Online Conference

In this online conference, I was able to hear from two middle school educators named Paula Naugle and Jan Wells, who worked together to establish the Four C’s in education: creativity, critical thinking, communication and collaboration.  They worked together to use different forms of communication such as Skype, Blogster, Google Sites and Twitter to help broaden their students' education.  Both Paula and Jan brought their classes together via Skype and to do projects together and teach lessons.  They would also use Skype to listen to speakers and talk to other classes around the United States. Miss Naugle also explained the way in which she uses sites like Kidblog.org to allow her class to reflect on topics they learned in class and were able to read other people's comments from around the world in response to their post. 

            From listening to this online conference, I have become so much more educated on how to use all of the different forms of technology I have learned throughout my Instructional Technology course in my future classroom.  I did not realize the impact Skype could have within a school, and I will most certainly use this form of communication and collaboration within my classroom.  Students need to see that other students around the United States or even around the world are learning the same material they are and they can learn new things from each other.  Also, I did not know there was a blogging site for kids that is safe and does not require them to use email.  Through the use of Kidblog.org, I will ask my students to blog about what they learned in class and respond to other people’s posts, so they can broaden their learning as well.

            There are so many pros to using the various forms of technology listed in this online conference that are suggested by Paula and Jan.  They informed me about so many forms of communication and collaboration that I was not aware of, and there are so many benefits to having students collaborate with other children their age who are not in their school.  We live in a technology driven society, so it is important to allow students to use the technology around them to in an educational manner.  However, some negatives to using some of these forms of technology are students may become distracted by being on the computer so much, and it could be dangerous allowing people from around the world see students' blogs. Unfortunately, even though the class has good intentions while blogging, other people who are commenting on their blogs may not, so it is important to keep a close eye on all the comments made on students blogs.

Online Conference
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