LearningTools

Home | Framework | Wikis | Blogs | Podcasts | Voicethread | Screencasts
= = = = =Digital Learning Tools =

Institute Day, 2009
This workshop is intended to look at interactive, online learning tools that are finding there way into the classroom. Many of these tools are very easy to get started with and use with students. However, in order to be successful, there needs to be some consideration as to how you are going to use the technology. In short, the technology tool should fit with the subject you are teaching and the style in which you are teaching. You will examine these learning tools:


 * Wikis
 * Blogs
 * Podcasting
 * Voicethread
 * Screencasting

These are just a sampling of tools out there, but will hopefully give you an idea of emerging technologies which give students the opportunity to create, to collaborate, to analyze and to think in a different way.

**Part I:** Getting Started
As a foundation for looking at these tools, we begin by examining the 21st Century Learner. In November of 2008, the [|MacArthur Foundation] released the results of a study, looking at the idea of a 21st Century Learner, what that term means and how they are different. Below is a video of Mizuko Ito, explaining the study and how it relates to student learning:

media type="custom" key="3270770"

The study itself described three chief reasons why young people join social networks and interact online:


 * 1) To extend the relationships that they have in the real world (school, sports, church, family).
 * 2) To experience self-directed, self-paced learning on a variety of subjects.
 * 3) To create and publish content, and to consume the content created by others.

With these ideas in mind, digital learning tools can provide an excellent way for instruction to meet students in the online world. They can allow young people to create, share and connect with information in a new way.