about most of these tools was provided by: Tools for the 21st Century Teacher by: Michael Zimmer