Digging Deeper into the Mainstays

     After exploring Edmodo, I found this genre of the social category to be very user friendly and a great collaborative tool.  Not only is it easy to use to creatively collaborate with co-workers, it can easily be transformed to collaborate with students – teachers with students and students with students.  Teachers can set up alerts to notify students of assignments, and grades and feedback can be added to assignment submissions.  Videos and documents can be uploaded to the website, and a polling feature can be used to survey students on various topics.  Students can post comments, and their fellow classmates can respond to their posts to engage in lively discussions.  Another great feature of Edmodo is the capability to join other groups of interest.  You can join many other groups and participate in their conversations as well.  Beyond the classroom, this website can be great to connect with others on a personal level.  Your friends and family can join in on the fun in this safe environment.  I believe this is a great tool to house many groups of people and be able to monitor these collaborative conversations.  Edmodo is definitely a tool that educators are using to enhance professional development as well as to enhance student learning while keeping them engaged and connected in this interactive website.

     After exploring Glogster further, I found this genre of the creative category to be fun and engaging.  It reminds me of an online scrapbook, and I love scrapbooking!  On a professional level, educators can create a Glog to showcase content on authors, time periods, books, and any other concept from any discipline.  The pages are both engaging and interactive, and students are excited to create their own Glogsters.  They can be used for professional development as well.  There are so many options provided when creating a Glogster that it is difficult to create just one!  Sometimes they can be time consuming, only because there are so many fun things from which to choose to make your Glogster your own!  It is also great that it has a “Preview” feature so that you can be sure everything is working properly before publishing and sharing.  I believe that educators are using Glogster to enhance student learning by providing engaging pages filled with information that can appeal to any learning style; in addition, students are using Glogster as a fun way to share their knowledge of various concepts.  On a personal level, users can use this tool to create pages that are filled with text, images, audio, videos, and documents to showcase their interests.  The user-friendly website provides multiple features to personalize your page, such as wallpaper, text, and graphics, and they can easily be shared via web address.  The color and movement of Glogs make for an interesting experience whether it is for learning or just for fun! 

     I have always heard of Pinterest, but have never taken the time to really explore it.  After joining and researching this website within the curation category, I believe it is a wonderful way to collect things of interest and organize them according to theme.  If you find someone with the same interests, you can follow their pinboards as well.  Users can upload images which can be shared with other users.  To begin, you need to follow five boards; there were so many from which to choose!  While browsing the boards, it was easy to see that this user-friendly tool could be useful both personally and professionally.  Professionally, users can join various boards of business, such as education, and these boards can be narrowed down to specific fields.  Educators can share ideas and resources for which other pinners can repin, like, and comment.  They can also share their experiences with other educators about what has and what has not been beneficial in the classroom for them.  Utilizing this website enables an educator to enhance student learning by learning themselves what is working within the wide world of education.  Personally, this website could be used to follow fellow “pinners” on just about anything of interest from hairstyles to home décor to health and fitness.  It is a great way to connect and share with others via images.  Clicking on a board opens up a whole another world of resources to evaluate and organize.  This website is visually stimulating without an overwhelming amount of text. 

     These three websites can build both relationships and resources that can enhance our students’ learning.   They are very creative and collaborative tools that can motivate our students (even those who are reluctant) to participate in their education and become life-long learners.  It is important for educators to explore these free innovative tools so they can implement them in the classroom for engaging real-life experiences.