Social Networking and Personal Learning Environments

Communication is vital in a global learning environment and Social Networking Technology is becoming every popular and important Global Learning Construct. Social networking technology can be just about anything that allows users to interact and share ideas; some examples are Twitter, Facebook, Diigo, and Delicious. There are many great tools out there but, particular, Twiducate is a great resource for the education field. Twiducate is very similar to Twitter but has an educational twist to it. When a teacher signs up for the free account, they are able to create student groups and send important, relevant messages to their students and parents. According to their website, users can post reminders on deadlines, share links/videos/pictures, keep parents informed, and provide feedback on student work. Although Twiducate seems very similar to Twitter, because teachers create the groups and decide who sees the messages, the tool is safer and more secure; which is vital when working with students.

Personal Learning Environments are great tools to keep students organized and allows them to separate personal from educational. One of the most basic and also (more importantly) free tools for creating a Personal Learning Environment is iGoogle. To use iGoogle, a user simply needs to create a free Google account and activate the iGoogle tool. Once the user has activated iGoogle, they can set up multiple tabs and environments for all aspects of their life. The user can then embed widgets in their environment to see Calendars, Docs, Reader, Gmail from Google to stay up to date on their communication. There are also widgets for Delcious (to keep track of those educational websites), Twitter (to stay up to date on who they follow), as well as many others. The best part of iGoogle is that once the environment is set up, the user can set it as their homepage so every time they access the internet, the first thing they see is their important information without having to go to 10 different websites to make sure they didn’t miss anything.

Enhancing Learning by Integrating Technology Tools

As a global learning construct, building a community of practice (E) requires a forum that is accessible to students at any time and that allows them to interact and collaborate with their peers towards a particular outcome.  In a non-technological sense, a community of practice can be any situation when a group of people are collaborating to solve an issue or reach a collective goal.  Technology provides many opportunities to create communities of practice, especially with the development of Web 2.0 tools.  One of the most commonly used tool in the classroom is probably Moodle.  The Moodle site describes itself as “A free, open-source PHP web application for producing modular internet-based courses that support a modern social constructionist pedagogy.”  This emphasis on social constructionist pedagogy expressly demonstrates that Moodle is intended to create classroom forums for collaboration and practice.  However, since Moodle is a well known often referenced tool, I thought I’d include another example from a lesser known source.  While Moodle actually creates a virtual classroom environment, sites like Edublog allow teachers to customize a blog site both for students and parents to use.  The site works much like Google Sites, with a bit more emphasis on educational resources and tools.  Students can link their own blog pages to the class blog and submit writings and uploaded work via their blogs.   While the development of this environment appears a bit daunting, a few shining examples can be seen such as Huzzah and The Geeks from Down the Street.  Both of these teachers have successfully created communities of practice through Edublog, allowing students to comment on each others work, exchange ideas, communicate remotely, and further work with technologies such as podcasting, blogging, and media sharing. 

Developing instructional practices that align with technology pedagogy is a critical part of making technology valuable in the classroom.  Too many studies have found that simply having access to technology does nothing for student learning if the tools are not being used correctly.  This is why teachers must develop skills and instructional practices with technology tools.   While it is almost cliché at this point to mention it, Google has created some amazing application programs designed specifically for educational institutions.  Schools or districts can create domains through an application process, which then allows them to set up and customize the available applications to be used by the students and teachers.  These applications include a variety of tools such as web mail, personal online document storage, personal calendars, video uploading tools, and instant messaging.  Google’s application programs for education comprehensively allow schools to develop instructional practices that students can utilize in all of their classes.  This means that technology will not simply be an available tool, but a critical one.  While students will still have physical classrooms, they will also have a virtual classroom and school environment that connects them to their peers and to their teachers remotely. 

For Global Learning Construct A, collaborative instructions, I selected Wimba Collaboration Suite for k-12 Schools. This program allows teachers, students, parents, and administrators to work together and enhance the learning environment through better collaboration and interaction. This program can be used for enhancing online and traditional classes by adding communication and multimedia tools to the class. Using this program, students are able to download coursework, work in groups, discuss topics through chat rooms, and submit assignments. This program is great for teachers as well. It allows us to hold virtual office hours, which means students are more easily able to contact us and parent conferences can be done over the internet. It also allows us to address all of the different learning styles, and allows us to give special education students the extra support they need. For administrators, this program allows for virtual meetings, and will let them "sit in" on parent teacher conferences when neccessary. This would be a great tool for many classrooms. The only drawback is that an internet connection and computer are needed. Since most classrooms do not have a computer for every student, it might be difficult to implement. Here is the link to thier informational site: http://www.wimba.com/solutions/k-12/collaboration_suite_for_k_12/ For construct B, digital identities, I selected Google Blogger. This web 2.0 technology allows users to create an online personality using a screen name, avatar, and text. After creating a screen name and selecting an optional avatar, the user can then write about their ideas, opinions, and experiences for others to view. Each user can limit who sees their blog to certain individuals or make it public for everybody to see, its totally customizable. This can be a great educational tool as well. It can allow teachers and students in an online class to communicate and hold discussions. It can also be used to for group assignments in a traditional classroom allowing team members to collaborate, share ideas, hold discussions, or tell stories. The possibilites are nearly endless. One very important aspect of this application are the privacy options. Students, especially those in high school or younger, should not have their information available to the public. This application allows for the user to make all posts private and only allow approved individuals to see what is posted. This will help keep our children anonymus and safe.