Tech Tools for Critical Thinking

In class we each took a learning styles quiz to determine the kind of learner that we are. It is important to know and understand the different learning styles, especially as a future teacher. Everyone learns best under certain circumstances and it is important to create lessons that incorporate different styles. Technology helps in creating lesson plans that suit more people. In class, we created a word cloud using the tool Wordle, and I thought it was a neat tool that could be used in many creative ways. As a part of our online homework, we were responsible for creating a concept map about folksonomies. A folksonomy is a social tool, and can be anything from social networking, like Facebook, to social bookmarking, like Delicious. All kinds of social tools are becoming increasingly popular, and can be very helpful in the educational field. Bookmarking sites can be useful among colleagues, tagging is useful to everyone when looking for information, and tools like Skype can connect people across the world.

Below is a word cloud about an rss fed site, or a blog, which is a folksonomy. This cloud was created by June Kaminski using the Wordle tool.

Social Tools and Cloud Computing

In week 9 we discussed social tools and cloud computing. Many people today are familiar with social sites like Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter. We also learned about social bookmarking sites like Delicious. All of these sites are meant to connect people and make communication easier. A part of our homework included learning about cloud computing and creating a Google Doc. Cloud computing is a new way of creating and saving documents. Like the video Google Docs in Plain English explains, documents can now be saved on the internet instead of a home computer. This makes it easier and still secure for people to share documents. It also allows people to not only view a document, but edit it too. And everyone can see the changes that were made.

Social networking sites can be used to connect classrooms to other classrooms from around the world. This form of learning is becoming increasingly popular. Social bookmarking sites would be good for educators to share the resources that they have found among their colleagues. In the same way that sharing bookmarks is convenient, sharing documents like lesson plans or spreadsheets with grades among colleagues is too.

This image is a cartoon that explains all the uses for cloud computing. It really is a very convenient tool to use.

My Social Tools Webspiration.