Week 8 - 3 Important pages

http://www.polleverywhere.com/

Posted by: Rozena Johnson

This website is specialized in helping users in casting a vote and making best choices for the options available to your class. The educator will put up a vote of selecting – for example – the class representative. Learners in return will submit via SMS who they choose as a class representative from the options available by submitting a vote through their mobiles.

This application will be used in my class in two ways. The first one is to post questions that allow students to submit their answer prior to joining class. The other way to use this application is by helping learners choose a place that we need to visit for more information about our course material.

www.instapaper.com

Posted by: Christian Russo

The mobile app Instapaper (www.instapaper.com) is designed to do just that. Instapaper is a straightforward and easy-to-use app that allows students to save and organize web pages for viewing later (even when students are not online). 

This application has very important uses. First of all, I will introduce it to my learners so that they can use it when doing their researches about sexual education. The other way to use this application is by creating a list of 10 most important websites that each learner has found important and beneficial for the class.

www.zondle.com

Posted by:Esther Armstrong

Zondle is a free online tool that can be used to create, play and share games to support online learning. 

This application is very important to my field of education. Sexual education does not have too many online applications that can help learners improve their understanding. I will use this application to design my games so that learners will access them. The other use of this application is to let my learners play online games together in order to challenge each other and then share their results in class. 

Digital Citizenship - Page 7

Digital Citizenship - Week 7

The first website is called my Learning Guide Program which can be visited at: http://www.mylgp.org.nz.

Learning Guide Protect (LGP): MyLGP is composed of bits of content to support digital citizenship programs. A bit is the name that the website uses to describe the parts that me up the website. The website is designed to help educational institutes implement the digital citizenship program (www.mylgo.org.nz). 

The reason I chose this website is because it provides its users with plenty of information that helps internet users understand the protocols of using the internet. As users post their comments, other users can see them and benefit from. I really felt that it is a big encyclopedia for digital citizenship.

I believe that the digital citizenship is considered to be an important topic to discuss with my learners in the first lesson. I teach a class of sexual education in which the standards of communication shall be defined in the first place. Digital citizenship is considered to be an important topic that I need to discuss. So, first of all I will ask my learners to explore this website and provide a description of how this website might be incorporated into our rules of communication.

Another way to use this website is to let learners provide 3 important links from this website that our class can benefit from. Each link shall be accompanies by a brief description.

Another website for digital citizenship is www.ikeepsafe.org. This website helps educators as well as parents educate their children about digital citizenship and how to use the internet in a safe way. The website is split into two major sections: one for parents and the other for teachers. The material in this website is being taught in a fun way.

I will utilize this website in my classes by letting each member in my class prepare a summary of how we can use Google and Google products in a safe way. Another way to use this website is by helping my learners prepare a learning guide for their kids on how to use the internet in a safe way by respecting others.

Open Education - WK 6

• MIT OCW

It was my first time that I find an easy way to search for open education information on the Internet. I always wanted to know about this thing but had difficulty searching for in Google. I decided to explore the MIT OCW  website. This page can be visited on the following website:

http://ocw.mit.edu/

The website is a professionally designed website which enables learners to explore course related material that is classified by department and then by topic, sub topic, and specialty. When visiting the course, other links like: syllabus, calendar, readings, lecture notes and assignments can be accessed.

I really want to use this course in order to advance my knowledge in several topics in my field (Social science). There are a lot of information that my learners would like to know and cannot be accessed with this easiness. So, I will require my learners to provide me with a summary journal on a social science topic that is relevant to what I teach in a course.

• Open Courseware consortium

This page can be accessed on this website: www.ocwconsortium.org

The OpenCourseWare Consortium is a collaboration of higher education institutions and associated organizations from around the world creating a broad and deep body of open educational content using a shared model. This website is similar to MIT’s website. The big advantage in this website is the sharing of information and the participation of several universities. So it offers a wide variety of thousands of courses.

I tried to research the sexual education topic, and I was very happy to find more than 10 courses that is relevant to my limited topic.

I chose this website because I believe that it is the biggest resource of OCW on the Internet. I also chose it because it offers resources in many different languages. I will use it in the following:

Obtain more information about my topic from other universities around the world.

Have my learners do researches on certain courses about the website in order to help my portfolio of sexual education.

Online Games and Simulators - WK 5

Online Games and Simulators for Sexual Education 

The first website is: http://sexetc.org/fun/condom-game/

The above website is an online puzzle game for the application of condoms. In this game, players will sort out the stages in which they are supposed to check for birth control appropriate directions.

This website helps learners get an idea of the proper ways to use the birth control technique. Players will be able to understand what to look for, how to use, and the right way to get rid of the birth control.

This application will be used in two ways. The first one, I will have my learners play this application while learning my course. Afterwards, each person is supposed to write a rationale of why they had to sort the eight steps of using the birth control in the way they thought it should be. Another way that I would use this application is to help my learners introduce this application to their classroom (my learners are either adult learners or educators who teach teenagers).

The second website is:

https://www.healthunit.com/adventures-in-sex-city

This game is an online question and answer game introducing general knowledge about sexual problems. With pictures attached to the game, Issues that are addressed in a true/False format: SDTs, preventive measures, and other educational information.

I chose this application because it introduces learners to a wide variety of ideas about sexual diseases and birth control methods. It also provides learners with information about each question that they get right or wrong.

This website will be used towards the end of my course. It helps learners get a rehearsal of some of the topics that we went over during the course.

Mobile Technologies - Wk 4

Mobile Technology

Soundcloud is a mobile and desktop application that provides you with the feasibility to upload and download podcasts. Soundcloud can be accessed through: www.soundcloud.com.  The podcasts can be filtered by topic or category. The advantages of using podcasts to educators are unlimited. Educators can record their classroom time and share it with learners or other educators. This provides users to go back to discussion time. Even the educator himself can access prior lessons to see the flow of the discussion and to plan for future adjustments.

In addition, and according to www.educatorstechnology.com, podcasts can provide an important research tool for learners.  Prior to reading about podcasts, I always saw them on my desktop and never really thought about using them. I can now benefit from them a lot.

I will use soundcloud in order to record my classes which learners can access and especially those who could not attend class. In addition, I will use soundcloud to record and share all seminars that I attend, which I will share with my learners as well. I work in a field where the resources are considered limited and the knowledge is available through limited individuals. Thus sharing this  would be a helpful idea.

Another mobile technology is KO-SU which can be reached through www.ko-su.com. With this application, users can create mobile activities, set up a class, achieve tasks, review answers and download results. All this can be done using the mobile and the desktop.

I chose this application because I believe that class time shall be used to its ultimate time without any unwanted interruptions. In addition, the educator shall provide room for all learners to voice their opinion on questions and ideas.

This application provides me with lots of room to my learners participate in my class. I will use it to gather opinions on certain topics prior to my class. I want to know what the majority of class thinks about a certain topic.

Reference:

Top 4 tools to Create and Share Podcasts with your students. Educational technology and Mobile Learning retrieved on Sept 24, 2013 from http://www.educatorstechnology.com/2013/09/top-4-tools-to-create-and-share.html

Two Social Networking - Wk3

In our world today, almost everything seems to be technology dependant. Every person tries to build his/her own network through interaction with others. This network of people has been digitalised with the help of social network. People create their own network by using programs or software that is available on the Internet. 

One social networking tool is Sixgroups. This website can be accessed by www.sixgroups.com. Just like many other social networking programs, users can post comments, share thoughts, comment on others thoughts, build communities. There was one feature that attracted me to this application. This feature is the fact that Sixgroups can be integrated to any website. This feature transforms any website into a social networking website. For example, an educational website can have users post question, receive answers, ask for clarification from the writer, and any other options. It really helps improve the productivity of each website. So, this tool is very useful for adult education as it can help each adult educational website receive feedback from learners and readers which could result in an improvement to the services of each organisation. 

Another website is Wiggio, which can retrieved from www.wiggio.com. With Wiggio, users can do the following: host meetings, create to do lists, assign tasks to users, poll groups, manage events, and share files. The reason I chose this website, is because it makes your agenda and computer a shared one with all your community. 

I opted to stay away from the two most famous websites on the internet: Facebook and twitter. I wanted to see what else is available on the internet. This is the reason why I chose these two websites. I also wanted to see what other social networking programs might offer. 

I will be using Sixgroups website in my own website which I will develop for Sexual Education. I want to help learners share what is in their mind with the different topics that I will have. Another use of Wiggio is in my classroom environment. In sexual eduction classes, I normally ask my learners to pass over what they learnt into other communities. This can be done through Wiggio by creating tasks and events in each community and have my learners share their experience in each event with others. 

New Educational Technologies Wk 2

Tophat retrieved from www.tophat.com is a software that helps students coordinate with their educator during class time. Through this application students can ask/answer questions, launch demos, start discussions and many more options.

I really like this application because of the following: 1) It saves time to educators by avoiding interruptions to their class time, 2) All students have equal opportunity to participate in class, 3) Students who are uncomfortable speaking in class can benefit from this tool, 4) teachers can understand their class much better.

I will use this application to answer questions of all of my students during the lecture time. I ask students to list their questions on tophat rather than speaking during class time.

Another example of how I would use this application is by asking questions to students so that they can answer it and I would obtain answers from all students.

The second technology that I will use in my classroom is Lore, which can be retrieved from www.lore.com. This software has a similar platform to Facebook. This social network allows professors and students to communicate, follow one another, and discuss class work and lectures. In addition to the social aspect, it allows for document uploads, calendar sharing, and a grade book option.

I like this application because it provides students with the ability to communicate with each other even after class time. Differences in opinions, agreements, and elaborations can be available all the time.

The first example of using this technology is to provide open discussion to all students so that they can access these discussions, post their understandings and opinions. Another example of how I would use this application is by sharing the calendar of the course so that students can gain a complete view of their duties and tasks.