Blog #5

I have found that the web 2.0 technologies are very helpful both in and out of the classroom.  A tool that I have come to love, and that we recently discussed in our EME class, was Dijjo. I had never been introduced to dijo before but over the past few weeks I have been able to understand why web 2.0 tools like Dijo would have been very helpful tool  Dijo is basically a more descriptive online bookmark, that gives titles and tags for specific web pages. I think this is one of the most useful tools for students because it gives them the ability to organize their thoughts of a web page, mark it, and save it to sight later. For younger ages, I think tools like kidblogger are a great resource which allows students to document their thoughts and communicate with other children of their same age. They are free to have a voice but in a safe, montired, online environment which is a tool they will definitely need in the future.  I think it is important for teachers to get as much use out of technology as possible, and to keep up with the latest web features. Just as the students are learning, the teacher should be learning as well, which definitely supports teacher professional development. The podcasts and some basic research have really shown how useful a ton of the web 2.0 pages can be to both the teachers and students.

I chose to review the tool, glogster (http://edu.glogster.com/?ref=com). I think one of the best features of glogster that many of the other tools lack is that it can be for all ages. I think that making a poster with audio can be made simple for use in a third grade classroom, but used in a much more mature way when used by a group of high schoolers. Overall I think its great to have not only visuals, but audios as well for all ages and can appeal to multiple different types of learners.

I think that all of the technology advancements that have been made are helpful to education. Personally, I really like the idea of adding game based learning into the classroom  The book goes into detail about the idea of "gamyfying" education. Gamifcation uses technology to motivate and encourage students to participate in learning activities that are game-based. I think this is a great way to get all different types of learners involved. Its fun, educational, and a great way fro students to interact and learn new material. I think that especially for younger ages, this technology can be the difference between a kid not wanting to learn or participate, to getting involved and becoming an active learner in the classroom. I think this technology can be used for multiple purposes, anything from learning new vocabulary to learning the parts of the brain.