Etherpad is something new to me but after exploring on this feature I can see the benefits of its uses in the classroom. Students are able to take notes as a whole class and add to the documents in real time so the teacher is observing the process and what the students need help with while the document is in front of the class. All writers have a different color so while they are collaborate on a document everyone is clear on who they are in the document and do their job while seeing how the others in the class are doing. Making changing to the document are kept current in real time also and once the document is finish it might have hundreds of revisions that are clearly labeled and available to see how many changes their document went through to become the Final one.
Another type of advance technology that can be useful in the classroom is Jing. Jing can be used for creating instruction for the class. It can also be used to do lesson plans and explain how to do something or an assignment that the teacher might ask of the students. As an adult in the classroom it is a way to relate to the students because they are not afraid to experiment with technology and to master it better than you. Since students are visual PowerPoint and live documents will encourage students to be on their best behavior and take something from the lesson that they can use in their real life. Most important the use of Jing and Google presentation is all free and easy to learn from the advance computer person to the beginner like me.
I think the use of the different colors on etherpad is great to keep track of who is actually posting on the site the teacher will know if they actually are collaborating with their other classmates instead of just reading and doing something else instead. The jing is good for the teachers to send graded material back to the student and commenting on it so nobody else knows how everybody else did on the work and they won't get teased if they did really well or really bad on their work. I like this for the classroom they can also use jing to make a point and post comments for visual learners. This technology seems to be good to use in the classroom and you can tell the student is working or not on the project they are assigned.
ReplyDeleteI like etherpad because everyone in the classroom can participate. And as a teacher we will be able to see who is not participating. I already installed jing into my lap top and I'm excited to show it to my husband since he's the computer guy
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