Collaboration in the Classroom

Have you ever heard of a Killer App?  It's the type of computer application that we all decide that we just can't live without.  The first internet app for consumer use was something called 'email.'  It provided an amazing change in how so many of us communicate.

So how about some killer online apps that create effective collaboration in the classroom?  Many are in the category of Web 2.0 Tools, truly interactive web sites, not like the 'old days' where a site was filled with text and a few pictures.  In the classroom, what students do is not about the application, but the learning that takes place.  Collaboration requires a unique balance between practicality and creativity to be effective in the classroom.

Below, I'll list some common sites, but let's start with a couple resources that keep up to date with many of the latest and greatest online techy gizmos:

Finding Dulcinea - This is set up like an online newsletter.  I like the reference to Dulcinea, the character in Don Quixote.  Click on Finding Education to set up your own classroom account.

Educators Technology - I like the magazine style format here.  This is great for mobile apps., especially with iPads.




Here are a handful of  collaborative sites that you may have heard about:

Edmodo

Prezi

Moodle

Glogster

Voicethread

Diigo

Edublogs

Jing

Livebinder

Animoto

Blabberize

Creately / Gliffy - Graphic Organizers

National Library of Virtual Math Manipulatives

Geogebra - Web/Mac/Android/Windows

Google Applications - short list

Hangout

Spreadsheet (now Google Sheets)

Word Processor

Presentation

Mail

Forms

Docs

Social Media

Twitter

Facebook

Pinterest

Google+  - not much good except for Hangout

Instagram

Classroom Management

AirPlay - Using an Apple TV

Remote Desktop - for Mac Only

Casper  - For Mac Only

Hapara Teacher Dashboard - for Chromebook

...and Some new Apps I am just learning about!! 

ZooBurst

TouchCast

Powtoon
Adobe Connect
Zoom.us

What's a typewriter?

http://mashable.com/2014/01/14/outdated-web-features/#!

I remember students walking in the computer lab 'back in the day' with their 3.5" floppy disks all ready to print out their word processor document for a class assignment.  To their dismay, there wasn't a single computer in the room with a floppy disk drive.  It was Apple's way of 'forcing' change by not including a floppy drive on their new, colorful, bubble-shaped iMacs.  The floppy was all the storage students they thought they ever needed.

This was really only a short time after our seniors would stop in the high school office to pick up scholarship forms only to have to hunt down a typewriter to type in their information.   Now, why would anyone use a typewriter on a document that was created on a computer?  It seems like such an odd question now.

In the last couple of years I have noticed very few students pulling their USB flash drives out in class.  Data, documents, pictures, and projects are now normally saved to either their Google Drive or a school server account.   Multimedia projects are commonplace now and take up a vastly larger amount of space than those old floppy's did.

Today's technology tools have provided so many amazing opportunities in education.  We look to the innovators of today to figure out what the next evolution will be.  We have a big challenge in figuring out how that next chapter will read.