Cool Tools For School, track one, I’m done! I really enjoyed this experience. I got my MLIS online and really enjoy the thoughtful, self-paced nature of online learning. I liked this course because it gave me the motivation to sit down and learn how to use new tools, or old tools in new ways. I tool a very similar class in grad school, but was stymied at the time because I didn’t know where I would end up when I found a job. This time around, I got the chance to put many of the tools into the toolbox right away.
This semester I used:
Kidblogs in my summer reading site
Pinterest to showcase pictures
Storybird to create poems
Screencastify to show teachers tricks
Padlet to collect student work
Kidrex to safely search
——-either for the first time or in a new way as a result of taking this course. I explored several other tools that are now on my radar, maybe to be used in the future.
This class affirmed my philosophy of EdTech implementation: only use it if it serves a purpose. Technology can help us in many ways—– saving time, creating new things, sharing with others—— but it is a waste of time (and potentially confusing to students) to just use it to say, “see, we use technology!”. It is my responsibility to know these tools well first, so that I can identify opportunities to enhance the great work that the teachers are already doing. To that end, I don’t feel like exploring tools that I don’t like or use (I’m looking at you, RSS and Twitter) is a waste of time. There may be an instance that they are the just-right tool!
I am looking forward to taking the next track next year!!
lucyconnectsdots 